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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 55 | February 2002
PANDORA News
Gateways readers who have been following the progress of PANDORA, the national collection of selected online Australian publications, will be aware that the National Library of Australia established the Archive but invited other agencies to assist in building the collection. Selecting and archiving online publications is not a simple task and it is preferable to take a collaborative approach to ensure broader coverage of Australian topics and to help minimise duplication of effort and costs.
By the beginning of 2001, three agencies had agreed to become PANDORA partners-the State Library of Victoria (1998), State Library of South Australia (2000) and ScreenSound Australia (2000). Each agency has made a significant contribution to the growth of titles in the national collection.
Several months ago, we welcomed the Library and Information Service of Western Australia to PANDORA. We are very pleased to announce that recently both the Northern Territory Library and Information Service and the State Library of New South Wales have made the commitment to becoming PANDORA partners.
The Northern Territory Library and Information Service (NTLIS) will take a staged approach to assuming tasks involved in PANDORA, beginning with selection only. Within 12 months NTLIS staff will be carrying out all the duties involved in a full partnership role.
Staff at the State Library of New South Wales have been archiving New South Wales titles for several years but have not made them publicly available. Currently, efforts are being made to prepare those titles for transfer to the Library's server. We expect to make the titles available via the PANDORA public interface in the near future. The State Library of New South Wales will assume responsibility for all tasks related to the selection, archiving and cataloguing of publications that fall within its selection guidelines, that is, those with a New South Wales focus.
We welcome our new partners and look forward to continuing our excellent
relationships with PANDORA staff in all the contributing agencies.
Anne Daniels
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au