APAIS Online 1978–2008

A staff member celebrates the 200
000th APAIS record, 27 April 1994
Photo: National Library
The Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APAIS) was inaugurated in 1945. This year marks a minor milestone with the 30th anniversary of the automation of APAIS in 1978.
The first hint of plans to automate appeared in the National Library’s 1972–73 Annual Report. In a short note in the November 1974 issue of the Australian Library Journal, Jan Kenny, the Library’s Principal Librarian, Bibliography, revealed that APAIS would be compiled using the same software and the Preserved Context Index System (PRECIS) adopted for the Australian National Bibliography in 1972. However it was not until 1978 that the new procedures commenced. Along the way, the proposal to use the PRECIS for APAIS was quietly dropped and a simpler thesaurus, loosely based on Library of Congress Subject Headings, was developed.
The first computerised index records, produced using IBM’s Advanced Text Management System (ATMS), were a by-product of the new word processing and typesetting procedures used to produce the printed monthly and annual volumes. ATMS, one of the first implementations of a text markup system, was nevertheless a cumbersome mainframe batch system, involving loading and reloading large computer tape reels, proofreading mountains of wide computer printouts, and no possibility of a spellcheck. Online searching, using IBM STAIRS software on AUSINET, was a considerable advance over the tedious process of scanning through multiple volumes of the APAIS monthlies and annuals (as reference librarians and researchers of a certain age recall). However, due to the expense and complex syntax, only highly trained librarians were allowed to conduct searches, which needed to be carefully planned in advance.
AUSINET eventually evolved into OZLINE in 1987. Except for the launch of a full-text product in 1995, the replacement of ATMS with Inmagic DB/TextWorks software in 1998, and the cessation of the printed index volumes in 2000, APAIS has remained largely unchanged ever since.
Although the main focus of APAIS continues to be on current material, one small recent policy change has been to relax the rule that APAIS indexes only material published in the current and preceding two years. In its 1978–79 Annual Report, the National Library noted that it ‘has not been able to allocate its limited staff resources to meet the demand for the provision of computerised APAIS data covering the issues prior to 1978’. Unfortunately limited staff resources still prevent a full conversion of the earlier APAIS issues, but recently a small-scale attempt has begun to extend the scope of the APAIS database before 1978.
John Myrtle, a Canberra-based volunteer, is working on a project to create index records from Terry Hogan’s Index to Journal Articles on Australian History (1976) and its first supplement, Victor Crittenden and John Thawley’s Index to Journal Articles on Australian History 1974–1978, which conveniently coincides with the introduction of the electronic version of APAIS.
In the meantime, a few other journals have also been added to the APAIS database. They include titles which were never indexed when they were first published, as well as an attempt to extend comprehensive coverage of previously indexed journals back to their first issues. Titles indexed so far are: Art and Australia (1963–), Australasian Drama Studies (1982–); Australian Archaeology (1974–1982); Australian Journal of Social Issues (1961–); Australasian Music Research (1996–); Bulletin (Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand) (1970–1980); Health and History (1998–); the Queensland feminist journal Hecate (1975–); Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia (1975-); Journal of Northern Territory History (1990–); La Trobe Library Journal (1968–); the literary journal Meridian (1982–); Musicology (1964–); New Federalist (1998–2001); Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australian Branch (1886–); Publishing Studies (1995–1999); the philosophy of religion journal Sophia (1962–);Social Alternatives (1977–); and Sydney Studies in English (1975–).
More journals may eventually be added in a larger-scale project that builds on techniques pioneered in the National Library’s Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program. Although there are probably still too few older records to justify updating APAIS’s stated scope of 1978+, users of APAIS should not be too surprised to find an occasional earlier article.
Philip Jackson
Librarian, Australian Public Affairs Information Service



