ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 57| June 2002
GovPubs: The Australian Government Publications Guide
Questions such as these are answered by Australian librarians every day, and until the advent of the Internet, every library had its own shortcuts for tracking and finding this sort of information on the myriad forms of government publications. Often the memory of the Government Publications librarian was the fastest and most reliable source, but as use of the World Wide Web grew, individual libraries developed their own online guides to specialised areas of knowledge.
In December 2000 the newly-formed Reference Issues Working Group of the Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL) adopted as its first project the development of a Government Information Readers Guide. The purpose was to amalgamate the online guides already developed by the National Library and some of the State libraries. The aim was to utilise and enhance the knowledge already available through existing guides, and to make them available to the public through a single interface.
The world of government publications is complex and extensive, and it would have been an enormous undertaking to attempt to include it all in a single guide, so, from the beginning, the aim was to focus on certain types of publications. The following were selected for inclusion:
After a few name changes, the title GovPubs: The Australian Government Publications Guide was selected for the project, and work began in earnest in May 2001. A small team at the National Library firstly developed the specifications for the content and functionality of the database. Working under Fran Wilson, Convenor of the Reference Issues Working Group, the team comprised Bronwyn Lee (requirements modelling), Ralph Sanderson (web site design), and Patrick ONeill (content design). It was originally envisaged that the database would be based on the model used for Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI), which allows input by registered users. An XML application was also considered, but finally a database model was selected whereby input would be done at the National Library.
The specifications were completed and the interface approved by the Reference Issues Working Group in August 2001. The database was to comprise three sorts of information:
The decision was also taken to retrieve initial holdings information from Kinetica. However, since holdings of the publications covered by GovPubs were in some cases not entered on library catalogues nor on Kinetica, a process was begun for participating libraries to check their holdings and ensure that GovPubs accurately reflected them. The State Libraries of Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, the Library and Information Service of Western Australia, and the ACT and Northern Territory Libraries have all participated in this process.
With the specifications completed, Matthew Walker, of the National Librarys Applications Branch, quickly developed an Oracle database, with a Microsoft Access interface for the administrator. By the end of August 2001, the database and interface were complete, and the first content had been researched and distributed. Successive publication types were researched and loaded over the next few months, and in April 2002 the final publication type was researched and loaded. GovPubs has been available through the National Library web site since February 2002.
GovPubsnow comprises 13 definitions, 117 histories covering 9 jurisdictions, just over 500 resources, and 2500 holdings, including 250 URLs. Of the resources, 271 have individual descriptions. GovPubs provides browse functionality by type of publication, by jurisdiction, by library, and by online availability.
The challenge now is for librarians and users of GovPubs to keep
the guide up-to-date with new developments in the areas covered, and with the
increasing online availability of these publications. Changes may be emailed to
govpubs@nla.gov.au
Patrick
ONeill
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