Service to the Nation - Access to the Globe :
the NLA Strategic Plan 1993-98


Preamble

This Plan provides an overview of the issues likely to affect the Library over the years 1993 to 1998. It sets outs the Library's priorities and the strategies it will employ to attain its objectives, and details the major initiatives expected before the publication of its next Strategic Plan in 1996. It has been extensively revised after several months of public comment and feedback following the issue of a draft in June 1993.

The National Library expects to revise its Strategic Plan at three year intervals, in each case projecting five years ahead. The Strategic Plan is complemented by detailed annual Operational Plans. Performance against Strategic and Operational Plans is assessed annually in the Library's Annual Report, and in the Program Performance Statement supplied to the Commonwealth Parliament's Senate Estimates Committee. As a statutory authority, the Library has a legislative mandate for its activities through the National Library Act, 1960. Its affairs are conducted by a Council and Director-General who are responsible to the Minister of Arts and Administrative Services, a member of the Cabinet.

Our Future

We will be the world's leading documentary resource for a knowledge and understanding of Australia and Australians, linking closely with other sources of Australian information throughout the nation.

In partnership with other institutions, we will lead and facilitate developments to achieve a highly effective national network of libraries, through which Australians will have access to the full resources of Australian libraries and information services, including the Library's own extensive overseas collections, and to materials and information held overseas.

We will achieve our objectives by

Priorities

We see Australia's future as one in which the nation forges an identity as a culturally diverse country with increasing links to the countries in its immediate region. We will make decisions on the Library's future within this overall context.

The Library will sometimes have to choose between desirable initiatives because of resource limitations. The following three equal priorities will guide its decisions over the period 1993-98:

Activities which result in the Library collecting and preserving Australian documentary materials of national significance, and those materials being known to and used by greater numbers of people

Achievement of this priority will mean greater resources being devoted to

Activities which promote community understanding of the Library, as a national cultural and information services institution, and of its collections and national services

Achievement of this priority will mean greater resources being devoted to

Activities which maximise the ability of Australians, through the national system of libraries, to obtain the materials and information they need for their own and the nation's development

Achievement of this priority will mean greater resources being devoted to

In order to meet these priorities, the Library will have to redirect resources. The developing ACT reference library service will permit some reduction of services in support of local student and public demands. The Library intends also to generate greater revenues from the delivery of services, and to gain further productivity savings through capital investment and working rearrangements.

However, the Library also intends to release funds over several years by reducing its collecting and processing of printed materials from overseas. Other collections in Australia have expanded greatly. Access to these collections has improved. More materials, in particular journals, are becoming more readily accessible in electronic forms. Some material is now available only in electronic form. This allows the Library to more carefully delineate its collecting from overseas as part of the Distributed National Collection (DNC), and in consultation with other institutions to minimise unnecessary duplication, while ensuring that national needs are met through the DNC.

Environment and Challenges 1993-1998

Background

Under its Act, the Library exists to provide service to the people of Australia, by

To fulfil these functions, the Library has collected and organised a collection of more than 4,000,000 volumes of printed materials, together with significant collections of microforms, manuscripts, maps, pictures, photographs, sound recordings, films, video recordings, printed music, and electronic forms such as optical disks.

The Library has a special national responsibility for the preservation of a comprehensive collection of documentary materials relating to Australia and Australians. Our broad collections represent the nation's single most important resource of materials recording the Australian cultural heritage. They record the history and development of Australians in their increasing diversity. They are a crucial resource in the formation of our culture and national identity. They document our ideas, discoveries and creative endeavours, and provide a foundation for further advancement of the nation.

In the current dynamic social environment the Library has obligations to extend its more traditional cultural role and to engage creatively and energetically with the Australian community. For the Library's riches to be available across the nation, access must mean something broader and more democratic than the provision of direct services to those who use the Library's reading rooms. It requires the raising of general community awareness and programmes to publish, exhibit, and interpret the Library's collections as a basis for debate and discussions on matters of concern to a culturally diverse nation. It requires working with other cultural institutions, within the Commonwealth Government's emerging overall cultural strategy, to provide collectively a full understanding of the Australian culture and experience.

Australia's future will be dependent on the ability of its research institutions, its industries, its governments and its people to harness information effectively. The Library has a role in promoting the value of libraries and information in our society, in ensuring that Australians are able to obtain and have the skills to use information effectively in the various facets of their lives - in business, government, the local community, and in personal development. We aim to ensure that the nation's network of libraries enables Australians to have a full understanding of the developments of national and international significance in the world around them.

Our collections are intended to provide a base for our primary clients - those Australians engaged in the formulation and transmission of knowledge, particularly in research, policy development, authorship and creative endeavour, now and in the future.

The Library occupies the pivotal position in the nation's network of libraries. It has a major role in helping to improve the quality of library services nationally. That quality of service to the Australian people is enhanced when

These principles underpin a range of Library activities designed to make libraries' resource-sharing fully effective.

The Australian Community

The Australian population is growing and aging. Many more Australians are completing high school, and undertaking further education in TAFE colleges and in universities. Post-graduate student numbers are increasing rapidly. Teaching methods are increasingly intensive in their use of library materials. Open learning initiatives are beginning to fuel demands for services throughout remote communities. More education inescapably means more demands on libraries. While the Library does not serve school and undergraduate students as a priority clientele, we expect that their demands will impact indirectly via other libraries.

Increasing and varying community demands on services are expected for other reasons:

These forces will continue to lead to different patterns of usage and increased demands for the Library's services, either directly or through referrals from public and educational libraries. The Library will need to determine the appropriate balance between its national services, and its general public reference facilities used largely by the citizens of the ACT region; and the extent to which it will act as a 'first-choice' provider to students of ACT institutions which are not providing adequate library resources to meet course requirements. The Library cannot be the first point of supply for library services to all Australians. It will designate more clearly the priorities given to different client demands, with a focus on meeting national needs.

Other Libraries and Document Suppliers

The number of Australian libraries is increasing (as is the importance of their collections and services) because of increasing investment in education, and the need for government, research and commercial organisations to keep abreast of world-wide developments. These organisations have growing alternatives for obtaining many documents - from overseas, and through commercial suppliers, as well as from Australian libraries (including the National Library). Increasing competition between State institutions, and between universities, may also force changes in existing cooperative arrangements. We expect these developments to affect the patterns of resource sharing and document supply in Australia. The Library will need to address actively the issues which arise.

In response to these pressures, Australian libraries have signalled - through the Towards Federation 2001: Linking Australians and their Heritage Conference in 1992 and the Seminar on the Distributed National Collection (DNC) in March 1993, that they seek vigorous National Library leadership and support for the DNC objective of facilitating national access to materials in Australian libraries, in areas such as collaborative collection development, bibliographic data creation and sharing, document supply, and preservation.

In response, the Library plans to expand its role as a key supplier of services to other libraries and their clients. It will re-assess how best to allocate its overall resources devoted to overseas collection development and to document supply, in support of the evolving DNC objectives. It will form strategic alliances with other organisations where these will improve document supply in the national interest, either from Australian or overseas sources.

Technological Developments

In the 1980s developments in information technology affected mainly the efficiency of library operations. In the 1990s we expect new technologies to change the ways in which our clients use our services. Major developments include

These developments are leading to the rapid development of new forms of publishing, including online collaborative works, electronic journals, multi-media compilations, short-run 'desktop' publications and customised books. The implications are complex and, as yet, not fully understood, as the roles of all parties in the publishing and distribution chain - authors, publishers, booksellers, library suppliers, database hosts, and libraries - become blurred. The Library will need to give effective on-going attention to issues such as

Recognising that many institutions have an interest in these issues, the Library will seek increased public debate and Commonwealth government policy formation in these areas.

Australia in the Global Context

As a national library, we are affected particularly by changes in Australia's relations to the rest of the world, and by global developments generally. We expect changes to include:

Objectives and Strategies

National Leadership and Co-ordination

Our objectives are to

Our strategies to achieve these outcomes are to

Major initiatives 1993-96 will include

Services to Libraries

New technologies will increasingly enable individuals to obtain documents and other services direct from the Library, rather than via other libraries. Nevertheless, the Library intends that Australian libraries and their clients will remain key customers for its services.

Our objective is to

Our strategies to achieve this outcome are to

Major initiatives 1993-96 will include


Collections and Services to the Community

Our objectives are to

Our strategies to achieve these outcomes are to

Major initiatives 1993-96 will include

International Activities

Our objectives are to

Our strategies to achieve these outcomes are to

Major initiatives 1993-96 will include


Support Services

A world-class library requires excellent facilities and services to provide internal support for those functions and staff which directly serve clients. It also requires excellent staff with the skills and qualities needed for continuous service improvements. In providing this support, the Library works within the Australian Public Service guidelines relating to Human Resource Management, Equal Employment Opportunity, Industrial Democracy, and Occupational Health and Safety.

Our objectives are to

Our strategies to achieve these outcomes are to

Major initiatives 1993-96 will include

RESOURCE ISSUES

The Library currently receives between 75% and 80% of its funds from the Commonwealth Government appropriation. Recurrent funds from the Government have been declining in real terms for many years, and the budget outlook for 1993 to 1996 is not encouraging. We consider that adequate funds must be provided to maintain effective current operations, and to enable the Library to invest for even more effective future services. The Library faces extra costs each year, as its collections grow, and we can demonstrate convincingly the significant growth in community demand for our services. We shall argue vigorously for recognition of these factors in Government financial support over 1993-1998.

In this period, we have a need for significant capital to

We shall pursue strategies which attempt to maximise the real resources at our disposal through

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