Digital Services Project
The Digital
Services Project is a major undertaking to implement an infrastructure and
management framework to support the Library's growing digital collection. In
June 2000, the Library released Request for Quotation documents for two major
componentsthe Digital Object Storage System and the Digital Object
Management System. This process resulted in the purchase of a suitable system
to meet the digital object storage requirements for this project. The Library
decided to meet its requirements for a Digital Object Management System through
in-house application development. The application will manage the Library's
digitisation process and the resulting digital collections. Another component,
the PANDORA Document Acquisition System (PANDAS), was developed and implemented
in-house.
Group 11 IT Infrastructure Outsourcing
Project
The Library participated in Group 11 within the
Whole of Government IT Outsourcing Initiative. However, following the release
of the Humphry Review of the Whole Of Government IT Outsourcing Initiative in
January, the Library informed the Minister that it was withdrawing from the
Group 11 process as it considered that the implementation risks would best be
addressed by a selective outsourcing process. Subsequently, the Library
developed a strategy for selective outsourcing.
The Library's Web Site
In September 2000 the Library issued its
Online Action Plan detailing initiatives
and strategies for meeting the
GovernmentOnline
strategy and for the further development of its web-based services. The
Library is well positioned in terms of adherence to the standards recommended
in GovernmentOnline for metadata, electronic record-keeping and accessibility
and is currently focusing its attention on electronic commerce and procurement
issues and technologies.
Across the Library, staff are using XML
(eXtensible Markup Language) with increasing expertise as a markup, for
specifying data requirements and for documenting the organisation's information
architecture.
During the year, the Library completed 34
application development projects, of which 10 were major projects. An
increasing proportion of application development projects are undertaken within
the web environment.
IT Infrastructure Improvements
The Library improved the security and
performance of its IT infrastructure through:
 |
the implementation of a
centralised, automated monitoring of and reporting on system events, including
failures, to improve system availability |
 |
an independent review of all
aspects of IT security, with emphasis on Internet security |
 |
upgrades to the disk storage
sub-systems, local area network and Internet link to meet the demands for
increased capacity and performance generated by rapidly growing digitisation
activities. |
Service Availability
During the year the average availability of nine
key service areas was as follows:
| Service |
Availability (%) |
| Local Area Network |
99.9 |
| File Services (Microsoft NT Servers) |
99.8 |
| Email (Microsoft Exchange) |
99.8 |
| Web Services |
99.7 |
| Integrated Library Management System |
99.5 |
| PANDORA |
99.9 |
| Finance One |
100.0 |
| Kinetica Document Delivery |
99.9 |
| PictureAustralia |
99.7 |
The target availability of 99.5% was met or
exceeded for all services.
|