AARL

CAUL report

The Council of Australian University Librarians held its first meeting for 2002 at the University of Western Australia. Guests included international representatives of CONZUL (Council of New Zealand University Librarians), Hong Kong's Joint University Libraries Advisory Committee (JULAC) and the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa), plus local guests from DEST, the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training and the National Library. Colin Steele attended in his new role as director of Scholarly Information Strategies at the Australian National University, rather than as its CAUL representative. Helen Hayes, CAUL president, chaired the meeting.

New members of CAUL attending their first meeting were from the University of New South Wales (Andrew Wells), Macquarie University (Penny Carnaby), Monash University (Cathrine Harboe-Ree) and the University of Newcastle (Lynne Benton).

Helen Hayes reported on activity since the previous meeting, including:

• a review of the position description of the Executive Officer (the first since the position was established in 1995)
• establishment of working groups to focus on copyright, scholarly communication, and knowledge management
• a review of the Terms of Reference of CEIRC (CAUL's Electronic Information Resources Committee).

CAUL achievement award

Members approved the allocation of $5 000 annually to reward staff in member institutions who have made a significant contribution to progress in CAUL's strategic directions.
http://www.caul.edu.au/caul-doc/CAULAchievementAward.htm

Committee on Information Infrastructure Development for Australian Higher Education

John Shipp, University of Sydney, has been appointed to chair this DEST committee to advise the Minister on priorities and methods for funding Australia's higher education information infrastructure. The committee will have representation from CAUL, CAUDIT, the CSIRO, the National Library, the AVCC and the Academies. It is scheduled to report to the Minister by late September. Helen Hayes will represent CAUL.

E-print archives

The Australian National University has established an e-print archive based on Open Archive Initiative (OAI) principles. Colin Steele is conducting a national roadshow to demonstrate the ANU's system and discuss the principles and protocols of OAI. It is expected that an application will be made for DEST funding for further development and expansion to other universities.

CAUL-Industry Think Tank

The fourth invitation-only CAUL-Industry Think Tank will be held in Sydney following ALIA 2002. The theme is Publishers' pricing models and intra-consortium cost-sharing models. Participants will include representatives of publishers, aggregators AND distributors and CAUL members. They will examine current and future consortial pricing models, industry trends and their implications for Australasian information resource management.

Research resources Australia: the co-operative national store

Members agreed to continue the development of a business proposal for a national repository of the last copy of low-use print resources. The repository may be the extension of a current facility in Victoria or South Australia, and/or a set of protocols for a distributed network of repositories.

Australian Academic Research Library Network (AARLIN)

The trial of AARLIN has begun on six nominated sites, involving 120 researchers in the broad discipline areas of Humanities, Health Sciences and Engineering. Preparation for Stages 2-4 (2002-2004) is underway, following receipt of the DEST Systemic Infrastructure Initiative Grant of $2.8239 million to translate the pilot project into a national system capable of servicing all Australian universities and other research institutions.

The project has addressed issues and refined features relating to the interoperability between component features of a library portal, and examined critical requirements associated with establishing an infrastructure and software development and maintenance approach that will avoid duplication of effort, provide for scalability and be sustainable. It has explored the technical facets of library portal features, and identified aspects requiring further development and issues impacting on that development.

The pilot is expected to be completed mid-2002.

Australian digital theses program

Members agreed to appoint a Policy Reference Group to drive the program, and a Technical Group to manage software development. The Policy Group will include representatives of the deans and directors of Graduate Schools, the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations and the National Library of Australia. It will be chaired by a CAUL member and report to the CAUL executive committee. The program's central facilities will continue to be managed on behalf of CAUL by the University of New South Wales Library. The 19 current participants manage their own local database facilities.

Library services for people with disabilities

CAUL was represented by Sue McKnight at the National Library's Forum on Library Services for People with Disabilities. She encouraged members to comply with Level A of W3C Guidelines http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/ for websites, and with the DAISY Standard for reformatting material into accessible formats. CAUL will co-operate with the National Library and CASL to investigate the creation of a database of masters of material in accessible formats.

Best practice

An interactive web page for the deposit of performance indicator survey results has been developed. It will allow members to benchmark results against other libraries. The Best Practice Working Group will identify other benchmarks for similar treatment eg the Rodski client surveys and electronic information resources. The group will update a survey of members' programs for staff training which address the development and application of performance indicators and measures, and data collection and analysis at the operational level.

Information literacy assessment research project

The aim of this project is to develop a self-report inventory for institutional monitoring of Information Literacy outcomes. A survey instrument will be piloted early in 2002 with first year undergraduate students. Phase 1 includes cohorts of education students (220 each) at Central Queensland University, University of New England and RMIT University, and law students from Queensland University of Technology and the University of Melbourne.

Following the administration of the questionnaire, approximately 50 students from each cohort will be interviewed by a librarian. This will give concurrent validity to the results and be correlated with academic achievement. Phase 2 will include the generation of items and pilot questionnaires for other discipline areas.

Diane Costello
Executive officer, CAUL