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The Australian Library JournalA keyhole to the collection: the AIATSIS Library Digitisation Pilot ProgramBarbara Lewincamp and Julie Faulkner The VisionThe Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), the first Commonwealth statutory authority to focus on Australian Indigenous cultures, was established in 1964 as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. AIATSIS is the world's leading research, collecting and publishing organisation in Australian Indigenous studies. It is a network of Council and committees, members, staff, and other stakeholders working in partnership with Indigenous Australians to carry out activities that add knowledge, affirm and raise awareness of Australian Indigenous cultures and histories, in all their richness and diversity. The Library of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and its Audiovisual Archives holds the world's premier collection of materials relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies. As a research collection, the Library contains both current and historical resources. In 2001 AIATSIS relocated to its new premises on the Acton Peninsula in Canberra - heralding an exciting and challenging era. For the first time in the modern history of Australia an Indigenous organisation has received national prominence on a site of international importance. This gives us the opportunity to showcase Indigenous cultures and the richness of our collections in a manner never before possible. A fundamental activity on the new site is to ensure that all Australians have the best possible access to the rich and diverse materials that comprise the library collection. In the 1960s the Institute's Library was little more than a bibliographical reference centre, situated in a small office in Mort Street, Braddon. Today the Library, housed at Acton Peninsula, alongside the National Museum of Australia, Canberra is the major repository of resources concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies. The Library is also a very active centre for research by Aboriginal people.[1] Many institutions within Australia and internationally are building digital collections to enable greater access to their holdings, as well as a part of preservation strategies. Recognising the need to create digital collections, AIATSIS sought funding for a two-year institute-wide digitisation program. Funds were obtained from ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission). The library established a pilot digitisation program with the aim of creating, managing and delivering electronic information resources and services to clients via the AIATSIS website and the AIATSIS collections catalogue (Mura). Putting the vision into practiceThe pilot program revealed the complexity of the digitisation process - that it is inherently more than simply scanning the material. At the foundation or core of the program are the users and the collections. These needed to be defined and described in relation to digitisation. For example: where are the users located and what are their computer literacy levels? Once the foundation had been clearly defined, the initial resources were acquired. These included staff and the technical and physical infrastructure. Additionally underlying policies needed to be established to cover electronic delivery, electronic access, Metadata, persistent identification and resource location, and electronic archiving/management. All these policies impact on the staff and technical/physical infrastructure requirements - for example the standard for file resolution dictates the requirements for hardware such as computers and scanners. The library had no digitising equipment prior to the commencement of the project. The LDPP has acquired six appropriate computer workstations, two Microtek A3 scanners, a Canon A4 scanner, and an Imageware Bookeye scanner and the required software. The Bookeye is an overhead scanner capable of scanning books, newspapers, files, plans, without damage to the originals. A program manager, copyright clearance officer and two digitisation officers have been recruited to non-ongoing positions. They provide the technical and professional expertise, and the management skills required for the successful conduct of the program. With these needs met, the process could then advance through the following stages: selection and project planning, copyright, community consultation, conservation, cataloguing, digitisation, quality control, Metadata creation, image processing, systems building, access, preservation, and management. Each stage of the process revealed its own issues and problems. The issues were:
SelectionOne of the first policy papers written was the program's 'Selection criteria'. It was anticipated that the library's collection managers and clients and AIATSIS researchers would suggest material to be digitised from the library's collection, which would then be assessed against the selection criteria. These criteria include copyright, community agreement, volume of demand, client demand, anticipated increase in demand, and institutional benefits. The first project of the LDPP was the Treaty website. The material digitised for the website was selected to focus attention on the Treaty debate and its history. The website was designed to inform the debate and to stimulate further discussion and interest. It was foreseen that this project would be simple in regard to copyright and community consultation as the majority of the material had been previously published. This was not the case. Approximately sixty items were digitised, cleared for copyright, catalogued and made available electronically (including four books). Much of the material selected had many authors and or copyright holders. The digitisation program proved to be capable of the challenge and the website that resulted has received a great deal of praise. It is accessed by a wide audience including students, researchers, and the general public. One of the major driving forces of the retrospective digitisation of material from the library's collection is the return of materials in digital format to indigenous communities. While there is no legislative requirement for cultural organisations to repatriate significant cultural property, most have policies in place that support the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to decide the future of their cultural property. According to the Return of Indigenous Cultural Property (RICP) Program - an initiative of the Cultural Ministers' Council - 'The return of this cultural property is a key part of the reconciliation process'. [2] Many communities are setting up knowledge centres and keeping places where they plan to store their cultural property in digital formats. The demand for materials is growing exponentially. A two-year program is scarcely able to make an impact on this demand. What is required are long term funding and strategic planning. On a more positive note, selections have met with great interest and enthusiasm from those communities participating in the project. The first newsletter digitised for the Community Newsletters Project was the Maningrida Mirage. The Maningrida community has supported the project. Community consultation was completed and copyright issues were easily resolved. All volumes of the community newsletter (the Maningrida Mirage) between 1969 and 1974 have been digitised and returned to the community as PDF files. The files will now be stored on CD-ROM in both the Cultural Research Office and the school. This will allow the whole community easy access to the information about their community, family and friends in the early seventies. The files will also be available via the AIATSIS website shortly. In the digitisation program's schedule for the next five years (dependent on external funding) another thirty newsletters from all over Australia have been selected for digitisation and return to the communities. Further selections for the two-year Program include:
Best practice and standardsFrom its inception the LDPP has researched developing standards and best practices that will ensure the ongoing accessibility of digital collections. National and international standards have begun to emerge - particularly in the area of strategies intended to preserve access to large collections of digital resources, such as migration and emulation. The issue of best practice and standards is particularly complex in that the institutions and organisations at the forefront of the digital collections are often larger institutions with greater resources to devote to digitisation. The AIATSIS Library operates on a much smaller scale. Staff are multi-skilled. In researching the information technology issues for electronic access, our enquiries were often met with 'We don't do that - that's IT's job'. In a small organisation our team has to work closely with IT staff and take on many activities from planning the projects to creating the website. In doing so we often need the expertise of a staff member from the rest of the library and or the institute. This meant that expectations were placed on staff throughout the Institute in order for the program to succeed. Fortunately everyone involved in supporting the program has recognised the importance of digital formats in providing access to the collections. Staff have contributed greatly. It has also been of paramount importance in taking on the standards set by other institutions to take into consideration the differences between organisations. The LDPP's aim is access not preservation - therefore the standards required are different to those of an institution digitising for preservation. Also copyright of the material in our collections is rarely held by the Institute and often there are access restrictions set by depositors. As well, there are issues of community consultation which are dealt with below as part of copyright issues and community consultation. Whilst taking into account the standard requirements of the LDPP, it has been important to the follow best practice standards currently available in order to allow the possibility of collaboration with other institutions in the future. Copyright issues and community consultationFor electronic access to material - which is the LDPP's prime aim, the copyright and access issues are exceedingly complex. Even for historical materials, access restrictions must be considered and community consultations practised as required. Restrictions may be necessary for some items not only to comply with copyright law, but also because of conditions set by donors and the general legal concerns of privacy and publicity. The LDPP has demonstrated the need for a dedicated copyright officer within the library. Initially it was planned that selections would be made with the view to using material for which AIATSIS held copyright such as the Aboriginal Treaty Committee (ATC) Papers. This apparently simple selection from a copyright perspective turned out to be more complex. AIATSIS held copyright for the material that had been written by ATC members and published by the ATC. However, materials that had been published by the ATC and credited to a particular author in their own right had copyright held by that author and permission was required to provide electronic access. Also any illustrations or photographs that were included in the ATC papers required research to ensure that copyright was owned by the ATC and therefore able to be handed over to AIATSIS. Apart from the legal copyright issues there are the moral rights to consider. The Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000 was passed on 7 December 2000 and applied from 21 December 2000. The Act provides for three moral rights: an author's right to be identified as the author of a work (the right of attribution of authorship); the right of an author to take action against false attribution (the right not to have authorship of a work falsely attributed); and an author's right to object to derogatory treatment of his or her work which prejudicially affects his or her honour or reputation (the right of integrity of authorship of a work). The Library has adopted the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protocols for Libraries, Archives and Information Services. The protocols are complex with wide ranging implications. One of the intellectual property requirements is to 'develop proper professional recognition of the primary cultural and intellectual property rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and consult with appropriate Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples on their application'. Information has been gathered on the status of many items. Some items will not be digitised or have been withheld from distribution because of the need to restrict access or re-use. Some digitised items may be accessible in the library's reading rooms or on CD ROMS accessible by the communities but not over the internet. There is also complexity in the deposit history of much of the collection. With the assistance of research staff, the library has used the digitisation program to further work on establishing procedures, clarifying the legal position for items and collections not clearly in the public domain, and securing explicit permission where possible. Another aspect of the copyright issue that has been highlighted lies with the deposit forms held by the library. There are difficulties with old deposit forms where contact details have not been updated. This is particularly important where there are access conditions which require the depositor's permission. It is essential that the library has up-to-date contact details and deposit conditions. One of the requirements for the digitisation program was to create a contacts database for use by the library and the Audiovisual Archives. The copyright clearance officer has begun the task of updating the deposit conditions and contact details and renegotiating for internet access where applicable. In approaching a digitisation project it is easy to become concerned and overwhelmed about the copyright and community consultation issues. With many of the projects planned for the two years it was anticipated that a great deal of time and effort would need to be spent on obtaining copyright and community permission for the projects. Instead we were pleasantly surprised with the positive response from communities to our proposals. Every project has been greeted with enthusiasm and support from both the copyright holders and the communities. An example of this is the project to digitise the Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Strait. In researching the copyright issues inherent in the six-volume report it was discovered that the Cambridge University Press (CUP) hold copyright on these reports for another seven years. CUP was supportive of the project and has given the digitisation program a licence to digitise all six volumes and provide access electronically. In addition, the library has permission to produce copies on CD-ROM for community use. Community consultation was held with great support from the Torres Strait Regional Authority (TSRA) with whom discussions were held. The chairman, Mr Terry Waia wrote to AIATSIS expressing the TSRA's support for the project. Mr Waia stated in his letter that: This work of Dr Haddon and the other members of the expedition is well known and loved in Torres Strait. Unfortunately the rarity and cost of the books has placed them beyond the reach of most Torres Strait Islanders. The digitisation of this important cultural resource would be of immense benefit to the communities of the Torres Strait, as it would allow many more of our people to access this information, and assist our elders to pass on knowledge of Torres Strait history and culture to future generations. The full board of the TSRA recently met and endorsed the proposal to digitise the Haddon Reports. A letter has been sent to AIATSIS to announcing the decision. Digitisation of the Reports will begin in early 2003. ConclusionThe LDPP has been a success. It is the vehicle by which the library has developed new relationships and strengthened existing relationships with copyright holders, depositors and with communities. Its success is dependent on sound project management skills and the expertise of technical staff. Each stage of the project has required contributions from many library staff including collection managers, the systems manager, cataloguers, reference staff, family history unit staff, the conservator. By the end of the two-year program there will be eleven major projects completed with nine of those projects available via the internet - a total of more than 20 000 pages digitised. The program has met with overwhelming support and proved extremely successful. It has shown that the AIATSIS Library can and must have a digital identity in order to showcase Indigenous cultures and the richness of our collections. Digitisation is now an integral part of the way the library manages its collections and provides access to them. It is hoped that further funding will allow the program to continue beyond the end of this financial year. Endnotes1. Nugent, Ann. 'Complex collections: the Library of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies'. National Library of Australia News, June 1994 2. Return of Indigenous Cultural Property (RICP) Program http://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/ Biographical information Barbara Lewincamp is Library Director, AIATSIS and Julie Faulkner is Project Manager of the Library's Digitisation Program
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