PANDORA Project


Introduction

With the increasing amount of material being produced by online electronic publishing, issues concerning the long-term access and permanent archiving of such materials are creating great concern in academic and research communities throughout the world. In Australia, many of the parties with a stake in access to digital publications are attempting to understand the issues involved and to develop strategies to deal with them.

PANDORA is a project initiated by the National Library of Australia to investigate strategies for the storage, preservation and access to digital data in the context of the creation of an electronic archive of library materials. This study is being funded in part by the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AV-CC) Working Group on Electronic Publishing.

Background

The National Library attempts, as part of its statutory obligations, to retain in perpetuity a copy of all material published in printed form in Australia in order to ensure that Australians will have access to the accumulated knowledge, activities and achievements of its citizens in all forms of human endeavour. In line with this objective, the Library is also committed to preserving selected electronic publications of lasting cultural value for access by the Australian community now and in the future.

For some months now, the Selection Committee on Online Australian Publications (SCOAP) and the Electronic Unit have been assessing online electronic materials to identify those that we think have national significance and should be preserved by the Library. Guidelines for Selection have been published, as has a list of titles selected for preservation.

Some initial work has been done on experimenting with ways of cataloguing, organising and managing Australian online electronic publications so that their existence is visible to potential users, such as in our listing of Australian electronic journals. The PANDORA project will capitalise on staff skills and expertise that have been already developed in handling and understanding the complexities of managing electronic publications. We are interested in covering the full range of materials published online in Australia - including serials, newspapers and books, as well as unique online formats like 'homepages'.

The Library has also released a position paper National Strategy for Provision of Access to Australian Electronic Publications whose purpose is to initiate debate on the many issues raised by electronic publishing, in particular to the issue of guaranteeing current and longer-term access, and to invite comment which may lead to collaborative approaches to resolution of the many challenges presented by the new media. The Library regards it as essential that creators, publishers and collectors of electronic publications should be included in considering issues of long-term access and conditions covering access.

Goals and Objectives

The overall goal of the PANDORA project is to develop and implement procedures for the capture, archiving and provision of long term access to online electronic Australian publications selected for national preservation.

Strategies for achieving this goal are to:

Satisfactory completion of the project described here will be of great benefit in ensuring that Australians have access to electronic publications into the future. It will also stand as a role model for other Australian and overseas institutions, who will collaborate in creating and maintaining digital libraries, but who to date, have not yet attempted such a comprehensive project as proposed here.

Workplan

There are two major components to the project - intellectual access and physical access.

Intellectual Access

Preferred options for the provision of cataloguing and management of the archive will be defined and implemented. This includes establishing a cataloguing and bibliographic system that take account of the needs of electronic materials - including technical information such as formats, organisation of data and software requirements; commercial information such as usage agreements as well as the more traditional bibliographic information. Policies and procedures need to be developed for capture, archiving and preservation. This component will be undertaken primarily by National Library of Australia staff, in consultation with other organisations or individuals as needed. In particular, negotiation with electronic publishers to establish broad-based categories of access is highly desirable. Staff would be seconded to the project on an as needed basis to undertake developmental work - eg software or cataloguing.

Physical Access

The full functional and technical requirements for the data management systems needed to provide access need to be defined. Possible data management systems for the electronic archive need to be researched and trialled, and an appropriate system recommended for implementation. The resources, both manpower and equipment, which will be required to maintain the archive need to be described. This will need, in the first instance, consultation with hardware and software vendors, particularly of electronic data management products, and with institutions or organisations already involved with data management projects.

Management of the Project

The project will be managed within the Collections and Reader Services Division of the Library. Since we regard it as essential that creators, publishers and collectors of electronic publications should be included in considering issues of long-term access and conditions covering access, an advisory committee consisting of representatives of the major stakeholders in the topic has been established.

For further information on the PANDORA project please contact:

Paul Koerbin



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Last updated October 15 1997