Summary of National Microfilming Activities at the National Library of Australia

Lawrie Salter, Preservation Services

Microfilming activities at the National Library of Australia have generally followed international trends. In 1948 the Library established the Australian Joint Copying Project in cooperation with the State Library of New South Wales and a full time officer was employed in London to identify and film archival records in Britain relating to Australia. Although the project ceased in 1993, there are still a number of tasks associated with the maintenance of the collection of master negatives. The National Library has also been involved in microfilming Australian material since the 1950's; however, it was not until 1986 that a Preservation Reformatting Unit was established within the Preservation Services Section to coordinate all microfilming activities carried out by the Library. Since its establishment, the output of the Preservation Reformatting Unit has increased considerably due to additional funding, greater involvement in cooperative microfilming projects and more efficient work procedures. At present, all filming jobs are contracted out to commercial microfilming bureaux but all preparation and quality control checking are still carried out by the Preservation Reformatting Unit which has three full-time staff including myself. In recent years, there has been greater emphasis on cooperative microfilming projects as a means of assisting with the preservation of the Distributed National Collection and as a result, the National Library of Australia released its Australian policy on participation in cooperative microfilming projects with other institutions this year. Further community assistance is provided by the National Preservation Office through its Community Heritage Grants program. Of fifteen grants awarded in 1994, two were for microfilming projects. (Fifty-eight applications proposed microfilming projects). The National Library houses its microform master negatives under controlled environmental conditions in a specially designed cold store within the main building which operates at 8[[ordmasculine]]+ 1[[ordmasculine]] and 35+5% RH. Apart from storing its own collections of master negatives, the Library is also offering free cold storage space to other institutions. Recognising that a number of older master negatives are stored on acetate base film, the Library is currently developing a program for copying these titles onto polyester base film. On a national level there has also been a lot of interest in preservation microfilming activities. Most State libraries operate active preservation microfilming programs. Acknowledging that newspapers pose major preservation problems, the Council of Australian State Libraries established a National Plan for Australian Newspapers (NPLAN) in the early 1990's. Under this plan each state library undertakes to microfilm all newspaper titles published within that State and to preserve one hard copy of each title. There are also provisions for repatriation of hard copy originals. The National Library is contributing by accepting responsibility for preserving hard copy originals of national newspapers and assisting State libraries and regional organisations with microfilming newspapers which are more than thirty years old. Much has been accomplished, but there is still much more work to be done.

Recognising that many preservation microfilming issues required wider discussion at a national level, the National Preservation Office devoted its first national conference to preservation microfilming. The conference was held in May this year. Delegates from most institutions involved in preservation microfilming activities attended the conference. Conference proceedings are currently being prepared by the National Preservation Office and the National Library of Australia is also preparing guidelines for microfilming text-based printed materials in Australia and New Zealand. Problem areas identified during the conference included copyright, electronic media (a hybrid microform/electronic approach was favoured), lack of uniform guidelines for filming different formats, communication, cold storage, standards and cataloguing microform masters. With reference to cataloguing microform masters, Australia does not currently have a National Register of Microform Masters. Although a number of libraries catalogue their service copies directly onto the National Bibliographic Database on the Australian Bibliographic Network. It was only this year that the Australian Bibliographic Network Standards Committee passed a standard for cataloguing microform masters. As some smaller organisations do not have direct access to the Australian Bibliographic Network, the National Library has undertaken to assist these organisations with cataloguing their microform masters. The Australian library community is also exploring the feasibility of combining microfilming activities with digital technology to enhance access to information at the service level. The National Library is currently carrying out investigative work in this area and the Library is also involved in discussions with the National Preservation Office, the State Library of New South Wales and the University of Sydney concerning a collaborative pilot project for the digitisation and microfilming of a collection of Australian material known as the Digitisation Microfilming Project (DMP). The first meeting of the group was held on 13 September 1994.


September 1994. Last updated 11 August 1998
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