A perspective from the National Library of Australia

Chris Foster, National Library of Australia

Australian publishing - challenges for the NLA

• More sophisticated means of presenting and disseminating information
• need to deal with new formats and traditional formats
• increase in the amount of information being produced

Australian publishing - challenges for the NLA continued

• changes in education and research practices
• need for effective technical infrastructure
• relationships with stakeholders

Australian serials collection

• 23 000 current titles
• 85 000 issues received per year
• 2 000 new titles acquired each year

Breakdown by type of publisher trends in Aust serial publishing

• smaller print runs
• shorter lifespans
• niche market publishing
• "Australian editions"

Trends in Australian serial publishing continued

• dual print/electronic versions
• least change in not for profit sector
• decline in scholarly publishing

Australian Journals Online (AJOL)

• http://www.nla.gov.au/oz/ausejour.html
• 1996 - 37 titles listed
• 2000 - over 1700 titles listed - 65% are electronic versions of print titles

Dual print/electronic publications - issues for the NLA

• What to collect?
• How to cope with the increase in publishing output?
• How to provide access to electronic titles?

Trends in electronic publishing

• Greater use of integrated media and linking
• manipulation of data to suit range of uses
• customised content delivery
• value-added content

Strategic direction
"All Australians, at their place of choice, have direct, seamless access to print and electronic sources of information." Directions for 2000-2002

Strategic direction
"Lead in collaboration initiatives, policy formulation and the development of national standards that will support unmediated access to information resources." Directions for 2000-2002

National level activities

• National distributed archive of Australian born-digital publications
• guidelines covering lodgement and access to commercial publications
• extension of legal deposit provisions to cover electronic format
• archiving guidelines for use by creators and publishers

National level activities continued

• Scheme for persistent identification of electronic resources
• maintain permanent record of national publishing output of print and electronic
• standards for collecting, preserving and providing access to electronic pubs
• national infrastructure
• technical infrastructure

PANDORA archive - selection principles

• Electronic only
• selective approach
• quality control
• publisher's permission
• preservation commitment
• records in national bibliography
• retain "look and feel"

PANDORA archive - content

• Publications from academic sector
• pubs/sites relating to events
• pubs/sites to provide snapshot of topics
• pubs/sites reflecting aspects of Australian culture

PANDORA archive - content continued

• pub/sites maintained by community groups and organisations
• Commonwealth & state govt pubs
• e-journals cited in indexing services
• over 800 publications archived
• 35 new titles selected each month