Revising the Guidelines for Cataloguing Electronic Resources
In August 2006, Libraries Australia established a new expert advisory group to review and update the Guidelines for the Cataloguing of Electronic Resources.
The impetus for establishing the group arose from a Libraries Australia 2005 survey on cataloguing and access issues for electronic collections in Australian libraries. A specific aim of the survey was to obtain information that could be used by an expert advisory group to revise the current set of Libraries Australia electronic resource cataloguing guidelines, which are now several years old. The resulting recommendations were supported in early 2006 by the Libraries Australia Advisory Committee.
One recommendation was to establish an expert advisory group to review and update the existing set of guidelines for Cataloguing of Electronic Resources, and to advise on actions that Libraries Australia could take to encourage improved library workflows for managing access to e-resources.
Expressions of interest for membership of the group were sought through Libraries Australia-L in July. All expressions were accepted and the group members are Julie Whiting (National Library), Anatta Abrahams (State Library of NSW), Carmel Denholm (State Library of Tasmania), Lisa McIntosh (University of Western Sydney), Dorota Pudlowski (La Trobe University), Bemal Rajapatirana (Libraries Australia) and Libraries Australia group convenor Rob Walls.
The expert advisory group drafted a revised guidelines document in August 2006. A meeting later that same month provided the opportunity for the group to address issues arising from the draft and discuss the scope of the groups’ activities and a timetable for the completion of the new guidelines. Key issues included the scope of the guidelines, the use of single or separate records, adoption of an aggregator neutral record policy for local catalogues and the Australian National Bibliographic Database (ANBD), the potential to use and upload records derived through automated or scripted processes to the ANBD, and methods for indicating the free availability or access restrictions of electronic resources through appropriate content in catalogue records.
The revised draft Guidelines for the Cataloguing of Remote Access Electronic Resources is now available for comment on the expert advisory group’s web page. Libraries are encouraged to provide feedback on the draft guidelines and this can be done through any one of the advisory group members. This feedback will be used to compose the final version.
Bemal Rajapatirana
Libraries Australia Database Services