National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 65 | October 2003


State Library of Tasmania Recognised for Innovative Service

(left to right) John Arfield (University Librarian, University of WA and Chair, Kinetica Advisory Committee), Carmel Denholm (State Library of Tasmania and Jan Fullerton (Director-General, NLA)
(left to right) John Arfield (University Librarian, University of WA and Chair, Kinetica Advisory Committee), Carmel Denholm (State Library of
Tasmania and Jan Fullerton (Director-General,
NLA)

The Director-General of the  National Library, Jan Fullerton, congratulates the State Library of Tasmania on winning the inaugural Kinetica Innovation award. The winner was announced at the recent Kinetica Annual Users’ Meeting in Glenelg, South Australia.

The award recognises the innovative use of Kinetica, a key service enabling over 1000 Australian libraries to share resources and cataloguing. Contributors to the National Bibliographic Database (which contains over 34 million items held in Australian libraries), available through Kinetica, have traditionally used library standards such as MARC (Machine-Readable Cataloging record). The State Library of Tasmania is now using the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) metadata standard and Extensible Markup Language (XML) to distribute records for reuse in national services.

The award highlights the work being undertaken in the State Library, through its Our Digital Island project, to ensure that Tasmanian websites and digital publications are preserved and made accessible for future generations. Our Digital Island began in 1998 to provide access to Tasmanian websites that have been preserved for posterity by the State Library. There are currently 1418 sites and 1568 captures in the project. 

Carmel Denholm, State Library of Tasmania, noted that the Tasmanian Libraries Act supports this activity, covering deposit of web-based electronic format, not just printed materials. This enabled the library to develop an innovative project to collect and preserve Internet publications about the state.

Our Digital Island was created by first capturing websites using HTTrack software, and then creating metadata records. Selected metadata records from Tasmania Online, a repository that includes Tasmanian business, community and government websites, are re-used, and the data is then enhanced. Metadata records are copied, and additional preservation metadata is added. Files are exported to the National Library as multiple XML files, all local tags are stripped and only AGLS tags and data is supplied. Kinetica then maps AGLS to MARC format.

Our Digital Island records can be located in Kinetica by searching on ‘Our Digital Island electronic collection’.

Jan Fullerton, Director-General of the National Library said, ‘This was the first time that the National Library has worked with another institution using XML files, and I am delighted with the results. The project has provided enhanced access to Tasmanian online publications significantly expanding the ability of Australians to access these resources.’

‘The six other finalists also illustrated novel ways of using Kinetica and we are delighted that Kinetica is being used in so many different ways,’ Jan Fullerton added.

The award was judged by John Arfield, a member of the Kinetica Advisory Committee together with Sherrey Quinn, from Libraries ALIVE! Pty Ltd.

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