ISSN 1443-0568
No. 16
July 1995
National Library of Australia Gateways was edited and designed by Leora Kirwan using desktop publishing software.Please address any comments or enquiries to:
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CANBERRA A.C.T. 2600
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National Library of Australia Gateways is issued bimonthly and prepared by the Services to Libraries Division of the National Library of Australia. Subscriptions are available on application at the rate of $40.00 p.a. from:
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The National Interlending and Document Delivery Summit was organised by ACLIS and held in Canberra on 18 and 19 May. At least three strands of change formed a background to the summit: the increasing importance of interlending and document delivery in meeting client needs; the decline in collecting by libraries in response to fiscal constraints; and the impact of technological change on the traditional document delivery mechanisms.
The National Library aims to play a key role in supporting document delivery and interlending in Australia by working cooperatively with ACLIS and other libraries to develop and implement the resolutions from the Summit. Currently, the Library provides support through the Australian Bibliographic Network and its ILL subsystem, and through the publication of the Australian Interlibrary Resource Sharing Directory. In addition, the Library's Document Supply Service, Australia's largest net lender of library materials, continuously seeks to improve the performance of its document delivery activities.
In the development of the National Document and Information Service (NDIS), the Library is seeking to contribute to further improvement of the document delivery and document access infrastructure. The Library is actively involved in the adoption and promotion of technical standards to develop effective links between commercial and other bibliographic databases and local and regional holdings. (For more details, see the summit paper by Warwick Cathro at: http://www.nla.gov.au/2/NDIS/illsummp.html).
Librarians throw away their books on the steps of the National Library
after the Document Supply Summit in May.
About 50 librarians and Internet enthusiasts from Pacific Rim countries met in Victoria, British Columbia on 3-4 May 1995 to discuss the theme of 'Networking the Pacific'.
This conference, sponsored by the British Columbia Library Association, aimed to foster better communication between the library communities across the Pacific, and more effective exploitation of the Internet to improve Pacific networking. Delegates to the conference came from Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Singapore and the United States.
As with most library conferences these days, the Internet provided the frame of reference for most of the discussions, notwithstanding large differences in the state of Internet development among the countries represented.
Warwick Cathro reported on the situation in Australia by highlighting developments such as the rapid proliferation of World Wide Web sites; index sites and 'gathering' pages; government initiatives (such as the Creative Nation and Broadband Services reports, the Community Information Network, EdNA, VICNET and the Ipswich Web); an outline of current library sectoral and cross-sectoral cooperative programs (including the CAUL Improved Information Infrastructure programs); the National Distributed Information Service (NDIS) and Chinese Japanese Korean (CJK) Project; and the high use of commercial document delivery services.
Several speakers at the conference showed an awareness of the strong Internet orientation of the Australian library community, some singling out the work done at the Australian National University such as the development of the Asian World Wide Web Virtual Library.
A highlight of the conference was the presentation on the Pan Asian Networking (PAN) proposal, given by Maria Ng Lee Hoon of Singapore. This far-reaching plan has been developed by the International Development Research Centre . To quote from the Program's Strategic Framework booklet, 'the initial concept of PAN arose from the need to create synergy in the research and development work of the hundreds of institutions that the IDRC is involved with...When connected, individuals in institutions in Asia will be able to share research work, development experience, access each others' information resources and hold regular conversations to cement their networking activities.'
PAN will be managed by IDRC offices in Singapore and Canada, until a formal consortium is established. Donors and sponsors include Telstra, AIDAB and the Ford Foundation.
PAN is far-reaching because it envisages activities on several different levels. It aims:
PAN will be attempting to improve physical Internet connectivity within Asia, even though this is not its primary mission, in order to realise its other aims. Its plan includes the establishment of technical hubs in countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal and Vietnam. For this purpose, PAN will make a loan of $200 000 to Vietnam, to be repaid over three years. The Laotian server will be built with the help of Laotians living in Australia.
Another speaker from Singapore, Roland Yeo from Contec Systems, reported on the National Library of Singapore's Web server. This server, launched in March, supports not only catalogue queries but also book loan reservations, loan renewals, and the submission of reference queries. It has been flagged as another stage in achieving the Library 2000 vision, the blueprint for Singapore's libraries.
Curtis Hardyck, from the University of California at Berkeley, spoke about the activities of the Pacific Neighborhood Consortium. The consortium has about 40 members from 15 countries, including ANU and University of Wollongong from Australia. The consortium, which aims to 'make the Pacific Rim a virtual neighbourhood', arose from a meeting of Pac Rim university presidents in Korea in 1992. The consortium has established a standards database, accessible via its Web server (http://www-pnc.berkeley.edu). It has a number of projects underway, including coordination of regional World Wide Web development, and a distributed Electronic Museum of the Pacific, for which a major collection of Buddhist art will be digitised.
Hiroshi Kawamura, from the University of Tokyo Librar, observed that Japanese librarians aren't yet fully attuned to the Internet. While the cost of telecommunications in Japan is high, he noted that nearly everyone in urban Japan lives within walking distance of a public library, which might obviate the need for broadband services to all homes. Hiroshi Kawamura argued that national bibliographies should be freely available, and he proposed that they be distributed through Web servers, and that public document servers should be established for government documents and documents of non-profit organisations.
He Yang, from the Ministry of Culture, spoke for China. He described the rapid growth of the principal Chinese communication networks. The key development appears to be the China Education and Research Network (CERNET), which is funded by the Chinese government and which aims to connect most Chinese universities to each other and to the Internet by the year 2000, with 100 campus networks connected by the end of 1996.
He Yang also described the bibliographic work of the National Library of China, including its three-year retrospective national bibliographic project, covering the years 1949 to 1987. Several information network projects (such as that of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) and electronic library projects (such as one in Guangdong province) are evidence of the vigour of the development of information services in China.
He Yang also mentioned the cooperative project which is under negotiation between the Australian National University Library, the National Library of China and two public libraries in Shanghai and Guangzhou to establish Internet connectivity and to provide facilities and training for the three Chinese libraries.
The keynote speech at the forum was given by Alan MacDonald from the University of Calgary. Alan's view was that the system of interlibrary loan and document delivery is beginning to collapse due to cutbacks in library collections and the aggressive pursuit of intellectual property rights. He thinks there will be a strong trend towards customer self-service, and the WWW is a part of this. He preferred electronic cooperative projects to those which are based on 'travel to interesting places and the circulation of printed reports' or on committees which, he said, Gareth Evans had once described as places where 'good ideas are enticed and then throttled'. He applauded the development of 'gathering pages' on the Net, and singled out those of the Australian National University.
On 15 May, as the pavement bistros folded up their umbrellas and retreated indoors, Canberra's café society came of age with the launch in the National Library of the Café Internet. This initiative provides free access, in a sociable atmosphere, to the giant collection of computer networks which support the Internet. Located in the fourth floor bistro, the Brindabella Room, it's a place where everyone from beginners to experienced users can go to follow simple start-up instructions and browse 'the Net' through the World Wide Web gateway.Visitors are not able to send e-mail, or download to disk, or print, but it is possible to have a fascinating time over coffee and cake, any time between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. each weekday.Comments so far have varied from the wildly enthusiastic to disappointment over the time it takes for one of the two terminals to become available. One thing seems unanimous: the cats who surf don't like the rollerball mice!
The Commonwealth Government Budget was delivered on 9 May 1995 and was followed by the Director-General's annual open staff meeting on 10 May to present details of the National Library's 1995-96 budget.
Demands for service continue to rise while the Library's appropriation from the Government continues to be reduced. In 1995-96 the Library's appropriation for salaries and administrative costs was reduced by three per cent in real terms, in line with public service-wide Government reductions in funding to agencies. In this environment, the Library will aim to generate greater revenue from the delivery of services, and to gain further productivity savings through capital investment and working rearrangements.
The Library has received one-off funding of $A5.812M in the budget for asbestos rectification in 1995-96. Low levels of white asbestos fibre were found in the air conditioning ducts in late February. The funding provided by the Government will enable the ducts to be cleaned over a 30-week period, beginning in June 1995, in accordance with the Worksafe Australia Asbestos Code of Practice. As a consequence of industrial action, the Library operated for several weeks under restricted opening hours and with no stack service to the main reading room, although the Document Delivery Service was maintained. The Library resumed full operations and normal opening hours from 17 May 1995.
Funds of $3.633M will be available in 1995-96 for the further development of the National Document and Information Service (NDIS). Analysis and design of the development commenced in October 1994 and was completed in April 1995. Work is now under way on Phase 1 of the new service which is expected to be up and running by the middle of 1996.
The Library will continue to fund important new initiatives in 1995-96. The Library has provided $A0.720M for information technology initiatives and $A0.530M for new digital services. Funding for the National Portrait Gallery has been increased by $A0.141M to $A0.433M. A sum of $A0.740M has been set aside to fund collection housing costs over several years and $A0.120M has been provided for cancellation tasks associated with collection redirection. A statement on future collecting directions was published in the May 1995 issue of Gateways and is also available on the Library's Internet server.
The estimated average staffing level in 1995-96 is 564. This is one per cent less than the current 1994-95 average staffing level of 569. The reduction in staffing results from the overall funding cuts to the Library. However, additional staffing has been provided for collection redirection and digitisation projects.
With all contract negotiations finalised for the National Document and Information Service (NDIS) Project, work has proceeded in the project office to mobilise resources and develop a detailed plan. All development will take place in Australia at the National Library; however, regular work sessions will be conducted in New Zealand.
The first physical manifestation of the NDIS system occurred at the NLA in June. IBM installed the hardware platform on which the NDIS system will operate in the NLA's computer room. The platform is IBM's RS/6000 model SP2 (Scalable PowerParallel 2). This is a leading-edge example of parallel processing architecture which will meet the Library's demanding performance requirements.
The SP2 supports high performance by enabling a task to be run in parallel on multiple processors. It looks like a tall filing cabinet with a number of drawers but is really a suite of processors able to operate in parallel via high-speed switching devices. In all, 18 processors have been installed to meet the requirements of the Australian part of the NDIS system. The platform will also be used to support data migration and application development for both countries. A further 12 processors will be installed in New Zealand closer to the implementation of the first services next year.
The SP2 is no 'light weight'. Not only is it packed with performance capability, it also weighs more than 1,100 kg! For further information, please contact;
Warwick Cathro
Assistant Director-General,
Services to
Libraries Division
National Library of Australia
Tel.: (02) 6262 1484
E-mail: Warwick Cathro
Bryony De La MotteDirector,
Network Services Branch
National
Library of Australia
Tel.: (02) 6262 1690
E-mail:
Bryony Delamotte
Or, contact the Help Desk on 1 800 026 155
An important recent acquisition by the Pictorial Section was a portrait in oils of the dancer and performance artist Ronaldo Cameron, by the Australian artist George Gittoes.
George Gittoes Portrait of Ronaldo Cameron, 1992 oil on canvas; 186x168.2cm
Born into a theatrical family in 1949, Ronaldo Cameron moved to
Sydney from Swansea, NSW, in 1968, and joined a group of avant garde young
artists who believed that public spaces should be available for use as
performance venues. They set out to challenge the conservatively stuffy
atmosphere of 1960s Sydney with the imaginative and bizarre, the humorous and
the politically symbolic, awakening the public to the fact that art had decided
to enter the mainstream of life and had left institutions behind.
At Sydney University in the early 1970s Ronaldo often joined the group The Strolling Players which created 'happenings' in outdoor areas on the University campus. He then joined Phillipa Cullen's dance group, which performed on buses and trains in peak hour, and in crowded city streets and parks. He was also a member of the Margaret Barr Dance Drama Group.Having joined The White Company in 1972, Ronaldo began to develop his skills as a choreographer while continuing as a dancer. He created public works to commemorate the bombing of Hiroshima, and to focus public awareness on issues such as nuclear warfare.
Believing it was vitally important for the cultural development of Australia to foster creativity at the community and regional level, Ronaldo was part of the movement to create community arts. He adopted a method of working with people of different ages and levels of ability, and choreographed performances to suit their capabilities. He is said to have had 'a kind of Pied Piper effect', communicating to a wide range of people in a variety of communities.
During the 1980s Ronaldo travelled to India, Greece, Turkey and Egypt, performing in public venues and festivals in all these countries.
He continued his work as a choreographer, dancer, stage designer and as a committed community arts worker until 1990, when he was diagnosed as suffering from motor neurone disease. He died in 1992.
The distinguished artist George Gittoes was a close friend of Ronaldo, and he painted this portrait not long before Ronaldo's death.
The portrait is on display in the current exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery - 'In the Picture'.
Old tapes and films are degrading in a startling, and somewhat smelly manner. Some of the not-so-old tapes are also deteriorating, but in a sticky way. The available recordable digital technologies are at best unpredictable, at worst unstable, and mass storage systems are expensive and likely to be obsolete in the not too distant future. This was just the beginning.
Kevin Bradley, Manager NLA Sound Preservation and Technical Services
One would expect from the list of woes facing the
'post-modern' archivist of modern electronically recorded material, a certain
despondency, but there was, instead, an enthusiasm as participants in the
latest Joint Technology Symposium gathered to grapple with the difficulties
being forced on us by rapid technical change in the market place.
'JTS '95: Technology and Our Audio-Visual Heritage', held early this year at London's National Film Theatre at the Southbank Centre, was the Joint Technical Symposium organised by the Technical Coordinating Committee on behalf of FIAF (Federation Internationale des Archives du Film), FIAT (Federation Internationale des Archives du Television), IASA (International Association of Sound Archives), ICA (International Council of Archives) and IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations). The symposium had not been held for a number of years, so there was a lot to talk about, and a good number of attendees.
Both keynote addresses focussed on the ethics and philosophies of archiving. Historian Professor Hans Fredrik Dahl raised the issues of social meaning, construction of memory, and representation and the 'new' archives, and George Boston, convenor of the conference, deliberated on the philosophy of archiving from the vantage point of technical ethics. The linked natures of content and technology and collection policy and preservation policy, were emphasised early in the conference but although they were revisited in later discussion, did not become a theme. What really appeared to generate the most interest and discussion was the degradation of the carriers, and the use of new technologies to manage them.
The earlier presentations concentrated on chemical breakdown, eliciting more information on the degradation of polyester urethanes, a familiar problem to Australian collections. These presentations also highlighted a method of controlling acetate degradation, the now famous molecular sieve, by which the level of acidic breakdown of products within the storage container is reduced. There was even discussion about including the sieve in air conditioning to clean entire environments.
Artificial ageing came in for much analysis, particularly in Lemaire and Fontaine's paper succinctly called 'Microspectrophotometric Analyses of Changes in the Organic Materials used in Optical Discs'. The authors noted that for artificial ageing to be of value, the 'single critical product' must be identified. In other words, unless the tests are designed around the correct cause of breakdown, which is not necessarily known before the event, the predicted stability and lifespan will be inaccurate. As the title suggests, the most likely cause of CD instability in Lemaire's estimation is the organic materials in the CD coatings. Very few of the published CD life estimations consider these issues, concentrating rather on other relatively stable components.
Digital Mass Storage (DMS) systems was another hot area of discussion, being alternately praised as the one technology that would save archival collections, and denigrated as being too expensive, too unstable and far too likely to become obsolete. Certainly the cost of providing 10, 20 or even hundreds of terra bytes of storage for the digital audio or visual archive of the future will have to be defrayed, though whether national collections have the right, or even the ability, to generate this amount of money by charging for access to the collections was a matter for debate. However, the benefits of a collection whose condition can be easily measured, that can be copied without loss, takes up very little storage space, and may be made available online, can be seen easily.
As proof that the age of useable DMS systems is upon us, Albrecht Haefner gave a presentation describing Südwestfunk's complex and how it is being implemented. Although still in the early stages of implementation, he was able to show how online access and quick retrieval will also help to preserve a large tape-based archive.
Memory of the World - an embryo program to preserve, protect and promote the world's documentary heritage-was discussed, and a case was made by UNESCO presenters. So, too, was Project Jukebox, with the European Union undertaking to provide international access to sound collection by ISDN. At this stage ISDN is being evaluated in library reading rooms only, for its capacity to control copyright and to solve copying dilemmas.
No single solution was revealed to soothe delegates archival concerns. Instead, audio and visual archivists left the conference with a better knowledge of the possible alternatives that will help to manage the problems in each particular, and unique, collection.
For further information please contact:
Kevin Bradley
Sound Preservation and Technical Services (SPATS)
National Library of Australia
Kevin Bradley
In April, Mrs Deirdre Burgess, a member of the National Library's Preservation Reformatting Unit staff, undertook intensive microfilming training for a period of one week at the premises of W. & F. Pascoe Pty Ltd in Balgowlah, Sydney.
The purpose of the visit was to gain a greater knowledge of preservation microfilming procedures and techniques to ensure that all microforms produced under the Library's preservation microfilming program are of the highest quality.
Areas covered during the visit include preparation of original material for microfilming, filming procedures and techniques, processing and duplicating microforms, and quality control checking of the final microform product.
The National Library of Australia has released microfiche copies of the ACT Commonwealth Electoral Rolls for sale to the general public.
The complete set of microfiche covering the period 1928-89 is available for sale at a total cost of $A260.00. Individual microfiche may be purchased at a cost of $A1.20 per fiche. A handling fee of $A20.00 applies to individual orders.
Order forms are available from:
The Manager, Preservation Reformatting Unit
National Library of
Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
Telephone: (02) 6262 1570,
Facsimile:
(02) 6257 1703,
E-mail: Lawrie
Salter.
The Government's cultural policy, 'Creative Nation', places considerable emphasis on using multimedia to disseminate information and culture. It urges artists to use the new technologies to create artistic works, and also emphasises the role of the Government in preserving our heritage.
As we race towards a global village where universal access to electronic information is blurring the boundaries between traditional libraries, archives, museums and galleries, it is essential to ensure ways of preserving the new form of culture for future generations. The new technologies may also have an important role in preserving past cultural products and/or making them more accessible.
However, interactive multimedia are like rainbows-perceptible but not tangible. The only way to re-create them, for preservation or access, is by understanding how they are produced. To promote this understanding, the theme of the second national conference of the National Preservation Office (NPO) is 'Multimedia Preservation: Capturing the Rainbow'. The program will include national and international experts to address issues such as:
Four high-profile overseas speakers will present keynote addresses. Michael Lesk, Executive Director of Computer Science Research for Bellcore (a US communications company) is also Visiting Professor of Computer Science at University College, London. His research interests include digital libraries and information retrieval as well as preservation technology. Michael sits on the Commission for Preservation and Access National Task Force on Digital Archiving, and was an active member of the Technology Assessment Advisory Committee of the CPA. He has written numerous authoritative reports and papers dealing with the preservation of electronic media.
Nancy Elkington is Assistant Director of Preservation Services at the Research Libraries Group (RLG), an international consortium of nearly 150 institutions that support research and scholarship. A leader of RLG's efforts over the past decade to develop uniform best practices in the area of preservation reformatting, Elkington edited two publications that establish procedures and guidelines in the production of high quality and long-lived microfilm: the RLG Preservation Microfilming Handbook (1992) and RLG Archives Microfilming Manual (1994). She is currently working with members and staff to expand RLG's unique collaborative preservation agenda into the digital arena.
Michael Alexander, of the Document and Image Processing unit of the British Library has been involved in numerous scanning and digitisation activities for the British Library, most notably imaging of the Beowulf manuscripts and digitisation of microfilm. He is a member of the Technical Subcommittee of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme.
Ross Harvey is Senior Lecturer in the Division of Information Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. During his tenure at Monash University he produced the volume Preservation in Australian and New Zealand Libraries, which is a definitive work in the region, and is in its second edition. Ross has a special interest in the preservation of documentary materials produced with new technologies. He was a presenter in the recent Multimedia Workshop for the Information Professional at the international Digital Libraries Conference held in Singapore.
Australian keynote speakers will include Eric Wainwright, Deputy Director-General of the National Library of Australia, Jan Lyall, Director of the National Preservation Office, and Steven Schwalger, Executive Officer of the Australasian Interactive Multimedia Industry Association.
A pre-conference workshop entitled 'Towards the Digital Collection', poster sessions and panel discussions will allow the exploration of Australian case studies and experiences. Trade displays and demonstrations by conference sponsors will also be an attraction.
The conference will be held at the five-star Brisbane Hilton, 28-30 November 1995. To be put on the conference mailing list contact:
Joanne Paull,
National Preservation Office,
National Library
of Australia,
Tel.: (02) 6262 1137 or
Fax: (02) 6273 4493
Reflecting its commitment to the National Plan for Australian Newspapers (NPLAN), the National Library of Australia increased its level of funding for collaborative preservation microfilming activities during the 1994-95 financial year.
Since July 1994, the Library has been involved in 13 collaborative projects to film pre-1965 issues of newspaper titles held by other institutions. Requests for assistance have mainly been received from local bodies and a limited number of State Libraries. As all newspaper titles filmed were held interstate, the Library has relied heavily on the advice of holding institutions in issuing filming instructions and checking quality control of the microfilm. This exercise in itself has highlighted a diversity of expectations in terms of preparation of original material and the quality of the final microfilm product. Altogether, a total $A60,000 was expended on original newspaper microfilming projects compared with $A20,000 in the previous financial year.
Recognising the dangers associated with duplicating directly from first generation preservation masters, the Library has provided $A20,000 to other institutions to assist in the production of second generation printing masters for existing microfilm titles. A further $A15,000 was allocated to assist other institutions to copy older acetate base, first-generation microfilms onto polyester base film, which is a more stable medium for long term storage.
In order to gather further information about the condition, quality and completeness of existing microfilm titles, the Library undertook several pilot surveys of newspaper titles held in its collection in both hardcopy and microform. The pilot surveys highlighted the need to develop uniform quality control checking procedures and filming standards to ensure that all preservation microfilm is of acceptable quality.
During the past year, the Library has also explored strategies for providing space within its cold storage facilities to other institutions, free of charge, for the storage of preservation microform masters. To date this service has only generated a low level of interest. A deed outlining the terms and conditions of this service is in the final stages of preparation.
As effective bibliographic control is an essential component of any preservation microfilm program to reduce duplication of effort and increase access to microfilmed titles, the National Library has commenced cataloguing its microform masters onto the National Bibliographic Database (NBD) using the newly-developed standard for cataloguing this type of material.
Further enquiries about the National Library's preservation microfilming activities should be directed to:
Colin Webb, Manager
Technical Preservation
National Library of
Australia
CANBERRA, ACT 2600
Telephone: (02) 6262 1381
Facsimile: (02) 6257 1703
E-mail: Colin Webb.
One of the functions of the National Library, as stated in its Act of 1960, is to maintain and develop a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the Australian people. The Library has been supported in this endeavour by the Copyright Act, 1968 (Cwlth) which provides that a copy of any printed work published in Australia be deposited with the National Library. State Libraries are covered by appropriate State legislation.
While some States already have Acts requiring deposit of non-print materials, including electronic publications, the Commonwealth Copyright Act currently covers only paper-based items. The Act is now under revision and it is hoped that the outcome will be the broadening of its scope to include non-print materials. In the meantime, however, the Library has devised interim measures to collect and preserve Australia's documentary heritage in the new electronic formats.
As in any field of endeavour, the pioneers of electronic publishing are historically significant and their efforts should be collected and preserved. It is important to record the pattern of electronic publishing that emerges and changes as time goes on. Some products are an electronic version of an existing print publication, albeit with enhanced searching capabilities. Others present information in an exciting new way, exploiting the possibilities of combining text, video and sound via a medium such as CD-ROM.
There is no doubt that electronic publications have presented libraries with considerable challenges. In Technical Services Branch at the National Library, the challenge has been to identify and select for acquisition at least a representative sample of electronic titles in physical format and then to catalogue them and make them available to readers in our reading rooms. Networked titles are also of concern to the branch but are being dealt with separately.
Policies and procedures for handling print materials have not proved suitable for dealing with electronic publications. At virtually every step along the way there is something different about electronic publications requiring special attention and procedures. From the lack of provision for legal deposit of electronic documents under the Commonwealth Copyright Act referred to earlier, to particular access requirements in the reading rooms, electronic publications have forced us to rethink every stage of our traditional operations.
This article deals with what we have done in relation to the first stage; that is, acquiring the titles for the Library's national collection.
While we had made a fairly generous allocation of funds for the purchase of Australian electronic publications, it became clear that we should be unable to develop a broad collection unless producers were willing to extend deposit to electronic titles on a voluntary basis.
However, there is a difficulty here. While some of the producers of the new formats are experienced print publishers with well-developed relationships with libraries, many have had no previous association with libraries. Thus it has been necessary to educate a whole new band of players in the advantages to the library, producer and researcher alike, of having titles available in libraries and listed in the Australian National Bibliography.
The capabilities of the new formats are giving publishers a lot more flexibility, including the possibility of more frequent updates and cumulations. To our dismay we discovered that two separate work units, one responsible for serials and the other for monographs, were contacting a publisher about the same electronic title. In its print form we had handled it as a monograph, but on disk its character was more that of a serial.
Late in 1994 a series of meetings was held to draw up procedures in relation to the acquisition of serial and monographic electronic publications in physical format. Staff from both units worked together to ensure uniformity of approach and minimisation of duplication of effort. The guiding principle was that voluntary deposit of titles would be sought first and only if that were not forthcoming would purchase of selected titles be considered.
A 'Policy on the Use of Australian CD-ROMs Acquired by Deposit' was drawn up. (This has recently been expanded to include other electronic formats as well.) It was developed in the recognition that producers would have some concerns about the use of deposited titles in the National Library, and about the potential for impact on commercial returns. It limits strictly the use which the Library may make of the title to protect the interests of the producer and undertakes to enter into written agreements with depositors. Copies are available from the Legal Deposit Unit, Australian Acquisitions, tel. (02) 6262 1312. The text is also accessible via the World Wide Web server at http:/www/nla.gov.au/policy/cdrom.html
With a covering letter pointing out the advantages of voluntary deposit of electronic titles, the policy was sent out initially to about 20 producers. The response was sufficiently favourable for us to decide to routinely send the letter and policy to new producers as we identify them through regular scanning of selection sources.
Response to date has been varied. Six producers have agreed to deposit their products and of these two, Butterworths and INFORMIT, are regularly sending us titles and updates. A number of others have donated individual titles, without necessarily agreeing to deposit all future titles. One has agreed to sell us titles at half price. A few have indicated unwillingness on the basis of cost.
There is more work to be done. We have recently drafted an agreement to formalise the arrangement with depositing producers, and this is currently being checked by the Attorney General's Department. There are many more producers to contact. Until electronic publications are covered by the Copyright Act, acquiring even a representative sample of the Australian output will be labour intensive and time consuming.
It is hoped that both new and traditional publishers will increasingly see the advantages of voluntary deposit and cooperate with the Library in making titles available. Those received by the Library are catalogued onto the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) and the entries are published in the Australian National Bibliography. Producers will gain from increased public awareness of their new products and from providing researchers with the opportunity to evaluate them.
For any additional information, please contact:
Margaret Phillips
Manager, Acquisitions
Telephone: (02) 6262 1140
E-mail: Margaret Phillips
Following the 3rd National Roundtable on Libraries and Asia on 16 February 1995, a Reference Group has been established to follow up and monitor the resolutions.
Reference Group members are:
The Reference Group has a variety of members from different interest groups and represents a spread of geographical locations and, through the involvement of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, Australian academics and researchers on Asia.
Earlier reports of the meeting on 16 February were given in Gateways no. 14 (March 1995) and no. 15 (May 1995).
Programs, brochures, invitations, press releases-all the printed ephemera associated with the performing arts in Australia-form the basis of the National Library's PROMPT collection. (PROMPT is a convenient name borrowed from backstage parlance as well as being a loose acronym for 'performing arts programs and ephemera'.) The PROMPT collection is a large one comprising an estimated
30,000 individual ephemeral items. As stated in the Australian Collection Development Policy
'Performing arts material...is... collected in sufficient depth to give a broad, representative coverage of the history of Australian theatre and allied performing arts.' The collection is being actively developed through acquisitions of current and retrospective materials.
Material is held from the middle of the 19th century through to the current theatre scene. In general, material from amateur theatre companies is not collected except where the company has been historically important in the growth of Australian theatre-for example, the Independent Theatre in Sydney, the Melbourne Little Theatre or the Gregan McMahon Players.
The collection includes a large component of J.C. Williamson material, reflects strengths in ballet and dance companies, and contains material relating to Australian artists performing overseas. With the latter, a concerted effort is made to track down overseas festivals featuring Australian performers or performances of Australian works.
Documenting the careers of well-known Australians abroad, regardless of period, is another goal. Attention is also paid to complementing holdings for key figures located in other areas of the Library. For example, Sir Robert Helpmann's scrapbooks are held in the Manuscripts section while a large file of programs reflecting the multiple talents of Helpmann are gathered together in the PROMPT collection .
The PROMPT collection has been accumulating over many years but has not been accorded a great deal of control or attention. This is a common fate of most large collections of printed ephemera in research libraries. However, in recent years staff resources in the Australian Collection Development Unit have been applied to organising, weeding and controlling the collection which is arranged in one alphabetical sequence, with material generally filed by name (individual performer, company, festival, special event), or by title for touring productions.
This has culminated in the start of a project to add records for each PROMPT file on to the Library's online public access catalogue (OPAC) using the short bibliographical entry format of the Dynix system. Entries are based on the name or title of each file, with examples created to date including Lost in Yonkers, London Symphony Orchestra tours, and ephemera on Jeanne Little and Robyn Archer. While this information is currently available only through the Library's catalogue, it would be possible to provide access to the file on NDIS once redevelopment supports non-MARC databases.
The National Library's opac, Janus, can be accessed via the Internet through the National Library's home page. The PROMPT collection is available for use in the Petherick Reading Room on the Ground Floor of the Library but is not available on interlibrary loan.
For any queries regarding the PROMPT collection and its control, please contact:
Richard Stone
Manager, Australian Collection Development
Telephone: (02) 6262 1306
E-mail: rstone@nla.gov.au
Charges for new users of the Australian National CJK System for 1995-96 have now been determined. New users will be charged either as full members or as search and holdings users. Libraries wishing to purchase copy cataloguing are required to join at the full membership level, regardless of whether they intend to contribute original cataloguing to the CJK System. The search and holdings users' category includes users who just wish to search the database, or search and add their holdings to the CJK System.
The charges consist of a joining fee and a usage fee. The usage fee is all inclusive. There are no additional charges per command, or per minute, or per MARC record supplied.
The joining fee for new members is a special introductory offer. It reflects the charges which the CJK System is required to pay to Innovative Interfaces, the software supplier, for each new full member, and is likely to increase from July 1996.
Joining base fee:
0-5000 CJK titles at time of joining $A150 5001-15000 CJK titles $A600 15000+CJK titles $A1,600 Plus, per port (concurrent sessions) required $A300 Plus, if MASS is required, per port $A920 Usage: Per port per month $A120
Joining fee Per user (= password) $A100 Usage fee Per user ( = password) per month $A45
Course length Out of Canberra In Canberra 1 day $A185 $A70 2 days $A310 $A115 3 days $A430 $A160
Minimum of four persons per course
The CJK System is scheduled to become available in the last quarter of 1995, and registration forms for new users will be available from October.
For information, contact:
Linda Groom
National CJK Project
Manager
Telephone: 06 262 1246
Toll free (within Australia): 1 800
026 155
Facsimile: 06 273 1180
E-mail: Linda Groom
Graeme Powell, the National Library's Manuscript Librarian, recently spent four weeks travelling in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. One of the purposes of the journey was to look at the policies and practices of libraries and other cultural institutions in collecting records relating to indigenous peoples and in providing services to indigenous communities and individuals. Shortly after his return Mr Powell attended the first Roundtable on Library and Archives Collections and Services of Relevance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, which was organised by the State Library of South Australia.
While there are enormous cultural and political differences between the countries visited, there are also common trends which are having a major impact on libraries, archives and museums. In each of the three countries, as in Australia, there has been, in the last 20 or 30 years, an extraordinary growth of political and cultural assertiveness and self-expression by indigenous peoples. In particular, there has been an intense preoccupation with establishing family and kinship links, with reclaiming ownership of land, and with protecting cultural and spiritual heritage.
These concerns affect cultural institutions in different ways. National museums which have huge collections of native artefacts are now in constant contact with indigenous communities seeking to reach agreement over questions of access, display, ownership and repatriation. National archives have less contact with aboriginal communities, but as the custodians of the largest accumulations of written records-including treaties, land records and censuses-they are attracting large numbers of aboriginal users seeking evidence for land claims or trying to establish their membership of Indian bands or Maori iwis. National libraries have a less defined role. While their holdings relating to indigenous peoples are extensive, they are far less concentrated. National libraries attract academic researchers in the field of aboriginal studies, but the libraries have not identified aborigines as a major user group and staff have seldom had any first-hand experience of helping aboriginal researchers. The National Library of New Zealand is an exception. With a relatively large number of Maori staff and committed to a national bicultural policy, it has gone a long way in making its Maori holdings more accessible and its building a more welcoming place for Maori users, as well as bringing the services of the library to communities living not only in Wellington but in all parts of the country.
The 30 representatives from libraries, archives and other institutions who attended the Roundtable in Adelaide discussed some of these issues. While it only touched on the subject of cooperative collection building, it devoted a good deal of attention to the need to make existing collections more accessible to Australian Aboriginal users by means of indexing and copying projects and by training reference staff in cross-cultural awareness. It also looked at such questions as the creation of a database recording secret and sacred published works, the compilation of an Aboriginal thesaurus, and the recruitment and training of Aboriginal librarians and archivists. Much of the discussion centred on the Aboriginal Protocols for Libraries and Archives which were initiated in 1994 by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Library Resource Network (ATSILRN). It was resolved that each library and archives should be urged to endorse the protocols and report regularly on progress made in implementing them.
What does the National Library's reduction in overseas collecting mean?
Essentially it means that the National Library will be putting into practice the significant shift in collecting from overseas that was outlined in the Library's Strategic Plan 1993-98, Service to the Nation, Access to the Globe (Canberra, 1994). The Library will be receiving far fewer monographs and serials from overseas countries outside the Asia-Pacific region, and will reduce its overseas collecting by around 60 per cent.
What kinds of materials will the Library no longer collect?
The Library is cancelling the supply of many commercially available books and serials published overseas, and closing many exchange arrangements, particularly those for countries (excluding Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States) outside the Asia-Pacific region.
The Library will no longer receive, for example:
What will the National Library be collecting from overseas?
The National Library will continue to get a range of materials published overseas including the following:
In addition to these areas, a basic collection of library material will be maintained in the following fields where these are of national or international significance:
General developments in politics and economics, policy, and/or economic resources-oriented literature of the following broad topics: education, environment, energy, science, technology, public health, including works on aspects of planning, development, ethics, evaluation, and the issues of the provision of appropriate physical and human infrastructure
Social reform, multiculturalism, race relations, human and minority rights, religious and intellectual freedom, reflections of social issues in the arts, general description and evaluation of popular culture and its impact, descriptions of new cultural movements and new methods of cultural analysis.
Collecting in these areas will include biographical works on major figures, historical descriptions of major movements, international comparative studies, analyses and forecasts of the future as well as studies of the interdependence of political, economic, social and cultural issues. The collection will include a core selection of serials, and is unlikely to contain many non-English language titles.
These areas of collecting, together with a comprehensive collection of Australian materials, will comprise the National Library's major contribution to the Distributed National Collection.
Will Australian libraries be notified of the serial titles cancelled?
Yes. Australian libraries will be notified through postings to the DNC list and through print sources.
Are overseas newspapers to be included in the cancellations?
Not at this stage. The Library plans to look at its collection of overseas newspaper titles in the context of collecting by other Australian libraries, and taking into account access by electronic means.
Is the National Library ensuring that a title is not the last Australian location before cancelling?
No. Cancellation is taking place regardless of whether the title is the only known Australian location. The Library believes that most titles to be cancelled are either widely held or very low use.
Will there be any disposal of the Library's existing collection in view of the change of direction in collecting?
Emphatically not. The Library will be maintaining and providing service from the overseas materials which it holds.
How will the reduction in overseas collecting affect document supply in Australia?
The National Library will become less likely to hold some categories of currently published overseas material, and other Australian academic libraries may experience a rise in interlibrary loan demand. The National Library will, however, continue to make available the wide range of older overseas titles held in its collections. If the Library is required to supply material from elsewhere (e.g. through the UnCover service) there may be a charge. Details of this will be announced at a later date.
Will this reduction in overseas collecting change the services offered in the reading rooms?
Not substantially. The Library will continue to provide access to printed materials in the collections and to electronic sources in its reading rooms. There will be increasing reliance on electronic sources of information, sometimes at direct cost to users, and in some cases referral to other libraries may be appropriate.
Rarities acquired recently include eight silk, single-sheet programs for events in Brisbane and Sydney between the years 1860 and 1880. The programs include those for benefits, inaugurations and galas, as well as one for the 1880 International Exhibition in Sydney. In a similar vein, 30 invitations and menus produced by the Melbourne printing firm of Osboldstone for events between 1916 and 1935 have also been acquired. This small collection is an example of the output of a fine printer, and covers such events as Mayoral occasions, Melbourne Cup dinners and testimonials, as well as annual events of print trade associations.
Children's books also feature. Jonaksi Takuma was a Japanese artist who settled in Sydney at the end of the 19th century. He specialised in designing for greeting cards and postcards, and in producing carved emu eggs. In 1897 he published an illustrated novelty book for children in the shape of an emu egg, Kookaburra. The Laughing Jackass and the Black Snake.The copy acquired by the library is in pristine condition. Only one other copy is recorded in Australia. Zwischen zwei Feinden(Between two enemies) by Franz Pistorius is a 60-page adventure story for children published in Germany about 1870. Set in Van Diemen's Land in the 1860s, apparently on board a ship, or hulk, in the Derwent River, this curiosity has a vividly-coloured cover depicting a confrontation between the Captain and an elaborately-plumed native with a boomerang in his belt. This appears to be a very rare holding in Australia, and was acquired as a result of a Library officer attending the Sydney Rare Book Fair.
Gen. Tom Thumb's Three Years' Tour around the World...(New York, 1872) includes a substantial account of the visit by the Lilliputian Quartette of Midgets to Australia, under the auspices of the famous P.T. Barnum. There is no other copy of this recorded in Australia.
The development of the Library's Australian music collection continues to focus on acquiring rare items from the 19th century as well as popular sheet music from the 20th century. Although some members of the antiquarian book trade deal in music to a small degree, the number of music specialists is very limited. Da Capo Music in Sydney is the leading antiquarian music dealer, and it is due to their assiduous searching that the Library acquired a collection of 12 pieces of music published by Frederick Ellard. Ellard, an Irishman, was active in Sydney in the 1830s and 1840s, ran the Musical Repository and then the Music Saloon. He published pianoforte pieces of European composers in popular forms such as quadrilles. One rare item acquired is the Paget Quadrilleswritten by Stephen Marsh on board the Sir Edward Paget, the ship which also brought Ludwig Leichhardt to Sydney. Marsh and Leichhardt were acquainted, and Marsh later composed The Traveller's Return and Dr. Leichhardt's March in honour of Leichhardt's successful exploration (both also held in the music collection), as well as a dirge for the lost explorer.
Work is drawing to a close on the National Library's Collection Development Policy for Australian Materials. Although one or two areas of the policy require further definition and elaboration, the policy is almost finalised, and can be found on the National Library's World Wide Web Server at http://www.nla.gov.au/policy/cdp/cdpint.html.
Collection development policy is now being formulated for the Library's overseas materials. During May, a Statement on Future Collecting Directions was issued. This document is available at http://www.nla.gov.au/policy/future.html.During 1995 and 1996 the Library will revise and update its collection development policy documents to reflect the new directions in collecting from overseas.
The first areas which will receive attention include collecting from the Asian and Pacific region, collecting of maps, and collecting of government publications which the Library will continue to receive from some overseas countries. The National Library's World Wide Web server will be used to mount both draft and final documents detailing the new policies.
Photographer: Lynkushka Portrait of Karen Cooke ca 1989
silver gelatin National Library of Australia
Kaz Cooke, Australian satirist and cartoonist, is one of the many well-known Australians being displayed in the newest National Portrait Gallery exhibition, 'In the Picture: Creative Australians from the National Library's Portrait Collection'. The National Library holds a rich collection of portraits of Australians who have starred in Australia's cultural life. This exhibition includes some of those artists, singers, dancers, film directors, actors, choreographers and writers-in paintings, photographs and sculpture. The exhibition runs until 16 January 1996 at Old Parliament House, Canberra.
![[Photo]](./langman.gif)
Dawn Langman, recited the poetry of Judith Wright at a celebration on 31 May 1995 to mark the 80th birthday of Australia's greatest living poet.
Senator Cheryl Kernot, who has a lifelong interest in Judith Wright's work, spoke at the function which was held by the Friends of the National Library in the Library's theatre.
Walter Burley Griffin: Landscape Architect by Peter
Harrison
'Prophet without honour' is the epithet Peter Harrison uses to characterise Walter Burley Griffin. Interest in, and respect for, the work of American-born Griffin now exceeds anything he knew in his own lifetime. Reaching a pinnacle with the winning entry in the international design competition for Canberra in 1912, Griffin's career, intertwined with that of his wife and partner, Marion Mahony, spanned three continents and embraced diverse architectural and site planning projects. The partnership produced some of the most visually arresting and important landscapes and buildings of the twentieth century.
Peter Harrison documents Griffin's life and work, and his struggles with authority and disbelievers, in a critical, yet sympathetic way. Griffin is shown to be an inspired designer but flawed manager, a brilliant ideas man but a writer of 'tortured prose', and a passionate defender of individual liberties. Many of his guiding principles concerning planning, land use and conservation of the natural environment are now seen to be a generation ahead of their time.
An authoritative, yet readable treatment of one of the twentieth century's foremost architects and planners, this fascinating book complements the current National Library exhibition 'An Ideal City? The 1912 Competition to Design Canberra', which will be open until 8 October 1995 in the Library's Ground Floor Exhibition Gallery.
ISBN 0 642 10644 4, pbk., $A24.95
ISBN 0 642 10645 2, 120 pp.,
hard cover, $A34.95
To place an order, please contact:
Sales and Distribution
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
Telephone: (02) 6262
1646
Facsimile: (02) 6273 1084
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