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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 53| October 2001
Australian Library Collections Task Force
The Australian Library Collections Task Force met in the Library on 10 August. Many of the papers from the meeting are available on the Librarys web site at www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/alctf/meetings.html. Major items on the agenda for the meeting were:
Focus groups
The Library convened a number of focus groups at Charles Sturt University and the University of Queensland to get feedback from library users about electronic library resources. This work follows on from that reported at the February meeting. In general, users are enthusiastic about the move to electronic serials, for reasons of ease of use, convenience and currency, with some physics group participants reporting that 100 per cent of their information needs are now met electronically. Their concerns about e-serials centre on issues of cost, accessibility of journals not subscribed to in their own institutions and archiving.
Interlibrary loans
The Task Force was given a presentation about the results of the recent benchmarking study of interlibrary loan and document delivery (ILL/DD) in Australia. While the full report of the study was not available at the time of the meeting, the results of the data analysis were summarised in the presentation. Part two of the relevant agenda paper provides background information on this study.
Digitisation
Tom Ruthven from the Library demonstrated for Task Force members some of the results of the Librarys digitisation program, including the Barton Papers and the sheet music collection.
Issues arising at the meeting which will be the subject of further work by the Task Force include the broad field of library user behaviour, and in particular the way in which scholars undertake the process of locating information.
Further information on the activities of the Australian Library
Collections Task Force is available at www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/alctf/
Sandra Henderson
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au