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NLA 35th Annual Report 1994-95


Services to Libraries


Objectives
  • To facilitate nationwide access to documents held by libraries and other information providers.
  • National Document and Information Service (NDIS) Project
  • CJK (Chinese Japanese Korean) Project
  • National Bibliographic Services
  • Network Services
  • Interlending Services

National Document and Information Service (NDIS) Project

The Library, in cooperation with the National Library of New Zealand, is working to develop a new computer system which will replace and extend the functions of Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) and Ozline, and the corresponding services in New Zealand. The two libraries aim to implement the new system by the middle of 1997, with a first phase implemented by mid-1996.

The new system will provide simultaneous access to a rich array of national and international information by a single set of commands. It will be used by both libraries and end users such as researchers, medical practitioners, lawyers, teachers and students. NDIS is being designed as an integrated information resource of documents, document descriptions and location information. The service will search across all physical forms in which information is held and will allow information to be obtained in a variety of ways. The Library's objective is to make the new system the natural second resort when users cannot obtain the information they need from their local system.

Peter Scott, New Zealand's National Librarian (left), and the Director-General, Warren Horton (right), signing the contract for the National Document and Information Service (NDIS) with Peter Rehn, Managing Director of CSC Australia, the successful contractor, March 1995.

A Joint Project Director for the two national libraries (Ms Jan Rosi) was appointed in August 1994, and other project staff were recruited in September. CSC Australia, a subsidiary of the Computer Sciences Corporation, was announced in September as prime contractor. An initial project phase, designated 'Phase Zero' and running from November 1994 to April 1995, completed the broad design of the new system and resolved all outstanding details of the services to be provided and the priority for their delivery. A contract between CSC Australia and the two libraries was signed on 31 March 1995. Phase One development commenced in April. This phase will see the implementation of powerful searching facilities, Internet gateways, the ability to request documents from the desktop, and the integration of information resources.

In February, following a careful analysis of the options, the two national libraries announced that they would deliver NDIS services from separate computer platforms in the two countries. This arrangement will allow each library the maximum flexibility in marketing and business arrangements, and provide for a clearer division of costs.

During the year the Library continued to develop its business and marketing strategies for the operation of NDIS. A marketing consultant and a seconded senior member of staff worked on the development of a business plan. A survey of existing users, undertaken early in 1995, contributed valuable information to this plan. Considerable work was also undertaken with a consultant to establish appropriate financial management systems.

[IMAGE]
The National Document and Information Service will allow readers to search for, locate and receive information without leaving the computer desk.

Presentations on the NDIS project were made to librarians and other interested people in all capital cities and Townsville between November and February. Responses at these presentations have helped the Library develop better information and marketing strategies.

CJK (Chinese Japanese Korean) Project

The national CJK Project, a cooperative venture of seven Australian university libraries and the National Library, aims to provide a shared cataloguing and location facility for Australian library materials in Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts. The CJK system will be used by consortium members and the wider library community until the NDIS system is able to support non-roman scripts. This capability is planned for the end of the decade. Software to support the CJK system was selected early in the financial year and development and testing of the system took place during the year. At the end of March the Deputy Director-General, Mr Eric Wainwright, signed a contract with Innovative Interfaces Incorporated for the supply of the INNOPAC software. The CJK system is expected to be operational in late 1995.

National Bibliographic Services

A key responsibility of the Library is to develop and maintain the National Bibliographic Database (NBD), which pools the cataloguing records created by the National Library and libraries throughout Australia and integrates them with those purchased from overseas sources. The NBD supports the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) and will be a core information resource for the NDIS system. The NBD continued to grow strongly in 1994-95, with more than 640 000 bibliographic records and more than 1.9 million holdings records added during the year. ABN user libraries funded a Quality Improvement Program for the third successive year, resulting in the removal of almost 70 000 duplicate records from the NBD.

The NBD was further enhanced by loading retrospective data files from nine key university libraries including the Australian National University and the University of Queensland. The Library reviewed the coverage of the NBD in two areas: Australian higher degree theses held in university libraries, and serial publications held in health libraries. In addition, the value of the NBD for subject access was enhanced by loading extended cataloguing data for books, in the form of Table of Contents data. This data, acquired from Blackwell North America, is now made available through ABN to library catalogues. It enables libraries to provide improved searching and access to books in their collections.

During the year the Library commenced a project to copy articles indexed by the Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APAIS) so that electronic images of these articles could be created, through a partnership with the company Silver Stream. The image data will be distributed on CD-ROM by Silver Stream, and in the future by the Library through the NDIS system. Users will be able to obtain documents rapidly and efficiently following searches of the APAIS database, the Library's major indexing service for Australian periodicals. Royalty arrangements are being developed in consultation with the Copyright Agency Limited.

Network Services

More than 1400 libraries and 400 individuals continued to benefit from the Library's principal network services, the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN), Ozline and their related gateway services during 1994-95.

The ABN continues to promote efficiencies by supporting copy and shared cataloguing for its member libraries. Shared and copy cataloguing reduce duplication of effort in cataloguing the same item at each library. Cataloguing use of ABN remained about the same as in the previous two years. Late in 1994, the Library announced that it would enhance ABN cataloguing services by establishing a gateway to the Research Libraries Information Network database, a major bibliographic resource based in the United States. There was a continuation of the trend towards increased reference and interlibrary loan use of ABN.

The Ozline service, which provides access to Australian information contained in journal articles and conference papers, experienced very strong growth. This was stimulated in part by the absorption of the Australis science and technology databases which took effect from July 1994. By the end of the year there were 35 Ozline databases.

The Library failed to gain a renewal of its contract to operate the Current Contents service on behalf of the Council of Australian University Libraries. However, the experience gained from this project will be valuable in the design and delivery of NDIS services to the end-user market.

UnCover Australia, the Library's gateway to the UnCover document delivery service, commenced operations in July 1994 and established itself during the year as a successful and reliable service. Over 280 libraries were using the service by the end of 1994-95. The Document Supply Service provided support and oversight for the UnCover staff member who retrieves, scans and transfers articles requested from Australian/New Zealand/Pacific journals and who also faxes tables of contents from these journals for inclusion in the UnCover database. The partnership with UnCover complements the Library's own Document Supply Service and its support through ABN for the national interlibrary loan system.

Interlending Services

The National Library is the largest interlibrary lender in Australia: each year it supplies about 80 000 articles (photocopies or faxes), 20 000 book loans and 14 000 film or video loans. During 1994-95 there was a 1 per cent increase in requests received over the previous year, but a 5 per cent decrease in documents supplied. The causes of this decrease are complex but are partly related to the contraction of the Library's overseas collecting.

A trial was conducted to evaluate and compare the service and costs of four international document suppliers with a view to the possible expansion of the Document Supply Service to include brokering the supply of documents not held by the Library.

There was a strong increase (46 per cent) in use of the Fast Track service which guarantees 24-hour delivery. A Fast Track Plus service, guaranteeing a 2-hour delivery time by fax at three times the standard cost, was introduced on 1 September 1994: 146 requests were satisfied in the first eight months of the service.

A survey was conducted to ascertain the time taken to deliver loans and copies from Canberra to clients interstate. By the end of the third day after dispatch, 79 per cent of loans and 81 per cent of copies had been received by the clients. Delivery of loans to Brisbane and Adelaide was slower than to other capital cities.

In recent years there has been a fall in loans from the Film and Video Lending Service. This trend continued in 1994-95 with a decrease of about 13 per cent in films and videos supplied. The opportunity was taken during the year to discard from the lending collection overseas films which had not been borrowed for three years. The Film Study Collectionwhich continues to be well used was not affected by this exercise.

The circulation module of the DYNIX integrated library management system (ILMS) was brought into use in the Document Supply Service in stages from 1 March.

Table 7: Network Services database statistics


                              1992-93a      1993-94a       1994-95     % change 
                                                                     1993-94 to 
                                                                        1994-95 

NBD bibliographic            9 812 872    10 598 988    11 242 526         6.07 
recordsb                                                                        
NBD holdings statements     17 936 974    20 386 113    22 335 844         9.56 
NBD authority records        1 273 879     1 349 717     1 403 399         3.98 
AMI recordsc                    52 708        56 406        62 640        11.05 
APAIS recordsd                 193 294       203 711       215 053         5.57 
Ozline databases                    14            17            35       105.88 
Ozline records                 533 292       618 328       978 516        58.25 
Union Catalogue files                                                           
(titles)                                                                        
NUCOM 5 (books)e             2 495 287     2 704 323           N/A          N/A 
NUCOM 6 (books)f                   N/A       359 546       886 651       146.60 
NUCOS (serials)                297 447       318 642       334 448         4.96 
NUC:D (disability               76 316        80 467        83 255         3.46 
materials)                                                                      
NUC:N (non-books)              639 198       983 441     1 197 687        21.79 
AGP (government                 57 705        71 290        82 201        15.31 
publications)                                                                   
a These figures relate to file sizes as at 30 June 1993, 1994 and 1995 respectively.
b National Bibliographic Database (1981+).
c Australasian Medical Index (1985+).
d Australian Public Affairs Information Service (1978+).
e Closed September 1993.
f First issue March 1994.

Table 8: Network Services usage (monthly averages)


                                    1992-93   1993-94    1994-95   % change 
                                                                    1993-94 
                                                                         to 
                                                                    1994-95 

Total inquiry commands                1 551     1 547      1 562       0.97 
(thousands)                                                                 
Supersearch connect hours               489       543        628      15.65 
Ozline connect hours                    117       169        245      44.97 
Online copy cataloguing             141 737   141 507    139 808      -1.20 
MARC records distributed            440 998   745 097    429 951     -42.30 
Fiche catalogue records             319 624   203 416    134 963     -33.65 

Table 9: Network Services financial data ($A'000)


                               1992-93a      1993-94      1994-95    % change 
                                                                   1993-94 to 
                                                                      1994-95 

Invoices b                                                                    
Online services                 6 073.9      6 457.4      7 051.6        9.20 
Products                        1 562.6      1 440.5      1 397.6       -2.98 
Other charges                   1 620.7      1 471.3      1 528.4        3.88 
less Credits and                2 297.8      2 261.0      2 205.7       -2.45 
miscellaneous                                                                 
TOTAL                           6 922.7      7 108.2      7 771.9        9.34 

Revenue                                                                       
Cash receipts                   5 595.0      5 997.3      6 926.1       15.49 
Assessed revenuec               1 085.4        976.5        645.1      -33.94 
TOTAL                           6 680.4      6 973.8      7 571.2        8.57 

Operational expenditure                                                       
Computer charges                3 019.8      2 494.7      2 052.2      -17.74 
Salary and administrative       1 856.2      1 894.3      1 753.6       -7.43 
costs                                                                         
Other operational costs         1 427.6      1 607.4      1 783.4       10.95 
TOTAL                           6 303.6      5 996.4      5 589.2       -6.79 
a For the sake of comparison, the 1992-93 figures have been adjusted to include the revenues and expenditures for the Ozline service (previously shown in a separate table) and to exclude those for certain publications no longer costed to Network Services.
b Includes use by the National Library.
c Assessment of use by the National Library.

Table 10: Lending activity


Activity                         1992-93     1993-94     1994-95   % change 
                                                                    1993-94 
                                                                         to 
                                                                    1994-95 

Loans supplied (printed           20 689      20 487      20 091      -1.93 
material)                                                                   
Photocopies (no. of items)        75 793      77 855      73 115      -6.09 
Films and videos                 15 800a     14 851b      13 013     -12.38 
a Estimate based on 1992-93 figure of recorded bookings adjusted according to actual films despatched.
b Revised figure.

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