AARL

CAUL report

CAUL will meet next in Sydney, 1-2 April 2004. Agenda items include:

• outline of the ARIIC projects - the Acting Minister for Education, Science and Training, announced $12 million in funding for these projects on 22 October, 2003.
  • Meta Access Management System - led by Macquarie University - 'this project allows for the integration of multiple solutions to managing authentication, authorisation and identities, together with common services for digital rights, search services and metadata management';
  • Towards an Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories - led by the Australian National University. APSR has three parts. First, the proposal has an overall focus on the critical issues of the access continuity and the sustainability of digital collections. Second, it will build on a base of demonstrators for digital continuity and sustainability, embedded in developmental repository facilities within partner institutions. Third, it will contribute to national strength in this area by encouraging the development of skills and expertise and providing coordination through out the sector;
  • The Australian Research Repositories Online to the World (ARROW) - led by Monash University. The ARROW project will identify and test a software solution or solutions to support best-practice institutional digital repositories comprising e-prints, digital theses and electronic publishing; and
  • Australian Digital Theses Program (ADT) Expansion and Redevelopment - led by the University of New South Wales - 'this project will redevelop the existing central metadata repository of the ADT - the repository's content will expand to include metadata about all Australian higher degree theses, whether in digital form or not. This goal responds to a clearly stated desire of the Australian research community, who report difficulty in finding information about theses.'
• library patron privacy;
• presentation to and by Peter Green, Curtin University, winner of the 2004 CAUL Achievement Award;
• open access - should CAUL develop its own statement to complement international statements on the principle;
• guidelines for library services to offshore students;
• copyright and the Free Trade Agreement;
• a workshop on quality; and
• re-development of Kinetica (guests at the meeting include Jan Fullerton and Warwick Cathro from the National Library of Australia.).

CAUL's current Executive Committee is comprised of president Madeleine McPherson of the University of Southern Queensland, deputy president Eve Woodberry of the University of New England, and committee members Cathrine Harboe-Ree (Monash), Andrew Wells (UNSW) and Derek Whitehead (Swinburne). Heather Gordon of the University of the Sunshine Coast chairs CEIRC, CAUL's Electronic Information Resources Committee.

The CEIRC program now encompasses 77 agreements with publishers and other information providers, valued at more than AUD 20 million for 2004. The average number of participating libraries is 18 (15 CAUL and three external participants). The highest number of participants is 57, for the Wiley InterScience complete journal collection.

The Information Literacy Working Group has supervised and participated in the preparation of Information Skills Survey for Assessment of Information Literacy in Higher Education. Administration Manual, by Dr Ralph Catts, published in 2003. They also participated in the production of Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy Framework: principles, standards and practice 2nd ed Dr Alan Bundy (ed), and published by the Australian and New Zealand Institute for Information Literacy in 2004. This is a revised version of CAUL's Information Literacy Standards published in 2001.

CAUL's Annual Report for 2002 is available from http://www.caul.edu.au/

In 2003, CAUL revised its strategic plan to address ongoing changes in the higher education and scholarly publishing environment. While retaining programs addressing research separately from teaching and learning, it recognises the nexus between the two - services and resources targeted at researchers form a significant core of those targeted at students and their teachers.

Diane Costello
CAUL executive officer