
ISSN 1443-0568
No. 24
November 1996
Contents
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In these days of rapidly changing technologies, with large volumes of data able to be stored on a disc which will sit in the palm of your hand, and increasing amounts of information which resides on networks, it seems curiously old fashioned to be talking about storage space for library collections. And yet, notwithstanding the range of information which is increasingly provided from electronic sources of one sort or another, there is still an enormous amount of information which is being published in print. As well, there are still many photographs, paintings, and manuscripts to collect and while digital copies may well be made of these collections in order to make access to them easier, the original items, often unique and of great value, will still be retained, requiring storage space both for the original item and its digital copy.
At the National Library, collection storage space has been running out for some time and the ability to store material, both within the library building and at the warehouse at Hume, has been increasingly limited. While a number of interim measures were put into place to stave off the inevitable time when space runs out completely and collections have to be stored on the floor, there are now no further available options but to move more of the Library's collections offsite.
The library has embarked on a major logistical exercise which will involve moving around 800 000 volumes of overseas collections to a second leased warehouse. In addition, there will be a re-arrangement of stock within the building so that collections which have been stored out of sequence because of space limitations can be brought together again.
Planning has been in progress for some time but the actual implementation of recommendations has only just commenced and will take around a year to complete. A steering committee consisting of Building Services and Collection Management & Retrieval Service staff has been formed to oversee the exercise which involves working out building and equipment specifications, overseeing the tender process, planning and organising moves of the collections, ensuring National Library staff are kept informed of progress, and minimising inconvenience to users.
As the requirements for space are so large it is anticipated that the second warehouse will probably need to be purpose built. At this stage we have only just advertised for invitations to tender, so details of the location of the second warehouse are still unknown. Implementing this storage strategy is a substantial undertaking and will take some time to complete, causing some disruption to service and a large amount of staff time and effort. But by the time the second warehouse is occupied and all onsite book moves completed, the National Library will have achieved three key objectives:
Progress reports on the storage strategy will appear in later issues of
Gateways.
Electronic publishing is providing a challenge to writers and publishers
as they attempt to take advantage of this new medium to express and communicate
ideas. It is also providing a challenge to libraries and other information
services as they tussle with the need to provide access to electronic books,
newspapers and multimedia now and in the future.
The National Library of Australia has taken a lead in preparing a
discussion paper National Strategy for Provision of Access to Australian
Electronic Publications. The purpose of the paper is to initiate debate on
the many issues raised by electronic publishing, in particular guaranteeing
current and longer-term access, and to invite comment which may lead to a
collaborative approach to the many challenges presented by the new media. The
library is committed to the view that collaboration is essential. It does not,
however, have preconceived ideas as to how collaboration is best achieved, and
seeks the ideas of others to help take forward this process.
The last three years have seen an extraordinary growth in the amount of
electronic publishing and networked information potentially available for
access by libraries. Electronic publications can be found in stand-alone media,
such as CD-ROM, but increasingly they are found on the Internet, where there
are now nearly 1,000 Australian electronic journals, not to mention many other
types of publication. This emerging form will never completely displace
traditional paper-based publishing, but it is becoming an increasingly
important part of library services.
While the main thrust of this paper is towards safe-guarding our
cultural heritage for posterity, this issue cannot be addressed in isolation.
There are other significant issues which need attention: legal deposit; access
conditions, including copyright and fair dealing; resource discovery;
development of technical and descriptive standards; and the organisation of
virtual resources. The National Library regards it as essential that creators,
publishers and collectors of electronic publications should all be included in
considering issues of long-term access and conditions covering access.
At this stage there are no specific proposals for national mechanisms to
ensure that Australian electronic publications are available for posterity. The
National Library will develop proposals in the light of responses to this
paper.
Copies of the paper can e obtained from the library's server at URL
http://www.nla.gov.au/policy/paep.html, or from
Margaret Henty, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2600.
During the period September 1995 to September 1996 the National Library
of Australia issued a proposal for the revision of its collecting policy for
overseas newspapers. This proposal was initiated because the overseas newspaper
collection had not been examined for some time, and was in need of review to
determine whether the range and variety of titles received were of the desired
quality, and whether they were relevant to the library's current priorities in
overseas collecting.
During this period of public consultation, a number of responses were
received from libraries and individuals. In redrafting the policy, these
comments were taken into consideration and the suggestions made were largely
incorporated into the lists.
The acquisitions intention for the overseas newspaper collection is to
maintain strong collections of newspaper titles for the countries of South-East
Asia, East Asia, South Asia and the Pacific Islands. For other parts of the
world a representative collection is envisaged. All selections will be based on
the following selection criteria:
Quality. Newspaper titles chosen are those giving the most comprehensive
and authoritative coverage of inter-national or national news events, and
providing the most influential and respected editorial commentaries.
Subject focus. Titles selected are those which focus on politics and
economics, as well as social and cultural issues of international and national
significance.
Relevance to the library's priority collecting areas. Overseas
newspapers from areas where the library maintains research or near-research
level collections are collected in depth. For example, a large selection of
newspapers in English and vernacular languages is collected from East Asia,
South-East Asia and the Pacific Islands. A selection of major English language
newspapers is acquired from South Asia. For these areas, an attempt is made to
provide a balance of political viewpoints among the titles selected.
For North America, Europe, Africa and Latin America a smaller but representative collection of the world newspaper press is sought based on quality, subject focus, and research value. These titles may be in English or other languages.
Although it will provide access for its onsite users, the library will not at this stage rely on electronic newspapers for a variety of reasons. The archiving of electronic newspapers is presently inadequate, and microfilm is still the preferred format for preservation. Many electronic newspapers give far from total coverage, and features such as illustrations, diagrams and advertising material, all of which are of value to the researcher, are not generally available.
The National Library's revised overseas newspaper collection will consist of 232 titles in a selection of formats (airmail editions, print, microform, CD-ROM). The total comprises 225 currently received titles, with an additional seven recommended for subscription. Titles to be cancelled number 58.
Those without Internet access who would like a copy of the list should
contact Margaret Henty, senior manager Collection Development Policy, on (02)
6262 1157 or fax (02) 6257 1703.
Senator Margaret Reid presents Tom McCollough with a grant for the Australian Red Cross Victoria Archive.
Representatives of 24 community heritage organisations were presented with Community Heritage Grants Awards by the President of the Senate, Margaret Reid, at a ceremony at the National Library on 8 November.
The Community Heritage Grants Program, which is administered by the National Library's National Preservation Office, provides the awards, each worth up to $5,000, to assist in the preservation of material judged to be of national significance.
This year's recipients will join over 40 communities around
Australia who have already benefited from funds provided by what is Australia's
leading grassroots documentary preservation program. This represents a total
grant pool of $190 000 since the program's inception in 1994. Every State, and
the Northern Territory, is represented among the successful applicants which
include the:
The Community Heritage Grants Program grew out of the recognition that action is required to ensure that Australians will know how earlier generations lived and worked, why political decisions were made and what the feelings, thoughts and interests of the people were. Many of the valuable documents which record the nation's heritage are threatened by the effects of age, light, dust, humidity and insects. The program enables many libraries, heritage organisations and historical and genealogical societies which lack the funds, equipment and expertise, to preserve their collections properly, within their own communities.
Robert Dessaix presents TDK awards
After extolling the delight of being read to and praising the art of intelligent listening, well-known broadcaster and writer, Robert Dessaix, presented this year's TDK awards at an evening reception at Old Parliament House on 12 November.
Established in 1988, the TDK Australian Audio Book Award is administered by the National Library of Australia and is the only award in Australia open to commercial producers and publishers of books in audio format. By rewarding the producers of audio books for technical excellence, the TDK award has done much to improve the standard of audio book production in Australia.
This year's overall winner and winner of unabridged fiction
was the Royal Blind Society for its production of Tim Winton's famous novel,
The Riders, narrated by Geoff Cartwright.
Tim Winton couldn't be more delighted to see his books having a fresh life in another form. He said,
'Any means of making books more accessible to people are a cause for celebration. Any barrier that can be scrambled across should be used and audio books constitute something better than a mere scrambling. They are an elegant and dignified border crossing. For the sight-impaired, the long distance driver or the bone lazy booklover who has never cast off the childhood pleasure of being read to, they are a terrific alternative means of having literature in your life.'
The leader of the judging panel, Lisa Barrenger, estimated that over 200 hours had been spent listening to and evaluating the entries in all categories-'And that's an awful lot of batteries for a Walkman'.
The Trish Trinick Prize for the best-selling audio book in Australia went to Reed for Kids for their children's audio book, Pocohontas. Other winners were:
Abridged fiction. ABC Enterprises for Foxspell by Gillian Rubenstein, narrated by Heather Steen.
Unabridged Non-Fiction: Louis Braille Books for Home Before Dark by Ruth Park and Rafe Campion, narrated by Peter Hosking.
Abridged Non-Fiction: Information Alternatives for Kitchen Capers by Australian Women's Weekly, narrated by Victoria Howell.
Special award for an audio book of outstanding quality aimed at a younger market: Bolindo Books for That Eye, the Sky by Tim Winton, narrated by Stig Wemyss.
Special commendation for an outstanding non-winning entry: Redfern Legal Centre Publishing, for Surviving Rape: A Handbook about Rape for Survivors, Family, Friends and Workers by the Sydney Rape Crisis Centre, narrated by Jenny Vuletic.
![[Bolinda Audio Books]](./p05i02.jpg)
The Director-General of the National Library, Mr Warren Horton, has announced the names of the five Harold White Fellows for 1997. They are: the Australian composer Graham Hair; Elizabeth Lawson from the English Department at the Australian Defence Force Academy; Dr David Lowe from Deakin University in Geelong; anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere and Dr Barry York, a freelance scholar and writer.
Graham Hair will be studying the life and work of Don Banks and preparing a guide to the Banks Collection. Banks died in 1980 and left a huge collection of printed and manuscript scores, personal papers, and sound recordings, which are now in the library. Graham Hair, who knew and worked with Banks, has been Professor of Music at the University of Glasgow since 1990.
Elizabeth Lawson, will be the curator of an exhibition in 1998 entitled 'Birds and the Australian Imagination'. As a Harold White Fellow, Dr Lawson will be surveying and selecting works in the library's book, pictorial and manuscript collections and studying their provenance and historical and social contexts.
David Lowe is writing a biography of Sir Percy Spender, the federal politician, Minister for External Affairs, Ambassador to the United States, and Justice of the International Court of Justice.The library holds the papers of Spender, as well as the papers and oral histories of some of Spender's associates, such as Sir Robert Menzies, Lord Casey and Sir Paul Hasluck.
Gananath Obeyesekere from Princeton University will be studying 'cannibal talk', the practice and discourse of anthropology and anthropophagy in Polynesia in the 18th and 19th century. Although most of his writings have been about Buddhism and Sri Lankan society, it has been his recent publications on Pacific history, especially The Apotheosis of Captain Cook, that have aroused world-wide controversy and discussion among anthropologists. Professor Obeyesekere will be able to draw on the library's extensive Pacific holdings, especially those in the Nan Kivell Collection.
Barry York, who is now a freelance researcher, will look at the life of the American professional wrestler Big Chief Little Wolf, who was a household name in Australia in the 1940s and early 1950s. This will be part of a larger study of professional wrestling in the pre-television age, a sport which was extremely popular but had marginal status, and which attracted strong participation by non-Anglo communities. Dr York has collected many written reminiscences of Big Chief Little Wolf and he will be making heavy use of newspapers and personal papers relating to wrestling and boxing.
The fellowships will enable the scholars to spend from three to six months working on the library's collections. During this time they will enjoy a number of privileges, such as access to the library outside normal hours and the use of the Fellows Room. In return, they will take part in seminars and other library activities, talk to staff about their research and give public lectures.
With the increasing popularity of the World Wide Web, the National Library has recognised that many customers will prefer to access the WORLD 1 Service via a Web interface. This method of access will be very convenient and mobile, appealing particularly to people whose highest priority is fast access to information. Developing the look and feel of the Web interface has been one of the key priorities of the NDIS Project during October.
A Web design consultant has been engaged to help ensure that the interface:
Just as important as WORLD 1's access and use characteristics will be what goes on behind the scenes to support customers of the service.
The 'Manager' module will be used by WORLD 1 staff to provide responsive and accurate service to customers. Areas covered include the registration of users, the recording of customer activity and the broadcasting of online announcements. Another important function of the 'Manager' module is support for user-defined defaults such as instructing the system to deliver search results by email always, rather than fax to a specified user.
The 'Manager' module has now been completed to a stage where staff from the National Libraries of Australia and New Zealand can test to ensure that all requirements have been met. During testing, teams from the libraries challenge the system with a set of specifications and scenarios to ensure that optimum service will be available for customers.
National Library and NDIS Project representative, Lesley Bezear, attended the Z39.50 Implementors Group (ZIG) meeting in Brussels during October. Lesley presented the NDIS Project's proposal for adapting the Z39.50 communicat-ions standard to support cataloguing workflows, including the update of both local catalogues and the National Bibliographic Database, and checks of authority files (see article this page).
In preparation for the development of the future interlibrary loan service, NDIS Project and WORLD 1 staff have been gathering information about ILL products and investigating best practice for ILL. NDIS Project representative, Bronwyn Lee, accompanied by Judith Greenaway, project manager of the CILLA Project, and Kerry Blinco, project manager of the Joint Electronic Document Delivery Software (JEDDS) Project, attended the LITA (Library and Information Technology Association) and LAMA (Library Administration and Management Association) Joint National Conference in Washington, from 14-16 October. They also attended the ILL Protocol Implementors Group meeting on 11 October, which was co-ordinated by Mary E. Jackson, of the North American Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery (NAILDD) Project.
The National Library's network services will be featured at the trade exhibition held in conjunction with the Information Online & On Disc '97 Conference. National Library staff will present the latest information about new services such as Supply 1, ABN MARC*LINK and Images 1. Demonstrations and information about ABN, Ozline and UnCover Australia will also be available. There will be an exhibition and sale of National Library publications as well.
Please visit us at stands 5 & 6, Banquet Hall, Sydney Convention Centre, Darling Harbour. The exhibition will be open during the following hours:
Tuesday 21 January - 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Wednesday 22 January - 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Thursday 23 January - 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
If would like to visit the trade exhibition but are not attending the conference, WORLD 1 Marketing has a limited number of free trade exhibition passes. For your pass please contact us on fax: (02) 6273 1180 or email market@nla.gov.au
Z39.50 meeting, Brussels The Z39.50 Implementors Group meeting in Brussels from 1-4 October was attended by approximately 100 people from a variety of institutions interested in information retrieval. Represent-ation was from the United States/Canada, Europe, and Australia.
All delegates had the common purpose of implementing the Z39.50 standard. There was a range of presentations on specific implementations and profiles, and extensive discussion of technical issues. The main concerns of the meeting were progress on implementation of Z39.50, particularly version 3 implement-ations; interoperability issues and testing; profiles for specific types of implementation; and the future evolution of the standard.
Lesley Bezear from the National Library of Australia was the NDIS Project's representative. Her objectives for attending the meeting were twofold:
Lesley was supported in her presentation by Jan Gatenby, a representative of Stowe and a member of IT/19.
The cataloguing profile was well received and generated some valuable discussion and suggestions for improvements which should ensure its wide applicability. There was general interest in the profile from a number of institutions and, in particular, a willingness to cooperate in its further development and refinement, and subsequently, implementation.
Options considered were:
Another significant issue that generated discussion was the viability of updating databases on multiple targets and how the origin (Client) would manage error conditions where the update transaction failed on one or more of the target servers.
The discussions also foreshadowed the need for some changes (although not significant) to the Z30.50 Update Extended Service, to accommodate the requirements for update as outlined in the profile. To date, there have been very few implementations of the Extended Service for Update and any changes highlighted by the profile could be used to enhance the standard, or to address any defects, without having a significant impact on current implementations.
Over the next few months there will be further online discussion (via list) of issues relating to the cataloguing profile presented at the Z39.50 Implementors Group workshop. Based on the outcomes of the discussions, the profile will be progressively amended and a final version will be presented to the next ZIG meeting for formal approval.
Further information about the meeting and about Z39.50 are available on the Z39.50 Maintenance Agency Web page at: http//lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/. The profile is available on the National Library of Australia's information server at: http://www.nla.gov.au/2/NDIS/devproject.html and can also be accessed via the Z39.50 Maintenance Agency page.
The Australian Literary Periodicals (ALIP) database had a remarkably long gestation. Compilation began in 1970, as part of a project organised by the Commonwealth Institute in London to produce a checklist of both current and retrospective Commonwealth literary periodicals. An interim Australian checklist was produced in 1971 and circulated among State and university libraries, most of which made additions and alterations. It was then decided to expand the listing by including not only the standard bibliographical details that could be found in catalogues but also details of editors and main contributors.
This was an ambitious undertaking, as it meant that every issue of every periodical had to be examined. Some periodicals, such as Lone Hand or Meanjin, had been published for decades, while many others had been limited to two or three issues. There was often great difficulty in establishing exactly how many issues had been published and a number of visits had to be made to other libraries to examine material not held in the National Library. Meanwhile, as work steadily progressed, more and more new titles were appearing. They tended to be produced very cheaply, had exotic titles such as Your Friendly Fascist and Nude Dodo, and were often ephemeral in the extreme. The compilers eventually decided that any periodicals appearing after 1975 would be excluded. By 1979, when work was suspended, entries had been produced on cards for about 400 periodicals.
The cards were used from time to time by literary
historians who visited the library, but the existence of the database was not
widely known. In 1993 it was decided that further work should be done on the
bibliography with a view to making it far more widely accessible. Two former
staff members, Kay Walsh and Carmel McInerny, were engaged, with the assistance
of a grant from the Towards Federation High Priority Cross Sectoral Group. They
worked in the book stacks and on their PCs and in December 1994 completed the
task that had begun 24 years earlier. The library subsequently decided that,
rather than issue the bibliography as a bulky publication, for which there
would be a limited market, it would be more useful if the database was made
accessible through Ozline.
The ALIP database contains information about 447 periodicals published in Australia between 1821 and 1975. 'Literary' was interpreted broadly and a number of general periodicals were included on the grounds that they regularly published poetry, short stories and essays. The entries in ALIP show changes of title, subtitles, publishing history, changes of editor, frequency of issue, variations in date and numbering, and other details which are absent from ABN and other cataloguing records. The most distinctive feature of the database is the inclusion of about 20 000 contributors. It is necessarily a selective listing and with major, long-running journals difficult decisions had to be made as to which contributors to include or exclude. Nevertheless, it greatly enhances the value of the bibliography, as it enables researchers to gauge immediately the nature and standing of a particular title. Moreover, it means the database is an extraordinary biographical source, revealing little-known works by leading Australian writers as well as the output of a vast range of lesser-known writers.
The National Library of Australia is considering the establishment of an agency for the allocation of International Standard Music Numbers (ISMNs) in Australia. In order to gauge the level of interest in the use of ISMNs in Australia, the National Library recently surveyed a number of Australian music publishers to ascertain their views.
ISMNs, like the more familiar ISBNs, are unique numbers assigned to printed publications. They allow for fast identification of individual items, can be used in standard and tele-ordering systems, support bar coding and electronic point-of-sale technology, and allow a variety of computer applications. A sample ISMN would look as follows:
ISMN M 34 524680 5.
International Standard Music Numbers (ISMNs) are limited to printed music publications-for example, scores, miniature (study) scores, vocal scores, sets of parts, individual parts when available separately, pop folios, anthologies, multi-media when printed music is part of the kit, song texts or lyrics when published with the music, song books, microform music publications, braille music publications, and electronic music publications.
To date, International Standard Music Numbers have been introduced in 18 countries throughout the world, including Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Norway and Russia. Other countries such as the United Kingdom, Greece, Portugal and Sweden are ready to join, or are involved in discussions with the International ISMN Agency in Berlin.
Farewell to the
The last issue of the Australian National Bibliography will be the December 1996 volume. ANB has been produced by the National Library since 1961 and its predecessor, Books Published in Australia, appeared from 1946 to 1960.
In earlier times, the information in ANB consisted
solely of original cataloguing from the National Library of Australia. In 1993,
processing for ANB moved from the library's mainframe to a ProCite-based
system on a PC. Records were down-loaded from ABN (the Australian Bibliographic
Network) for items received in the National Library which fell within scope for
ANB. Contributed cataloguing was used, with acknowledg-ement, for items
received at the National Library which had already been catalogued onto ABN. In
1996, a further change meant a number of records in ANB were for items
not received by the National Library, but which were judged to be in scope for
ANB.
Over the years, selection librarians have made make regular use of ANB, and to minimise the disruption caused by the cessation of the biblio-graphy, records for recent Australian publications will be made available on the National Library's ftp server each month, until WORLD 1 is able to provide users with an efficient way of searching and retrieving those records. A circular giving information about the ftp service has already been sent to ANB subscribers. If anyone else would like this information, please contact Angela Brown, email: abrown@nla.gov.au or tel. (02) 6262 1163 or 1800 026155).
The Information Services Section of the National Library offers a telephone information service for users who cannot visit the library in person. We offer assistance with enquiries when a local/institutional/State library is unable to help a user locate facts, publishing details or holdings information about reference material. Unfortunately we can't help with quizzes, competitions, or school projects.
Please ask library customers to phone from 11 am to 9pm Monday to Thursday, 11 am to 5 pm Friday, 9 am to 5 pm Saturday and public holidays, and from 1.30 pm to 5 pm on Sunday, but 11 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday is the best time to call. If both our lines are busy readers should leave their name, number and the time, and we will return the call as soon as we can. Ready reference enquiries will be answered with a minimum of delay, but more complex enquiries may take several working days. While every effort is made to respond to enquiries quickly, guarantees can't be given.
Tel. (02) 6262 1266/1434; fax (02) 6273 5081; use the Online Information Enquiry form at http://www.nla.gov.au/services/rf_form.html
![[Teresa Giuca]](http://www.nla.gov.au/ntwkpubs/gw/24/p11i02.jpg)
Gift of Hungarian CD-ROMPresent-day Budapest can now to be found in the National Library's Main Reading Room thanks to a gift from the Hungarian Embassy.
Budapest CD is the title of a new multimedia CD-ROM which was
presented to the National Library on 12 September by Mr József Papp,
Counsellor of the Embassy of the Republic of Hungary. The CD covers the history
and sights of Budapest and includes 1000 photographs, 40 minutes of videofilm,
six hours of sound and 250 pages of text in four languages. It is a production
of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The presentation ceremony included an opportunity for Mr Papp to view the CD-ROM. It will be made available to library visitors on request in the Main Reading Room and will also be available for loan to other libraries through the National Library's Document Supply Service.
Since 1963, a number of periodicals have been chosen for comprehensive indexing in APAIS because of their importance in their fields. All articles, with the exception of articles less than one page in length, book reviews, notes and imaginative literature such as poetry or short stories, are indexed from these periodicals. The periodicals indexed comprehensively are listed in the front of each issue of APAIS. Periodical titles considered for inclusion or deletion from this list are reviewed each year. In 1997 the following additional periodical title will be comprehensively indexed:
Other changes to the list of comprehensively indexed APAIS periodicals
are as follows:
Periodicals which have ceased publication
Periodicals which have changed their titles:
For further information contact Gaye Gericke, senior indexing librarian, APAIS. Tel.: (02) 6262 1650 or email apais@nla.gov.au
The National Library's APAIS Section recently completed its annual review of APAIS Thesaurus terms. Altogether 18 new headings have been added to the APAIS Thesaurus and one deleted. This year many headings were created from several high-use Broadly Used For (BUF) terms. Broadly Used For terms have been withdrawn from the APAIS Thesaurus reference structure as a result of a changeover to a new thesaurus maintenance software package.
New Thesaurus headings
Birth defects
Casemix funding
Cinematography
Ecotourism
Endangered species
Enterprise bargaining
Environmental audit
Environmental impact studies
Euthanasia
Foreign debt
Internet
Lesbianism
Men and health
Playwrights
Sex discrimination in employment
Sustainable development
Total quality management
Vocational education and training
Thesaurus heading deletions
Deformities
For further information, contact Vera Dunn, Thesaurus librarian, APAIS. Tel. (02) 6262 1650 or email apais@nla.gov.au
APAIS Thesaurus: A List of Subject Terms Used in the Australian Public Affairs Information Service, 6th ed., Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1997. The price for the print version of this new edition is expected to be between $35 and $40 (postage included). Apply to:
Sales and Distribution, National Library of Australia, Canberra
ACT 2600. Tel. (02) 6262 1664. Also available on disc for $150.00.
Two of the resolutions passed at the Korean Collections Meeting held at the National Library of Australia in March 1996 were that:
Libraries attending this meeting assess their Korean vernacular collections using the Conspectus methodology, including information on their preservation commitments.
Libraries should use the Korean language code for recording their data and the scheme developed for Harvard-Yenching classification systems by the Australian DNC Office.
In the past, libraries with collections of oriental materials classified by Harvard-Yenching, rather than either the Library of Congress or Dewey classifications, have not been able to assess their collections using the Conspectus methodology or, susequently, to contribute this important information to the Australian Conspectus Database.
Now, as resolved at the Korean Collections Meeting, the DNC Office, in consultation with the National Library Asian Collections staff, the Universities of Sydney, Monash, Melbourne and the ANU, has developed a set of Harvard-Yenching Conspectus worksheets. We are pleased to announce that these are now available free of charge from the DNC Office, either in print or on disc (for libraries with the WLN Conspectus software).
Worksheets have been produced for all 10 Harvard-Yenching Divisions as listed below:
Chinese classics (HY no 100-999)
Philosophy and Religion (HY no 1000-1999)
Historical Sciences (HY no 2000-3999)
Social Sciences and Education (HY no 4000-4599; 4900-4999)
Politics and Law (HY no 4600-4899)
Language and Literature (HY no 5000-5999)
Fine and Recreative Arts (HY no 6000-6999)
Natural Sciences (HY no 7000-7999)
Agriculture and Technology (HY no 8000-8999)
Generalia and Bibliography (HY no 9000-9999)
For further information on Conspectus, the software and the Harvard-Yenching Conspectus divisions, please contact:
Rachel Jakimow
Australian Conspectus Manager
DNC Office
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia
Tel.: (02) 6262 1522
Fax: (02) 6257 1703
email: r.jakimow@nla.gov.au
![[Brian Toohey]](./p14i01.jpg)
Earlier this year the National Library purchased a portrait of Brian Toohey painted by the Australian artist Neil Moore, who now lives and works in Italy.
Born in Brisbane in 1944, Brian Toohey was the son of a primary school teacher. Because of his father's job, the family moved often, and Toohey's childhood was spent in various country towns in Queensland. He attended Queensland University, where he studied economics and politics and became involved with the Labor Party. He was a research officer for the Queensland Labor Party before moving to Canberra, where he worked with Labor frontbencher Lance Barnard in the run-up to the Whitlam election victory, and was a member of Barnard's staff when Barnard was first appointed a minister. As Barnard had a total of 14 ministries, Toohey had the opportunity to see government at work right across the board.
Although he enjoyed the excitement of working for the Labor Party while it was in power, Toohey decided to leave politics and to begin a new career in journalism. At the invitation of Max Walsh he joined the Financial Review. He served as a Washington correspondent for this newspaper, before becoming editor of the National Times for several years. He is currently a columnist for several Australian newspapers and a regular commentator for Radio National. He is also the author of several books, the most recent one being Tumbling Dice: The Story of Modern Economic Policy, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1994.
Neil Moore was a black and white artist at the National Times where he worked with Toohey. The portrait was not commissioned. Instead, the artist approached Mr Toohey and asked if he might paint him, with a view to entering the portrait in the Archibald Prize competition. Toohey has been described as having a 'crumpled, dogged, Irish look about him', but this portrait of him shows the influence on the artist of the Italian portrait painters of the Renaissance.
The portrait, which is likely to be shown in future exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, Old Parliament House, resides in the National Library's Council Room.
A two-volume collection of writings by Jean and Harold Williams has recently been published under the title West Meets East: The Foreign Experience of Japan. The publisher is Halstead Press of Sydney.
Australian businessman, collector and author Harold S. Williams (1898-1987) and his wife Jean spent most of their adult lives in Japan. Harold Williams built up an extensive library of books, manuscripts, pictures and other materials dealing particularly with foreigners in Japan. He later presented the Harold S.Williams Collection to the National Library of Australia as a gift, and established a trust in perpetuity for the development and maintenance of this collection. Jean Williams has also donated her own considerable holdings of Japanese and Chinese art books. Through her generosity, the library has been able to purchase further English and Japanese language publications for addition to the Harold S. Williams Collection.
West Meets East is a scholarly but lively account of the people and events involved in the foreign experience of Japan. Ranging from the 16th century to the 1980s, it covers first encounters, the development of the foreign settlements-particularly in Kobe and Yokohama-town and country life, and the changing face of Japan. The chapters have intriguing titles such as 'The Beginning of Biru [Beer] in Japan' and 'The Mystery of the Lady in the Bathtub'.
Of particular interest are pieces about the first Australian contacts with Japan, dating back to the days of convicts and whalers early in the 19th century. A number of adventurers from the Australian goldfields tried their luck in Japan in the 1860s. Henry Black, who was born in Adelaide but largely raised in Japan, became a professional Japanese storyteller. Antoine Fauchery, a Frenchman, went to the Victorian goldfields in 1852, worked as a photographer and wrote Letters from a Miner in Australia (1857), before moving to Japan.
![[Williams', Shioya, Japan]](./p14i02.jpg)
Australia's Timeless Gardens is a celebration of private gardening in Australia since 1788. More than 100 paintings, engravings, sketches and photographs from the collections of the National Library of Australia offer a pictorial tour through two centuries of the continent's gardening history.
Starting at Government House in Sydney, Judith Baskin and Trisha Dixon trace the evolution of Australian gardening styles, influences and traditions: from the formal to the idiosyncratic, the extravagant to the simple, from the designs of William Guilfoyle in the nineteenth century to Edna Walling's in the twentieth century.
Judith Baskin is a librarian who also became a garden writer and heritage consultant. After many years at the National Library of Australia she furthered a lifetime interest by studying landscape architecture. In 1995 she co-authored a heritage study of significant gardens in the ACT with a grant from the ACT Heritage Council. She is also a member of the National Trust of Australia (ACT) Classification Committee.
Trisha Dixon is a writer-photographer with a particular interest in historic gardens. She is the editor of Australian Garden History and travels extensively around Australia photographing and researching early gardens.
Trisha has written, photographed, co-authored and edited a number of garden books, including Gardens in Time: In the Footsteps of Edna Walling (1988), The Essence of the Garden: Garden Design and Style (1991) and The Country Garden (1992). Her photographic work has been exhibited by the National Trust and the Australian National Gallery.
Australia's Timeless Gardens is available from the National Library Shop and from Sales & Distribution, NLA, CANBERRA ACT 2600.
ISBN 0642 10668 1; rrp $24.95
![[Clifton Pugh]](./p16i01.jpg)
Journalist and publisher, Richard Walsh, co-founder of Oz and editor of Nation Review, is the curator of the National Portrait Gallery's latest exhibition, 'Decade of Flair: The Seventies'. Ita Buttrose AO OBE opened the exhibition on 14 November.
Walsh describes his selection as ' ... a highly personal, not to say arbitrary, choice of 60 people, each of whose lives influenced the way the seventies took shape'. The exhibition is intended to reflect the psyche of the 1970s and, concomitantly, picture curator Patricia MacDonald visually documents the artistic style of the decade in her selection of portraits, executed in, or as close as possible to, the era.
The exhibition features photo-graphic and painted portraits of the decade's key players across all fields of human endeavour. Portrait subjects range from Gough Whitlam to Rolf Harris, from Olivia Newton-John to Mrs Edna Everage (before her elevation in society), from Ron Barassi to Judith Wright; by artists such as Greg Weight, Clifton Pugh, Wes Walters, Robert Hannaford and Brett Whiteley.
Pugh's 1976 portrait of Neville Wran exemplifies the use of a compositional and chromatic language that is essentially 'seventies'- the relaxed informality of the sitter stretches across the breadth of the very large canvas and the palette is intense.
Walsh says of the decade, 'there was an enormous prevailing mood of idealism and optimism, as though we were reinventing Australia and rediscovering the true meaning of life. It is this enduring spirit which has fuelled and animated the decades that followed'.
'Decade of Flair: The Seventies' will stimulate great interest and controversy and stir many rich memories.
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