National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 68 | April 2004


InformationAustralia
Pilot of a New Partnership with Australian Public Libraries

Roxanne Missingham (Assistant Director General, Resource Sharing, NLA) and Lord Mayor Tim Quinn, at the Brisbane City Council Launch of InformationAustralia

Roxanne Missingham (Assistant Director General, Resource Sharing, NLA) and Lord Mayor Tim Quinn, at the Brisbane City Council Launch of InformationAustralia.

Australians are avid information seekers and consumers of information in a great variety of forms. Their search for information now includes the internet for almost all of their regular ‘discovery’ activities. Figures released in September 2003 from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal a continuing increase in internet access—Australians subscribing to the internet through ISPs exceeded five million at the end of the March quarter 2003.

Libraries are increasingly providing services which enable internet access to services and collections—whether they be catalogues, or subscribed services such as electronic journal collections and reference services—to meet the growing needs to provide convenient access by users. For many libraries the development of services through the internet has been able to utilise organisational authentication and access systems. 

Over the past 18 months the National Library has been working with a group of public libraries to better understand the needs of Australians accessing information resources. The challenge for the National Library and public libraries is to deliver access to our collections and services in a manner that is relevant and timely for Australians. Collaborative projects undertaken in the past, such as PictureAustralia and the National Bibliographic Database, have concentrated on providing access to defined sets of resources. The move to electronic service delivery in public libraries and the National Library has enabled us together to better understand user needs.  This, combined with the maturity of technology, provided a basis for discussions in 2002 and 2003 to look at a more integrated approach.

The result of the investigation was the development of a pilot to test a new service which offers a single ‘Googlised’ approach to a range of Australian print and electronic resources. The portal, called InformationAustralia, provides access to more than one-and-a-half million digital pictures and resources and over 35 million print items through searching PictureAustralia, current Australian journals in full text (Australian Public Affairs Full text), and the National Bibliographic Database.

InformationAustralia is a partnership with Brisbane City Council, Yarra Plenty Regional Library Service (Victoria), Northern Regional Library Service (Moree, New South Wales), Thuringowa Library Service (Queensland) and Southern Tablelands Regional Library Service (Goulburn, New South Wales). 

In February 2004 the pilot was launched at Brisbane City Council by the Lord Mayor Tim Quinn. Brisbane City Council has been a partner with the National Library in many projects to improve services through collaborative search tools. It is a member of PictureAustralia and the National Bibliographic Database.

In launching the pilot, Councillor Quinn commented, ‘The service opens up access to over 36 million items to residents in Brisbane, considerably expanding on the present collection of a million. It demonstrates the success that can be achieved through national library collaboration.’

The pilot was also launched at Thuringowa City Library by the Mayor, Les Tyrell. At the launch (in March) he noted, ‘Thuringowa has been a great innovator in delivery of services. It is a great pleasure to be able to work with the National Library to enable our residents to access the collections of the nation.’

Since the commencement of the pilot in late October, over 480 items have been lent from the National Library’s collections, and users have commented that the service enables them to research their community, family, and interests in music, art and literature, in a way never possible before.

For more information, contact Roxanne Missingham, Assistant Director General, Resource Sharing, NLA, rmissing@nla.gov.au

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