AARL

E Initiatives and networked infrastructure

Collated by the State Library of Tasmania with contributions from members of the CASL Digital Issues Working Group

Abstract The delivery of library and information services in the electronic environment is an area of expansion and continuous development for all state libraries and the National Library of Australia. All are actively engaged in identifying resources and services where access and availability can be enhanced via electronic delivery and where cooperation and collaboration will increase the range of library and information resources available online to the public. This article provides a summary of current key areas of electronic library services in Australia.

Infrastructure and Support

National Library of Australia

The National Library of Australia is a statutory authority within the Commonwealth Communications, Information Technology and the Arts portfolio. The library's collections and services underpin Australian cultural life and intellectual pursuits. The library aims to be the pre-eminent source for the documentary record of Australia and its place in the world.

The library runs a fully switched Ethernet 10/100 Mbps local area network connecting over 700 PCs and numerous servers. Two internet connections at 100 Mbps are maintained to support the Kinetica service and National Library applications. The internet connections are provided by different suppliers for redundancy purposes.

Operating systems in use include Windows 2000 on the desktop, and a mixture of Windows 2000, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, Red Hat Linux on the library's servers. In 2001 the library took delivery of a Digital Object Storage System (DOSS) to handle the library's digital object storage requirements for the period 2001 to 2006. A combination of state-of-the-art storage products was selected. The system consists of a Sun E450 server, a CLARiiON FC4700 disk array, a StorageTek Tape Library connected via a SAN switching infrastructure. The system has a capacity of 4 TB of disk and 12 TB of nearline tape storage.

State Library of Tasmania

The State Library of Tasmania is part of the Tasmanian Department of Education and is responsible for all public library and reference library services across Tasmania. An integrated wide area network provided by Telstra through a whole of government contract is used to connect all these libraries as well as TAFE Colleges and all government schools managed by the Department of Education. Individual libraries all provide a mix of internet access personal computers and staff/library management computers. All are modern personal computers replaced on a four year revolving cycle through the Department of Education, and have recently been upgraded to Microsoft XP Professional.

The type of connections provided to individual libraries varies depending on size of library and location, and ranges from 56k dial-up connections to 256 and 512 ADSL links to 100M Broadband connections. Network support is provided by the Department of Education's Internal Information and Communications Technology Branch. The provision of adequate bandwidth is a continual issue due to the ever increasing use of internet to deliver information and services.

All State Library branches, TAFE college and government school libraries use a single central library management system provided and supported by the State Library. Currently the State Library uses Geac which runs on a central Sun server with 6 GB of RAM and with 216 GB mirrored and 432 GB unmirrored disk capacity. The system supports 54 State Library of Tasmania outlets and 183 schools, and is typically loaded with 1000 concurrent users. Geac is used to provide a central library management system, including acquisitions, serials control, cataloguing and Kinetica access, and circulation modules that are used by TAFEs and schools as well as the public library system. A Tasmanian newspaper index is also provided through Geac.

The State Library provides a Systems Support and Development Section comprising 12 FTE, including a full-time help desk and after hours support for public libraries. The Systems Support Section also provides advice and support for other computer applications including statistical databases, website management, and special services for other sectors including Tasmania Online and Service Tasmania Online websites for the Tasmanian government.

State Library of Western Australia

The State Library of Western Australia operates the central state library services. The provision of public library services in WA is a partnership between the state, local governments and other participating bodies and the State Library of Western Australia provides services to 238 public libraries such as the selection, acquisition, processing and distribution of resources, both book and non-book.

The State Library's Innopac system provides the central holdings of all library stock in the statewide collection including stock in the State Reference Library, the JS Battye Library and WA public libraries. The public libraries access the Innopac system via the internet. There is also a Public Libraries Online extranet which is a major communication-sharing forum for WA public libraries and provides access to a web-based document delivery system. Individual local government authorities have adopted a range of different local library management systems.

SLWA has its own intranet and is also networked to the Department of Culture and the Arts for bureau finance services using the Sun system. There is also a shared internet connection across the Department, not available to public libraries which make their own arrangements for internet access. Consequently the speed of service provided varies a great deal according to the availability of broadband services in the area and the resources of the governing authority.

The State Library uses Innopac (Release 2, Phase 2) running on a Compaq Alphaserver 4100 System. Specifications include 5/600 Mhz CPU, 1.5 GB RAM, and 8 x 4.3 GB hard drives. Innopac runs on Digital Unix4.0d. Innopac provides a central library management system which includes modules for acquisitions, serials, cataloguing and Kinetica downline loading of records, circulation, library exchanges, indexing and community information. In 2002, the State Library purchased Innopac's latest web and java based Millenium suite of products. The Millenium acquisitions product has recently been implemented and plans are underway to progressively install further products to offer clients enhanced services as well as enabling staff to achieve increased efficiencies.

State Library of New South Wales

The State Library of New South Wales has a legislative role to 'promote, provide and maintain library services for the people of New South Wales through the State Library and through cooperation with local libraries and other library and information agencies' (Library Act, 1939). With NSW public libraries, the State Library of NSW aims to strengthen the identity and effectiveness of the NSW public library network in supporting the information needs of the NSW community.

To support ongoing digitisation of the collection, the State Library of NSW has implemented a Storage Area Network (SAN) with a current capacity of 1.8 terabytes of storage. The library has upgraded network access to the SAN to 1 gigabit to provide high-speed access to digital images. Internet access is currently 2 MB; this will soon be upgraded to 4 MB to keep pace with the demand for extra bandwidth for access to services. The library has focused this year on upgrading security and business continuity planning and is upgrading infrastructure to improve security and redundancy in systems.

The library provides subsidised internet connectivity for public libraries through NSW.net. NSW.net links councils and libraries and provides cost-effective access to the internet with a permanent high-bandwidth connection for a set cost each year. NSW.net also manages the Rural Link project (funded by the Networking the Nation program), which is establishing sustainable, high speed internet connections using satellite and wireless technologies to provide online access for public and/or not-for-profit community institutions in small towns across rural and remote NSW.

The library uses the Innovative Interfaces Millennium product for its integrated library management system for bibliographic material. Civica supplies Awairs, powerful indexing and retrieval software, used for PICMAN, the original materials database of pictures, manuscripts and oral history, and the INFOQUICK and INFOKOORI databases, indexes to the Sydney Morning Herald and indigenous resources respectively. ADLIB Information Systems supplies thesaurus management software for the Australian Pictorial Thesaurus. The library is part of the Local Interlending and Document Delivery Administration System (LIDDAS) consortium and is now preparing to implement LIDDAS software to streamline and simplify document delivery processes

The library currently has a staff of eighteen in IT providing network, server, desktop and software administration and support, including the IT Help Desk.

Northern Territory Library and Information Service

The Northern Territory Library and Information Service (NTLIS) is responsible for the provision of library and information services through a network of libraries across the Northern Territory. NTLIS delivers:

• documentary heritage and reference services through the Northern Territory Library,
• parliamentary library services to the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory,
• support for a network of 28 public and community libraries,
• services to school and education libraries, and
• library and information services to NT government agencies.

NTLIS manages the Virtua centralised library management system on behalf of 48 libraries throughout the Northern Territory. Virtua uses an Oracle database operating on a SUN Enterprise 3500 server with 50 Gigabytes storage capacity, and NTLIS provides support to client libraries through a full time help desk. Agama, a library system developed in house to support small libraries, is provided to a sub-network of small community and school libraries across the Territory.

NTLIS provides a range of services in support of its client libraries, including the provision of IT infrastructure and support, Kinetica access, cataloguing, acquisitions, serials management and subscriptions to networked electronic resources. Internet access is provided through libraries in cities and townships, with access available in the six territory public libraries and all ten of the community libraries located in regional townships. Of the 13 community libraries and knowledge centres located in aboriginal communities, only six have access to the internet. Outside the major centres internet response time is generally very slow with restrictions on bandwidth.

State Library of Queensland

The State Library of Queensland currently delivers its services from three physical sites:

• State Library South Bank, South Brisbane,
• Public Library Services, Montague Rd, West End, and
• Indigenous Libraries Services (ILS) office, Cairns.

In addition, the State Library also provides services, including limited ICT consultancy, that support 331 public library service points and Indigenous Knowledge Centres statewide in partnership with local government and Indigenous community councils.

The Information Systems program of the State Library is comprised of several teams that are primarily responsible for supporting and managing State Library of Queensland's ICT infrastructures including the delivery of the State Library's digital products and services to both staff and clients using public reading room PCs, Help-desk facilities, office automation products, networked automated library collection and product management, network and software development, digital telecommunications services and IT technical advice and support, coordination of State Library's internet based services comprising an internet Gateway Service which provides secure online broadband access to the internet, e-mail and web services. SLQ also on-sells internet bandwidth to other Arts portfolio agencies on a fee for service basis and hosts a number of external government and community organisations web pages.

The SLQ currently operates a Netware 5.x LAN/WAN service code named Quiros (Queensland Information Retrieval Online Services). Quiros is the primary mechanism for managing network-based PC applications, file sharing and printing and encompasses the networking fabric to deliver digital services such as Voyager and internet. The major portion of Quiros' infrastructure is located at South Bank, delivering services to over 240 PCs and three iMACs, with another 60 PCs located at the Public Library Services, West End, connected to their own server and linked to South Bank via a 256k ISDN service. In addition there are a several laptops that can be used as either networked workstations, remote computing network devices, or stand alone PCs.

The State Library's (SLQ) Voyager service (installed in March 2002) is the core computing service responsible for handling collection management for the State Library of Queensland's collections and several state government agency libraries. Voyager has been customised to suit SLQ's conditions and is available via 185 PCs at five locations. The webopac includes a personalisation option - public libraries use this option to generate and manage their interlibrary loan requests. Over 100 000 requests are generated annually.

Aurora is a Windows-based library management system currently used by over 110 public libraries (Country Lending Service) across the state and individual Aurora databases are maintained by weekly downloading of files by each Aurora library site.

State Library of South Australia

As a direct result of building works there is a significant upgrade to network infrastructure. A public wireless network, Streetwise, will be launched on 30 July 2003.

There are 180 Desktop PCs for staff using Windows 2000, with data files all run from a Novell File and Print Server. Desktops are connected at 100Mbps, with provision to connect some at 1Gbps.There are 80 desktop PCs for the public using Windows 2000, with another 16 to be available in a training facility later in the year. Access to information databases is supported by a separate File and Print Server. Configuration provides 512MB RAM, 40GB disk.

A special software product is used on public PCs to provide a menuing system (easy interface), additional security and to manage database licences to subscription databases. Access to the internet is provided from most PCs, with some being reserved specifically for access the library's catalogue.

The library has Category 6E cabling, Cisco 4006 core switch, Cisco 2950 access switches and 50 micron multimode fibre optic backbone, with provision to upgrade to single mode fibre in the future.

Servers:

• Novell 6 File and Print for staff,
• Novell 6 File and Print for public,
• Sun Solaris 8 Unix System to support web server (Apache),
• Sun Solaris 8 Unix System to support a native XML repository (Software = Tamino from Software AG) with attached storage solution providing 330GB disk, and automated tape loading backup system,
• Sun Solaris 8 Unix System to support the library Management System (Software = Innopac from Innovative Interfaces Inc),
• Sun Solaris 8 Unix System to support development and testing,
• Windows 2000 Server to support web content management system (Unity from Chimo),
• Windows 2000 Server to support MS SQL (internal rostering system, Research Enquiry system, and later a document management system), and
• Windows 2000 Server to support development and testing.

IBM 100 Network Attached Storage (NAS) two devices providing 480 GB storage, to support the online storage of preservation level digital images. These images can be searched via the library catalogue and reproduced on demand (new service in the new library from 14 July 2003).

Telstra, as government contracted supplier, is upgrading internet services for the South Australian Public Library Network. The project will provide improved internet services and access to P2 central database.

State Library of Victoria

The State Library of Victoria is an agency within the Victorian Department of the Arts portfolio. The library aims to be the pre-eminent source for the documentary record of Victoria and its place in the world.

The library's ICT infrastructure comprises a fully switched and redundant Ethernet 100 Mbps local area network with fibre optic backbone with 1 GB connections. This network connects over 350 PCs and 200 SunRay thin-clients (public access workstations). This network also carries voice data for the library's internet Protocol phone system that has in excess of 360 handsets. The library maintains over 40 servers, some of which are clustered to provide further levels of redundancy and performance.

Server operating systems in use include Windows 2000 on the corporate desktop, and a mixture of Windows 2000 Server, Windows NT Server, Novell, Sun Solaris and Linux on the library's servers. Network authentication and printing services are provided by Novell NetWare.

In January 2003, the library implemented a Storage Area Network (SAN) for the library's ever-increasing digital object storage requirements. The systems current capacity is 1.7 Terabytes.

Connection to the internet is via a multi-homed fast ethernet connection with a capacity of 120 Mb/s.

The library uses the Voyager product from Endeavor as its ILMS, with separate databases (schemas) to provide access to its Australiana Index and VGP - Victorian Government Publications. VGP was originally developed as an InMagic/DBTextworks database with a paper products sold to subscribers. This was migrated to Voyager and now uses the 'New Books' functionality to provide an online equivalent for previous subscribers.

The library uses the Rim-r product from Random Computing to manage its documentation of reference inquiries.

Other major corporate applications include Oracle Financials 11i, Aurion Human Resources system, Lotus Notes email and calendar system, Veritas NetBackup, Innoculate anti-virus and Cisco Call Manager Telephony application. The corporate desktop runs Office 2000.

The State Library will trial a wireless network to provide the public with access to the internet from wireless compatible laptop computers and PDAs. This initiative is a joint Optus and State Library venture. The technology is known as WiFi, and it is intended that a number of 'hot spots' will be created both within the library and possibly on the library's forecourt within the next four months. The system works by connecting a customer's PDA/laptop computer to the Optus Wireless Connect Homepage. Customers can then log on to the internet as a casual user/member or potentially be diverted to an alternate ISP (ie Vicnet) for their internet connection.

VICNET trading maintains a Victoria-wide eCommunity broadband network that links a growing number of libraries, community groups, and government agencies. The benefits of this eCommunity network is that it increases broadband connections to community groups and library branches, reduces community and library sector data costs by removing site to site data charges and allows participating organisations to freely access a large amount of Victorian community information hosted on VICNET including mc2 application and resources. It also provides free access for connected community, library and government sites to online information on the state library's website.

Digitisation and Digital Assets Management

National Library of Australia

Since 1996 the National Library has been routinely digitising items from its pictorial collections, embarking in July 2001 on a major expansion of its digitisation program. Significant Australian original materials are being digitised including pictorial material, maps, sheet music and manuscripts. Each year the library aims to digitise over 20 000 pictures, 1000+ maps, 2000+ pieces of sheet music and several manuscript collections.

The library has developed a digital object management system called Digital Collections Manager (DCM) to support storage and management of its digitised collection material. This database stores descriptive, administrative (including technical, rights management and preservation), structural and file level metadata about digital objects. The system also helps automate and manage digitisation workflows.

Digital archiving

Pandora is a collaborative project involving the National Library, ScreenSound Australia, the Northern Territory Library and Information Service and the State Libraries of Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland to create a selective archive of Australian online publications. The library has developed the PANDAS (Pandora digital archiving system) to manage the gathering and archiving of websites.

Digital preservation

The library is well along the path of developing a digital preservation strategy for its collections, and this was recognised when UNESCO invited the library to prepare the Guidelines for the Preservation of Digital Heritage. The library has also been involved in various procedural and standards groups including OCLC/RLG's group on Preservation Metadata.

In regard to its own collection, the library has recently:

• completed documentation of the file types/MIME types in the Pandora archive and developed ongoing reporting mechanism to allow informed preservation action on digital objects,
• attempted to map the recommendation of the RLG/OCLC preservation metadata against the PANDAS data map prior to developing its own preservation data model,
• produced initial documentation and a mechanism for ongoing recording of the file types and software dependencies in the physical format digital collections,
• prepared a risk assessment documenting the risks to the byte stream and accessibility of all digital collections, and
• undertaken the migration of HTML 3 collection items such that tags identified as dead have been replaced with HTML 4 compliant tags.

The library routinely copies electronic media to the DOSS for preservation purposes and is currently testing procedures for copying, maintaining and documenting executables collected on physical formats (eg floppy discs).

The library maintains PADI, the gateway to Digital Preservation information, and has recently undertaken the Safekeeping program, supported with a grant from CLIR, designed to preserve key documents which were in danger of being lost from active circulation.

State Library of Tasmania

The State Library has been undertaking the digitisation of objects held in the collection since 1997. To date over 6000 images have been digitised. Recently the State Library has begun the digitisation of a number of musical scores for Music Australia, and also expects to digitise a number of texts later in 2003.

The State Library of Tasmania provides a website preservation service similar to Pandora called Our Digital Island. To date over 600 Tasmanian websites have been captured and preserved.

State Library of Western Australia

Over 11 000 images have been digitised, and attached to records in the Innopac database. It has also been a strategy to try and present images within a context. The best example of this is the Western perspectives on a nation website which contains over 3000 images. With a minimal amount of text, the images are organised to tell the story of the state, through the twentieth century, following eight different subject themes.

Over 300 lists from the private archives collection have also been digitised. These are also attached to Innopac records, and are in pdf format, which means they are full-text searchable.

State Library of New South Wales

In 2002/3, the State Library of NSW digitised over 15 000 items in-house, bringing the total number of images digitised to over 310 000. Collections are selected for digitisation based on their unique NSW content and a number of other criteria. Formats digitised include original manuscripts and letters, oil paintings, watercolours, posters, photographs and glass plate negatives. The images are available through links in catalogue records and via websites for selected items which appear in exhibitions such as Heritage Gallery, Antarctica and Sport.

For online presentation, the library has enhanced ebind, an SGML document type definition with perl scripts initially developed at UC Berkeley. Ebind provides structural metadata to bind together digital images and text into web books, enabling full transcripts to be provided for all digitised text in accordance with accessibility guidelines. This year has seen improvements to digital capture technology and greater emphasis on batch workflows with the purchase of a new film scanner and the lease of a studio digital camera system. The new Storage Area Network allows all images to be stored online, instead of CD-ROM, making images easier to retrieve when a client requests a copy.

Digital master TIFF images are preserved on tape. The library participates in Pandora, archiving over 500 NSW websites in 2002/3.

Northern Territory Library and Information Service

The Territory Images database contains over 30 000 jpeg images of Northern Territory photographs, and is available through the NTLIS website and PictureAustralia. Territory Images uses SearchTech's perfect Pictures software.

State Library of Queensland

In June 2003 the State Library launched Picture Queensland, Images of Queensland - its people and places, past and present. Over 6 000 images are included in the database.

Picture Queensland allows clients to:

• search the database using multiple terms,
• browse a number of themes for quick searching,
• add comments and help us identify mystery photographs,
• suggest material from our collection for digitisation, and
• order images.

Picture Queensland content is stored in the ENCompass database. Discussions are currently underway with government agencies that will enable agencies to add and store content to the Picture Queensland database.

The State Library is working with the indigenous community to develop protocols for managing photographs containing indigenous content as part of the Picture Queensland project.

State Library of South Australia

SLSA has recently completed two projects where collection items have been digitised and a website produced, based on a theme of topical interest or related to educational curricula. They are Encounter 1802-2002 and South Australians at War.

The library's current project is SA Memory, inspired by the Library of Congress' American Memory project. The themes of this project will also relate to educational curricula as part of the library's outreach to education.

State Library of Victoria

State Library of Victoria has about 170 000 images digitised. This is comprised of about 100 000 images - with accompanying catalogue records - which were created with project funding starting in 1990. Since about 1996 the library has had a formal program of digitisation and catalogue record creation, with a target of 10-12 000 records per annum. Since acquiring ImageServer as part of the Voyager suite of products, the library has been creating a limited set of preservation metadata and storing that data attached to the relevant files.

Also since implementing Voyager, the display of images attached to the bibliographic records in the catalogue has been enhanced. Bibliographic records can now display up to three thumbnails in the full record, with a link to an intermediate page for more than three images linked to a single bibliographic record, for example a fold-out postcard.

The State Library of Victoria has begun to digitise sheet music as part of the MusicAustralia project, providing a single jpg image of each page and a pdf of the entire item.

The State Library of Victoria has received a grant to digitise 78 rpm records. A tender document will be released shortly for the appropriate equipment which will be installed in the newly re-developed Arts courtyard.

The State Library of Victoria has held discussions with Olive Software for digitisation of newspapers and journals, and has sent two sets of files for testing - a less than perfect microfilm of a newspaper, and TIFFs of a journal. This process has high costs attached and funding will need to be secured.

Vicnet

The Vicnet Local History Digitisation program aims to make historical photographic materials available online, and online historical collections readily accessible through a common approach. A server was designed and developed to provide a secure repository for the digitised photographic materials held in the local history collections of Victorian public library services.

Delivery of services via the web

National Library of Australia

The National Library manages the Kinetica service for Australian libraries and their users. The service supports interlibrary lending, reference, collection development and cataloguing. The core of Kinetica is the National Bibliographic Database (NBD), which records the location details of over 35 million items in most Australian libraries.

The National Library is currently implementing the Voyager Integrated Library Management System (ILMS) to manage its collection materials. The new system is expected to go into production in 2003.

Resource discovery services such as PictureAustralia, and the Pictures catalogue are provided using the TeraText database.

In collaboration with state libraries, the National Library offers the AskNow! online reference service.

The library is developing delivery systems for its digitised collection materials based on the DCM database. Delivery systems have been released for sheet music and maps and are in development for manuscripts, books and pictures.

The library has implemented persistent identifiers for its digital collections. This enables those collections to be cited in a persistent manner using a constant web address.

State Library of Tasmania

The State Library delivers a variety of library services via the web including a number of general and specialist websites:

• state library website that provides access to the online catalogue, special online exhibitions, new additions to the library collections, advice on authors and titles, Explore! - access to full text indexes and databases for library patrons and selected quality internet resources; AskNow! online reference, images, preserved websites, and heritage resources, Kidzone - a site for children 6-12, and YouthZone, a site for older children 12-16,
• Tasmania Online - a comprehensive index to Tasmanian websites and the official government portal,
• Service Tasmania Online - a entry point to government services from all three jurisdictions for the Tasmanian community, funded by the Tasmanian Government as part of the Service Tasmania initiative,
• Tasmanian Images - access to online exhibitions and digitised images of the State Library,
• Our Digital Island - preserved Tasmania Web sites,
• eHeritage - a website providing access to a central database containing the holdings of 29 local history organisations, and
• STORS - a self-contribution open web archive for Tasmanian electronic documents that provides a persistent URL, a unique identifier based on the Australian Digital Resource Identifier previously put forward to CASL, and ongoing file conversion.

State Library of Western Australia

State Library of Western Australia uses its website to provide:

• access to the Innopac and Innopac Kids' catalogues,
• description of SLWA and its services,
• community information via Infolink,
• direct links to the catalogues of all the major libraries in Perth,
• 'Information Gateways' giving detailed guides to traditional collections and to internet resources relevant to each subject area,
• access to online full text indexes and database services (within the Alexander Library Building only),
• a range of specialist websites, and
• a direct link to AskNow! online reference services.

State Library of New South Wales

The State Library launched a new website in September 2002. The website provides access to catalogues and databases, indexes, online collections and exhibitions, and manuscript guides. The website also provides access to specialist services including:

• Health Information Service,
• Legal Information Access Centre,
• Infocus, an innovative service that links students studying for the New South Wales Higher School Certificate (HSC) with resources from the State Library of New South Wales,
• ILANET, providing access to commercial databases on a pay-as-you-go basis, and
• NSW.net.

The library is currently implementing online credit card validation to enable access to, and delivery of, more services via the web.

NSW.net manages access to two online databases which are free to all public libraries and their communities in NSW through the website. The NSW.net Consortium provides a suite of optional online databases for purchase by public libraries at competitive prices. Evaluation of products for inclusion in the NSW.net Consortium suite is undertaken by the NSW.net Consortium Content Evaluation Working Party which consists of public library representatives from across the state.

Northern Territory Library and Information Service

NTLIS plays a leading role in the development of culturally appropriate information services for indigenous territorians. A key strategy is the development of community managed Knowledge Centres providing indigenous communities with the means to collect and manage their own cultural knowledge, and with electronic access to both indigenous and non-indigenous forms of knowledge.

An innovative development has been the 'Locate Your Library' website with data managed on an Oracle database, providing library websites for 33 Northern Territory public libraries, community libraries and knowledge centres, and incorporating individually managed websites, a community information database and a Territory calendar of events. Development of the project has focused on providing libraries and knowledge centres with the technical ability to maintain and manage their own data.

State Library of Queensland

The web is used to deliver many of the State Library's services including a number of general and specialist websites:

• the online catalogue and digital library collection,
• online exhibitions,
• Queensland Web, a database of Queensland websites,
• NetLinks, an authoritative database of websites, selected by professional staff,
• services for public libraries - detailed list of websites, and content developed by State Library staff for Queensland public libraries. Content includes - manuals, frequently asked questions, statistical data, grant funding and specialist information for public library staff, and
• boutique sites - for specialist content such a Johnstone Gallery Archive, and BHP Billiton skills.net roadshow.

The State Library is currently investigating a Content Management System and intends to migrate to a CMS and a re-developed website by the end of 2003. The website will be redeveloped to meet the Queensland Government standard website design criteria (Consistent User Interface).

State Library of South Australia

SLSA is currently moving its web content from static web pages to a content management system. The CMS is Unity, developed by Adelaide-based Chimo Pty Ltd. Content is stored in a Tamino native XML database. Through use of templates, content can be displayed in graphic-rich format or as text-only.

State Library of Victoria

The State Library of Victoria is in the process of re-developing its website. A content management system (Merant Collage) has been chosen, usability testing has been undertaken of the existing site and a wireframe mockup has been prepared for the new site. It is expected to take about another 3-6 months before the site is fully operational.

As part of the website redevelopment, the library's online shop is also being redeveloped, and some new initiatives commenced, including the ability to purchase digital copies of images. This is expected to use the same credit card payment facility as is currently used for the library shop.

Co-operative projects

PictureAustralia

PictureAustralia provides online access to images of Australian people, places and events from the collections of over 25 cultural agencies including libraries, archives, museums, galleries, universities and historical societies. Most state libraries are members and contributors to PictureAustralia and the service is managed by the National Library.

MusicAustralia

MusicAustralia, an initiative of the National Library and ScreenSound Australia, aims to provide integrated access to Australian music resources from Australian cultural institutions and the wider Australian music community. MusicAustralia aims to provide access to music in all its formats, including printed sheet music, sound recordings and electronic scores; across styles and genres, and including both heritage and contemporary material. The service is currently moving from a pilot to production phase with state libraries participating in the digitisation and access to this material.

AskNow!

AskNow! is Australia's first collaborative reference service with national, state and territory libraries in Australia providing an innovative online reference service for all Australians.

AskNow! is a pilot initiative of the Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL). It extends currently available library reference services using 24/7 Reference software.

Pandora

Pandora is a collaborative project involving the National Library, ScreenSound Australia, the Northern Territory Library and Information Service and the State Libraries of Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland to create a selective archive of Australian online publications. The State Library of Tasmania exchanges preservation web data with Pandora.

Australian Pictorial Thesaurus

The Australian Pictorial Thesaurus is a web-based thesaurus of 15 000 topic terms for indexing Australian images used by Australian libraries, museums, historical societies and archives, initiated and managed by the State Library of NSW on behalf of the Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL).

Developments and initiatives

Portals

The National Library of Australia is currently re-developing its website in tandem with the implementation of the new ILMS. Patron registration for the new ILMS will allow introduction of some user customisation features. The library is developing a 'one search' service that will search across the catalogue, website, pictures catalogue, the online shop and subject guides using Z39.50.

Community organisations, special interest groups and individuals in Queensland have the opportunity to develop and maintain websites hosted free of charge through Connecting Queensland, portal software launched in June 2003. Over 30 communities and public libraries are currently registered. Telstra Country Wide is a project sponsor.

Open Archives Initiative

The National Library is using the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) protocol for metadata harvesting both as a service provider and a data provider. PictureAustralia is using OAI to harvest metadata from several participants (State Libraries of NSW and Victoria and the National Library) resulting in a more up-to-date service. OAI will also be used to enhance the gathering of data for the NBD including metadata for online commonwealth government publications and to extend its support to metadata schemas such as Dublin Core and the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS).

Repository software

The State Library of Tasmania has access to sophisticated repository software developed by the Department of Education for learning object storage and management. It is expected that this software will provide significant developmental opportunities over the next few years. The SLT is using this software to redevelop Service Tasmania Online in 2003/2004. Once proven, this software will also be used to deliver intranet and internet site content.

The State Library of Tasmania has tested a number of internal software applications that may be able to either deliver a federated search model for cross-domain searching or an aggregated repository model based on harvesting applications such as the Open Archives Initiative. The result of this testing has been the decision to further develop the aggregated repository model, with repository software under development.

Cross Platform Searching Implementations

The National Library is currently developing a Kinetica Public Libraries Portal pilot service with five public libraries. The service will demonstrate search across services such as the NBD, PictureAustralia, APAIS full text and other resources using Z39.50 and integrating with document requesting.

As part of an innovative project to improve access to collections, the State Library of New South Wales has developed a model for describing collections which incorporates all formats in a subject-based approach. To test the model, a prototype Collection Guide to Dance has been developed using a modified form of Encoded Archival Description after extensive research into emerging standards for collection description.

The State Library of Queensland's ENCompass database was launched in June 2003 and currently provides access to:

• Picture Queensland,
• Johnstone Gallery Archive (exhibition catalogues), and
• State Library of Queensland catalogues.

The State Library of Victoria is in the process of configuring the OCLC SiteSearch open source software as a cross-platform searching application, to be made available to the public with the launch of the redeveloped website at the end of 2003.