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- Treasures from the Worlds
Great Librariesthis exhibition included 168 loans from 38
institutions in 24 countries. A record 115 000 visitors attended, with demand
so great that the exhibition was, in its final weeks, open for 22 hours each
day. The Treasures web
site won the Australian Publishers Associations award for Best
Designed Literary or Publishing Website. For the first time, Library
exhibitions visited all States and Territories during the year.
- As well as legal deposit,
purchase, and exchange, Library collections grew through gift and donation.
During the year, and as part of its centenary celebrations, the Library
launched
BookSearch, appealing to the public for a number of items
or categories of material missing from its collections. A generous response
enabled the Library to fill many gaps.
- Over 100 000 items from the
Librarys Collection have been digitised and made available on the Web.
Collection
digitisation is now a routine activity.
-
The
National Bibliographic Database, offered through the
Kinetica service,
remains the key bibliographic support service within the Australian library
sector. Coverage of the National Bibliographic Database was significantly
extended with 1.6 million new Australian library holdings recorded this year,
taking the total to 35 million collection items recorded on the database. The
growth in the National Bibliographic Database indicates the continuing
commitment by Australian libraries to resource sharing. The National Bibliographic Database is complemented by the more
specialised National Chinese, Japanese
and Korean Service which provides information on collections held in
Australian libraries in these languages.
-
Participation in the
PictureAustralia
service, which provides over 600 000 pictorial images on the Web relating
to Australia, continued to grow with the addition of image collections from
Museum Victoria, the Campbelltown City Library (in collaboration with the
Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society), the ACT Heritage Library, the
Northern Territory Library and Information Service, and the National Gallery of
Australia. These collections enhance the geographic and subject coverage of the
service. There are now 18 participating organisations, with several other
organisations scheduled to join the service next year. In addition to the
Australian participant organisations, the National Library of New Zealand, and
the Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network became overseas contributors of
Australian image content. Use of PictureAustralia
grew by 28 per cent this year, with approximately 372 000 user sessions
recorded.
- The Library extended its Web-based
PADI (Preserving
Access to Digital Information) service, the major international source of
information on digital preservation initiatives, through collaborative
agreements with the Council on Library and Information Resources in the United
States, and the Digital Preservation Coalition in the United Kingdom.
- The four-year
Bringing Them Home Oral
History Project, one of the outcomes of the National Inquiry into the
Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their
Families, concluded at the end of the year. During the project, 310
interviews were held with Indigenous Australians and others. Preparation began
on a book
based on the interviews, due for publication in late 2002.
- The Library undertook a national benchmarking study on interlibrary
loan/document delivery. This study involved 97 Australian libraries in all
sectors, including higher education, government, public, special and State
libraries. Many Australian libraries have made changes to their document
delivery operations based on the study results. Also, an Interlending and
Document Delivery Best Practice Course has been developed and is being offered
throughout Australia.
-
The Library, in association with the Council of Australian State
Libraries, is undertaking a pilot project to develop an interactive digital
reference service. The service will enable users to co-browse electronic
information resources and simultaneously chat online with a reference
librarian. The nine participating libraries will staff the service on a
time-share basis, taking advantage of national time zones. The service will be
made available from the web sites of the National, State and Territory
libraries. The Library continued its active participation in the Collaborative
Digital Reference Service pilot coordinated by the Library of Congress.
As a result
of the pilot, a new subscription-based service has commencedQuestionPointwhich provides a worldwide reference
service.
- The National Library is leading a
collaborative research project to develop a proof-of-concept prototype to
deliver digital music objects in a range of formats and from a range of
institutions. The MusicAustralia pilot, in which the National Library and
ScreenSound Australia are joint partners, is testing the requirements for a
production service to deliver digitised sheet music, digital audio-files,
born digital music scores, and a range of relevant images and
electronic text. Key Australian music stakeholders, including the Australian
Music Centre and the Australia Councils New Australian Music Online
initiative, are participating in the development.
- During the year the National Archives of Australia became a partner
with the Library and the Department of Communications, Information Technology
and the Arts in the
Community
Heritage Grants program. Funding and training in preservation techniques
was given to 45 community organisations to assist with preserving nationally
significant documentary heritage material in their care. This represented an
increase of 40 per cent on the number of grants awarded in the previous
year.
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