National Library of Australia Annual Report 2000-01
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Report on OperationsOutput Group 1Output Group 2Output Group 3
Output Group 1. The Collection

Output 1.1 - Collection Development and Description

OUTPUT DESCRIPTION

Australians have access, through the National Library of Australia, to a comprehensive collection of Australian library materials and to international documentary resources.

click to enlarge imageJosonia Palaitis (b.1949)
Portrait of Patrick Dodson, Yawuru Man, 1998
Pictorial Collection

One of the portraits of Australians of national significance that entered the National Library's collection during 2000–2001 and soon to be available on the Library's picture catalogue.

PERFORMANCE—OUTPUTS

Performance Targets

Quantity

A total of 453 800 collection items acquired and/or processed, broken down as follows:

79 600 new collection items acquired
282 000 serial issues checked in
92 200 collection items catalogued and journal articles indexed on national bibliographic databases

A successful year in acquiring and processing library materials saw higher levels of activity in collecting and describing than in preceding years with all targets exceeded.

Quality

95 per cent of collection items, equivalent to 431 110 items, were checked in, catalogued or indexed within set standards and within specified timeframes

The target was exceeded, with 98 per cent of items checked in, catalogued or indexed within set standards and specified timeframes.

Price

$43.90 per new collection item acquired and/or processed

The unit price per collection item acquired and processed was $39.54.

PERFORMANCE—OUTCOME

Effectiveness Indicators

85 per cent of current Australian and overseas publications that fall within the Library's Collection Development Policy have been collected by the Library
85 per cent of the Library's Collection has been catalogued online

The collecting target for Australian published material was met, with 88 per cent of eligible Australian publications deposited by publishers. Items not received were claimed from publishers to ensure all relevant items are included in the collection. The target for overseas collecting was met.

The Library provides online access to 100 per cent of its current acquisitions and has a program to convert older card catalogue records to online access with the result that 81 per cent of the Library's collection is now online. The Library will continue to give high priority to cataloguing the complete collection online.

KEY ISSUES

Building the Collections

Trends in Australian publishing indicate a rapid move towards online publishing in both the government and private publishing sectors. To meet this development the PANDORA Archive of online publishing negotiated agreements with an increasing number of publishers to allow archiving of their publications. The Bringing Them Home Oral History Project, a key outcome of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, made significant progress during the year. One hundred and sixty-two interviews were held with Indigenous Australians and a range of others affected by or involved in the separation of children from their families.

Site archived in PANDORA
Detail from a site archived within the PANDORA Archive, containing emails and photographs sent by Kym Newberry, a scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division, October 1999 to March 2001

Collection Management

Online publications risk disappearing or becoming inaccessible. To assist creators and publishers of online publications manage this problem, the Library issued two sets of guidelines: Safeguarding Australia's Web Resources: Guidelines for Creators and Publishers and Managing Web Resources for Persistent Access.

Recognising the need for a general thesaurus of descriptors for metadata creation by government agencies and others, the Library made the APAIS thesaurus of descriptors for periodical indexing available on its web site.

To facilitate management of and access to Australian published music, a new service, the International Standard Music Numbering Agency was announced. It will become operational before the end of 2001.

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