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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 50| April 2001
OzLife
Australian Biographies and Book Reviews Online
Since July 2000, National Library staff have been indexing Australian biographical articles, obituaries and book reviews into a web accessible databaseOzLife: Australian biography and book review index. While there are several databases, that index specific newspaper titles, this database provides one access point for Australian biographical articles and book reviews from major Australian newspapers and selected journals.
Now available on the National Librarys web site at www.nla.gov.au/ozlife, OzLife can be searched by book title or personal name, where the person is the subject of the biographical article or the author of a book being reviewed. The database can also be browsed by person, book title or occupation. Each record provides citation details and in the case of biographies and obituaries, the occupation of the person. Searches can be limited to a particular article type and/or to a specific newspaper title. A complete list of indexed titles is also available from the main screen.
The National Library has been indexing biographical articles and book reviews from newspapers since the 1960s maintaining newspaper clippings files until the 1990s when a new system of citation sheets was implemented. OzLife is the successor to these systems. These files may be retrieved by requesting them via call slips through the Newspaper/Microform Reading Room. A project to add the biographical files to the Librarys catalogue further alerts library users to the existence of these resources. Each bibliographic record has a link to the OzLife database for additional information. The full text of newspaper articles is available in the Newspaper/Microform Reading Room on the lower ground floor of the Library. Off-site users can access the full text of articles through their local or State libraries or through interlibrary loan.
A recent addition to the database is 6000 records dating back to 1970
added from the Canberra Times and indexed by the ACT Public
Library Service. The ACT Public Library Service is continuing its
commitment to Ozlife by agreeing to the ongoing indexing of biographical
articles and obituaries from the Canberra Times. It is hoped in
the future, libraries in other States may also agree to contribute data to
OzLife.
Fran Wilson
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au