National Library of Australia Staff Papers, 1995

Font Size:  Small  Medium  Large

Networked Information Resources:
Collection Development, Cataloguing and Preservation in the National Library of Australia

This paper was presented by Margaret Henty, at the 2nd National Preservation Office Conference: Multimedia Preservation - Capturing the Rainbow, in Brisbane, 28-30 November 1995.

Recently I presented a talk on electronic serials in the National Library in which I drew heavily on an electronic 'zine called The Wollongong Pig-Breeders Gazette. For those of you who are unacquainted with the phenomenon of 'zines, perhaps I should explain that the term refers to popular magazines, produced at low cost and devoted to a particular theme, hence there are fanzines and sci-fi 'zines. In the Internet environment, there are increasing numbers of these to be found, usually produced by one individual and available at no cost. Having used the Wollongong Pig-Breeders Gazette last time, I sought another Australian 'zine around which to base today's talk. I found one called the Grilled Pterodactyl. However, when I returned to it to select some quotations, the link had been broken and the fanzine had disappeared. There are two lessons to be learnt from this little tale, firstly that electronic networks are spawning new and different forms of publishing, and secondly, that these are likely to disappear at any moment. There is a third lesson here also which I will come back to later.

Like other libraries, the National Library is coming to terms with electronic publishing. Unlike other libraries, however, the National Library has a unique mandate which is expressed in its Act of 1960: "to maintain and develop a national collection of library materials, including a comprehensive collection relating to Australia and Australians". This the Library has attempted to do by collecting a wide range of published materials in the form of books, newspapers, journals, ephemera, maps and music, and also unpublished manuscripts, pictorial materials and oral history tapes. These materials are not just collected, they are organised and recorded so that they can be readily located and made accessible, in both the short and the long term, to the Library's wide-ranging clientele. I would like to talk today about how these practices are being extended in a networked electronic environment and some of the issues which have arisen along the way.

Networked electronic publications are found primarily through the Internet. There are others as well, such as online newspapers and database services available through other networks but these at present constitute a minority. The Internet has now been available in Australia for five years and in that time its popularity as a publication medium has grown enormously. Initially, the universities and CSIRO were the major host sites. As Internet access has become more widespread, there are many more producers.

From an organisational point of view, the Internet is chaos in action. It lacks any kind of discernible order (because there is none) and it lacks comprehensive and reliable tools for discovering what is out there. From the point of view of a National Library with a responsibility for the national documentary heritage, it is proving very different to the print world. Several aspects of publishing in the networked environment are important in this regard:

  • because anyone can be their own publisher, the quality of much of the material on offer is questionable and vanity publishing abounds
  • there is little guarantee of continuity as items can move from one location to another or disappear without notice
  • documents can be readily updated or changed making it difficult to know which version one is viewing
  • many publications are not discrete entities because of their linkages to other documents hosted elsewhere which may in turn be linked to other documents, and so on. This makes long-term access problematical when links break.

The Library is attempting to bring some order to bear on Australian networked publishing. In doing so, the challenge is to develop mechanisms and standards which are globally applicable and which will enhance access to Internet resources while at the same time maintain the flexibility and spontaneity offered by it as a publication medium.

At the time that the National Library Act was written in 1960, library materials were seen primarily as print and paper based and this is reflected in the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 in regard to legal deposit. Legal deposit has played a significant role in enabling the Library to develop its collections. The Library and the National Film and Sound Archive have recently developed a joint submission to the Copyright Law Review Committee which endorses the principle of legal deposit as a means of "safeguarding the cultural memory of the nation". The submission seeks extension of legal deposit to include "microforms, audio-visual materials of all kinds and electronic publications, both networked and artefactual (eg CD-ROM), and all formats yet to be developed". It recognises some of the specific issues associated with electronic materials in seeking to permit the reformatting of materials for preservation purposes. The fact that these two institutions are seeking deposit does not necessarily imply that they necessarily would take all technical responsibility for hosting them. Nor does it imply that they would wish to collect everything. The important issue here is that of getting recognition of the principle of legal deposit in the online environment.

In the absence of legal deposit legislation, the Library has already taken action to acquire electronic publications in forms such as CD-ROM and floppy disc. This has been done by development of a voluntary deposit scheme whereby producers agree to lodge copies of their publications with the Library. In return for this, the Library is able to record the existence of these materials for the Australian National Bibliography and so that bibliographic records are available through the Australian Bibliographic Network and through its own catalogue. The Library undertakes to ensure that materials are used in accordance with copyright. At a practical level, this means that products are made available to only one reader at a time, the Library ensures that readers are aware of copyright limitations in the copying of works and discourages undue downloading of copyright information. Anyone interested in seeking further details of the library's policy in this regard and the deed which depositors sign, can find the documents involved available on the Library's web server.

Library staff are currently drafting a deed to cover the deposit of Australian electronic journals published on Internet. This will enable the Library to copy the serials for storage and use inhouse and to use in other circumstances in accordance with the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright Act.

Probably the Library's most significant contribution to the handling of networked information to date has been through the establishment of its own web server. This provides a vehicle for publicising the Library, its collections and services. It also provides a central access point for Australian government information on the 'net. A recent accomplishment has been the automatic indexing of all Australian government publishing sites using Harvest technology.

For those who may be wondering what all of this has to do with preservation, the answer is that the server is both publication and preservation tool The contents are regularly backed up as part of its maintenance program and will stay there as long as required.

One important aspect of server developments has been the issue of metadata standards. Metadata refers to the data description which is embedded into a document. Metadata may include bibliographic elements, technical information and other information, such as whether the item has been quality assessed in some way. If all Australian networked publications used the same metadata standards, identification and description would be much easier.

On the whole the Library has found it easier to come to terms with electronic journals, than it has with the vast mass of other Internet materials which it is not appropriate to refer to as monographs but for which we have not been able to find a better term. E-journals usually come with some commitment to being available in the longer term and they have parallels with their paper-based cousins which make them relatively adaptable to handling in a library setting.

The Library has a number of projects in hand which are designed to improve access to Australian electronic serials in both the shorter and longer term.

Firstly, the Library maintains a list of electronic journals on its world wide web server. The list is currently available as an alphabetical listing and will have subject access as well in the future. There are over 400 Australian electronic journals known about at present. The number keeps growing but some inevitably fall by the wayside, as print journals are apt to do also. Those which have disappeared now are gone forever as attempts to identify and preserve titles are only now starting to be made by the major collecting institutions. The Library is also cataloguing e-journals for inclusion on the National Bibliographic Database which is accessible through the Australian Bibliographic Network and inclusion in the Library's online catalogue. The list on the server is complete with links to the journals themselves, where this is possible. The Library proposes also to offer a similar linking facility through the World 1 service, which will replace the Australian Bibliographic Network and also through its online catalogue. The value of the server list can be seen in its usage (http://www.nla.gov.au/admin/stats/) figures; during the month of September the list was accessed nearly 3,000 times.

Two other test projects have been set up to facilitate access to electronic journals and to provide the Library with the opportunity to gain experience with the copyright and technology issues associated with collection and preservation. The first is designed to test the possibility of using World 1 as an archiving platform. A number of journals have been selected for the project and copyright clearance has been obtained for each. This has not been a particular problem as all the titles are available at no cost. The next stage will involve transfer of the data files to World 1. A parallel proposal to host a group of electronic conference proceedings has proven much more complex because of the need to seek copyright clearance from each individual author.

The second project is intended to provide access to subscription electronic journals to inhouse clients. Unlike freely available titles, the Library is not able to simply provide a link to the site through the server for general access. Access to the journal site is usually via password, but there are logistical problems in supplying passwords for clients in a large reading room. One solution is to copy the journals for viewing inhouse only and this we are trying to do. A test group of ten titles has been identified for this trial, for most of which there is a charge.

One of the most importance issues which the Library has had to address in making decisions about the handling of Internet resources is that of lack of expertise. Because the issues involved cross so many areas, it has been important to bring together people from different backgrounds and encourage them to spend time exploring the Internet and gaining the confidence necessary to help them to contribute to decision making processes. Most of the projects mentioned today are experimental. Regardless of the results, the Library will have at the end of them a basis of experience on which to move further forward.

The issue of preservation is being directly addressed by a working group which has been set up specifically to determine a set of guidelines for identifying and selecting electronic publications which should be preserved in the national interest, either by the Library itself or by others in collaboration with the Library. In undertaking this task, the group recognises that the print world provides some useful principles which are also applicable in the electronic world. For example, a preliminary report states:

3.1.1 It is neither feasible nor desirable to preserve everything which is published. In this regard, online electronic publications are no different to print publications. In the latest draft (June 1994) of Collection Development Policy for Australian Materials paragraph 2.2.9, it is stated:

"The sheer volume of material published in the country makes it too costly for the Library alone to attempt to collect and preserve everything. The Library will, therefore, concentrate on collecting publications that are relevant to an understanding of the history and development of Australia as a nation, and it will cooperate with other institutions to ensure material it does not collect ... is collected elsewhere in the country".

The group also recognises that there are significant differences between the print and electronic worlds and that these will also have to be taken into consideration. The group plans to concentrate on identifying resources and then examining each to determine whether it would be desirable for the Library to preserve it, whether it should be preserved by another body, or indeed not preserved at all. They will also look at how the item can best be described and whether it presents particular technical characteristics which might effect access.

Another small group is looking at access to Australian Internet resources from the perspective of providing an enhanced reference service to our clients. This group is looking particularly at the selection of appropriate sites to which clients might be referred and how these can best be described. They are developing a small database as part of the exercise and will conduct tests to compare ease of access through their own database and through other search tools such as Lycos. There is a cost-effectiveness issue here to be kept in mind and if indeed existing resource discovery tools are adequate, there is a need to consider what value can be added by manual identification and description.

Taming the chaos of the Internet is being tackled on a variety of levels. While undertaking the various projects I have spoken of today, the Library is keeping a watchful eye on developments elsewhere which we may be able to adapt to our advantage. At the same time, it is actively participating in a wide range of collaborative projects associated with electronic publishing and other developments in the communications area.

The time has come to return to the third lesson to be learned from my introduction to today's talk. This is that publications not only can disappear from this Internet but that they can equally unexpectedly reappear. This was the case with the Grilled Pterodactyl. So I would like to read a short excerpt from it to you, by courtesy of its writer and producer, David Grigg.

Why I Hate Computers by David Grigg (Written July 1995)

My feelings towards computers must, I imagine, be like those of an Arabian camel driver towards his camels.

They are essential to his business, indeed they are his business. On good days, he may admit to a sneaking fondness for them. But most of the time he has to put enormous effort into getting them up and running and doing what they are supposed to. And on bad days - which seem to be most days - they spit in his eye or kick him up the backside.

And on really bad days, when he is desperately trying to get a valuable caravan full of dates between Kuwait and Riyadh before they spoil, they get lost and take him on an unguided tour of an Iraqi minefield.

David Grigg is Interactive Systems Designer with AAV Business Communications, where he works in interactive multimedia (that's the pretty black camel with the jewelled humps and four left feet).

This article is published as part of Grilled Pterodactyl, an electronic fanzine from David R Grigg.
Copyright David R Grigg 1995. All rights reserved.