ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 42 | December 1999
PANDORA special collections
PANDORA (Preserving and Accessing Networked Documentary Resources of Australia) is a digital archive (http://pandora.nla.gov.au/) dedicated to the preservation of and long term access to Australian online publications of national significance. It has been operational for just over two years and now contains approximately 300 serial and non-serial online publications.
The PANDORA selection guidelines (http://www.nla.gov.au/scoap/guidelines.html) give priority to titles that have long-term research value in their own right. However, a second important objective is to preserve a cultural snapshot of the Australian domain, to represent in the archive a broad range of sites that will document the issues that concerned Australians at a particular period of time and how the Internet was used to address them. During 1999, the inclusion of a number of special sample collections has strengthened the second aspect of the archive.
Some of the collections have been formed around the occurrence of political events or activities, such as federal elections, the Republic Referendum or Australias peacekeeping role in East Timor. Other collections, such as popular music, folk music and a range of festivals, have been established to represent Australias electronic presence and significance in popular social and cultural spheres.
The value of these collections is the way in which various aspects of a topic are brought together. The Sydney Olympics collection, for example, is composed of a number of sites that deal with a broad range of associated topics. These include not only basic information about athletes, organisation of the 2000 Olympic Games and development of venues, but other less obvious links such as telecommunications, environmental issues, travel and accommodation, other business opportunities and, of course, souvenirs. It is considered that this co-location of subject-related information greatly assists researchers.
Titles archived for their long-term research value and national significance receive individual cataloguing treatment. Titles in the special sample collections, however, are catalogued at the collection level with a link to a list of the individual titles comprising the collection.
Many of these collections will continue to grow and more collections will be created. Other collections that are being established include sports, fashion industry and trade, retail trade and tourism. They will become a unique resource for future generations of Australiansto see how the Internet was being used in its infancy and to see what was important politically, socially and culturally at the end of the millennium.
For a taste of the special sample collections in PANDORA, have a look at the following:
1998 Australian Federal Election Campaign (http://purl.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/election98
E-Commerce (http://purl.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/ecommerce)
East Timor (http://purl.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/easttimor)
FestivalsAustralian Capital Territory (http://purl.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/festivalsact)
FestivalsNew South Wales (http://purl.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/festivalsnsw)
Folk music (http://purl.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/folkmusic)
International Year of Older Persons, 1999 (http://purl.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/iyop)
Legal Rights (http://purl.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/legalrights)
Olympic Games - Sydney 2000 (http://purl.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/olympics)
Popular Music (http://purl.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/popmusic)
Republic Referendum, 6 November 1999 (http://purl.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/ausrepublic)
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: lkirwan@nla.gov.au