The Australian Library Journal

Glory days? Reflections on the 1988 Australian Libraries Summit and its aftermaths

Eric Wainwright

Background

By the 24th Biennial Conference of the Library Association of Australia (LAA) in Darwin in July 1986, Warren Horton had been in office as director-general of the National Library of Australia (NLA) for just over one year. In an impressively wide-ranging speech to the conference, Horton re-examined the National Library of Australia's roles and relationships. He set out strongly his views on NLA leadership:

Most importantly, I believe we must immediately develop a mechanism for involving all professional bodies, major stakeholders and the library community in a vigorous and structural identification of the difficulties and opportunities confronting us... I have in mind a proposal modelled in some ways on the 1979 and proposed 1989 White House conferences on Library and Information Services... I believe we must undertake such a once-in-a-generation strategic planning exercise as a matter of urgency... I believe the National Library has a mandate to exercise leadership in the library community, and it is prepared to commit resources towards such a meeting. 1

While this was the first public unveiling of the idea which led to the Australian Libraries Summit of October 1988, the National Library files reveal that the director-general, characteristically, had informally floated the concept of a 'national libraries summit' with the Committee of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) the previous April, 'discussed the idea' with Jenny Adams (then executive director of the LAA), and written formally in May 1986 to State and Territory librarians. There is also a suggestion on file that Horton moved quickly following the Darwin speech to forestall a move in the Cultural Ministers' Council to 'review the national pattern of library services,' and he was successful in getting Council endorsement in May 1987 to await the Summit outcomes before contemplating any action. By July 1987 he had secured support for the Summit from the National Library Council and appointed NLA staff member Anthony Ketley to co-ordinate a secretariat. The first meeting of the Summit Steering Committee was held in Sydney on 24 September 1987, when the director-general outlined his views on the objectives to an initial group comprising Jenny Adams, Jim Dwyer, Boyd Rayward and Denis Richardson. Bob Sharman, Diana Killen (Southwell) and Derek Fielding were to attend from the second meeting.

The issue of summit chair was discussed at some length at the first two meetings. In each case, the Committee resolved that it considered that Warren Horton should chair. But the minutes suggest his doubt about the wisdom of such a decision, and the need for a chair with no possible vested interest in Summit outcomes. At the following meeting, the name Margaret Trask was put forward as one of two possible chairs by Diana Killen, and while the minutes record no conclusion, by the sixth meeting on 8 April 1988 the director-general had approached Margaret Trask, gained her acceptance to chair the Summit, and added her to the steering committee. Whether or not Horton manoeuvred the choice of Margaret Trask, it is hardly surprising that she would have been one of his leading contenders. Their parallel careers in New South Wales, shared experience as LAA presidents, and more particularly Margaret's initiatives in library management training which led to the formation of the Australian Information Management Association (AIMA), would all have engendered confidence in her skills both as an organiser and facilitator. Given the later overwhelming approval of her chairing of the Summit itself, this may be seen as something of a masterstroke.

Horton's Darwin commitment to 'commit resources' to the Summit was clearly honoured through 1987-1988. The NLA established a substantial organising group behind steering committee meetings, preparation of issues papers, careful selection of participants, and the organisation of the Summit event itself over four days in Canberra - at the Lakeside Hotel, a venue assisted by a generous donation from the former chairman of the National Library Council, Ken Myer.

The Summit

The Summit attracted over 140 participants, including key individuals on the Australian library scene, representatives from every significant national collaborative organisation relating to library and information services, all library sectors, and related organisations such as the Australian Council of Archives and the National Book Council.

The Summit's mission statement was: 'to determine and reach agreement on the most effective structures and processes for delivering library and information services throughout the nation.' It had as objectives:

1. To explore the present pattern and possible alternative structures for library and related information services.
2. To explore ways of co-ordinating collection development to create the most comprehensive possible national collection and of establishing agreements to achieve this process.
3. To consider proposals leading to a plan for improved access to the national collection.
4. To identify the roles of various kinds of libraries and related information services in achieving objectives 2 and 3.
5. To explore ways of improving public awareness and capacity to use information resources available through the nation's libraries and related information services.
6. To agree on a process of implementing the conclusions reached at the Summit2.

There seems little questioning of the success of the Summit itself in agreeing an action agenda. As both Summit chair, and the primary architect of the procedures, Margaret Trask engendered a high measure of consensus. Most of the Summit effort had been concentrated on issues relating to national access to library materials - national collection development, preservation, national bibliographic databases, document delivery, national co-ordination - and, inevitably, user pays principles (or how access costs should be shared). Adequate time was given to sessions relating to 'users with special needs' - the multicultural community, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, and people with disabilities; and to school libraries, and education for library and information services. However, the focus for most delegates, and for follow-up activity, was on the cross-sectoral issues regarded as of national significance. There was rapid follow-up action in distributing the resolutions and a summary of Summit outcomes.

Assessing the success and effects of the Summit

In his 'Foreword' to the final report of the Summit, Warren Horton states:

The Summit made major advances towards the better development of the nation's library services in the interests of their users, notably through agreement reached by delegates on major issues on the agenda. This was in no small part due to the fact that it was chaired magnificently by Margaret Trask.3

However, as he went on to note 'The test of our effectiveness will now be how well this is taken up by the LAA, ACLIS, ASLA and other bodies and libraries responsible for its implementation, and how well we sell it to the key decision makers in the Australian community'4.

Was the Australian Libraries Summit unique as an event in Australian library development to 1988? In its breadth of participation, and diversity of agenda, the answer must be yes. But in retrospect, it seems fairly obvious that the processes involved for the Summit would be unlikely to result in new directions. The exercise was one of consensus-building both in the setting of the agenda and draft resolutions, and in the manner of discussion at the Summit itself. The core 'national' resolutions of the Summit reflected a continuum of trends that had been in place through the 1980s (and indeed for some areas through several decades).

National collection development

As regards co-operative national collection building, the Summit built on a long legacy of work through AACOBS, from the time of Tauber's 1961 survey onwards. The National Book Resources Development Committee (NBRDC), chaired by Burmester, had had as an objective the preparation of 'an acquisition plan on a national basis'5, and led to AACOBS' establishment of regional Book Resources Committees throughout the States and the ACT. While Bryan and McGreal, in their 1972 study for AACOBS agreed rightly that there was no coherent national pattern of collecting in the sense of 'something that results from the conscious intermingling of constituent elements according to some predetermined design'6, AACOBS had kept alive the idea of co-operation in collection building throughout the 1970s, culminating in the AACOBS Seminar on National Collection Building in 1980.

Given this background, it is somewhat surprising that a key driver for actions following the Summit was the concept of the 'Distributed National Collection,' (DNC) which had been defined at the Summit as:

• the aggregation of all library collections in Australia whether in the public or private sector;
• comprehensive in relation to Australia;
• selective in relation to the rest of the world as present and future needs require;
• adequately recorded and readily accessible.

As Biskup has noted7, the concept was hardly new, and had been implicit as far back as the NBRDC's 1965 report. Indeed, it may be argued that the idea underpinned the development of national union catalogues which first emerged with the Catalogue of scientific and technical periodicals in Australia in 1930. In his Summit discussion paper Wainwright had merely stated that 'It is clearly a fact that the "national collection" in Australia is distributed amongst a large number of libraries.' But as he had also noted: '...there is an inherent conflict between increasing the comprehensiveness of a national collection and maximising the access of users in an individual institution to the material they require.' He concluded: '...any more co-ordinated "national collection development plan" can only emerge after we have a far greater level of knowledge about existing collection strengths and collecting intentions.'8

Post-Summit, the DNC concept took on a life of its own. The DNC became a major strategic issue for the National Library's Corporate Planning Group, and by mid-1990, the Library had published its revised Collection development policy and strategic plan, with its future overseas collecting seen as being firmly within the framework of the DNC. Papers by Fielding9 and Crook10, which had been worked through public fora in 1989, fuelled debate at the ACLIS National Council in April 1990, and a DNC Seminar was held in Perth in September 199011. A plethora of articles 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 pro and con the DNC appeared over 1989 to 1993, and by 1993 the National Library had established an 'Office of the DNC,' while CAUL had weighed in with a 'DNC Colloquium' in Adelaide in March 1993 and a seminar on the DNC in Lismore in May 1994. Meanwhile, the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) 'endorsed' the DNC in April 1994. ACLIS reported on 'DNC Progress'17 early in 1994, and set up a 'DNC Strategy Group' in August 1994. In August 1995 ACLIS National Council held a meeting on the 'DNC Model,' and there was a further CAUL meeting on the DNC in Melbourne in October 1995. In July 1997, the National Scholarly Communications Forum (NSCF) broadened university academic interest in the idea through its successful Round Table on the DNC, but nearly nine years after the Summit, it is perhaps understandable that some participants felt somewhat jaded: 'We need to put aside these time-wasting discussions of issues such as the Distributed National Collection and library collecting policies, and totally re-assess the scholarly process, including what information and facilities Australian scholars will need in the future.'18

The Summit also led to accelerated effort to determine greater knowledge about major libraries' collections and collecting intentions, built around published collection development policies; and through Conspectus, which had been devised in North America in the early 1980s, and had been investigated as a possible tool for recording collection strengths by a CAUL Working Party on Collecting Levels over 1985-86. Following the Summit, ACLIS established a Task Force on Conspectus chaired by Eric Wainwright, which recommended19 in 1989 the establishment of a national Conspectus based on the North American model. While endorsed by ACLIS and supported by the National Library in establishing a 'conspectus officer' position, debate on the merits or otherwise of the Conspectus was at times fierce 20, 21, 22. Several major libraries, including the National Library, the University of Melbourne and the State Library of Victoria undertook Conspectus surveys, while a number of others developed and published collection development policies, which were gathered as a national data resource by the National Library's Office of the DNC.

Seen from 2003, the Conspectus model has to be judged to be a diversion as a useful national comparative tool. The Summit momentum caused some libraries to think more deeply about their directions for collecting, particularly the National and State libraries. But the Conspectus proponents over-estimated the extent to which collecting in most Australian university and special libraries could be driven by policy in a situation of declining purchasing power and with most purchasing decisions made by academic or research staff.

Nevertheless, it was indicative of progress that by 1998 the issue of access to, and collection of, overseas monographs was firmly back on the national agenda, when the National Library hosted a National Round Table on Access to Overseas Monographs, which amongst its recommendations called for the National Library to convene an Australian Library Collections Task Force 'to investigate and recommend strategies for improving access to overseas monographs' 23 (but cf the 1985 AACOBS Seminar on the Collecting of Western European Imprints!)

Document location and supply

As Wainwright had noted in his summit discussion paper, 'The issue of collection development is inextricably intertwined with that of document delivery.'24 The Summit formulation of DNC principles made it clear that an item could not usefully be regarded as part of the 'national collection' unless it was 'adequately recorded and accessible.'

By the time of the Summit, the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) had become de facto the essential primary mechanism for locating material in Australian libraries, via the National Bibliographic Database (NBD). The formation of the ABN Network Committee from the start of the ABN operations in 1981, and the regular ABN User Meetings and Conferences, had led to a strong sense of ownership by major participating libraries in policy and directions for the Network. As Groenewegen noted, it is of enduring credit to successive directors general 'that their sensitivity to achieving this led the National Library to pay careful heed to [users] views.'25 Nevertheless Groenewegen also noted in the same paper some of the constraints on forward thinking caused by the tight linkage between the NBD and ABN as a shared cataloguing system.

In the event, the resolutions of the Summit relating to national identification/location services were bland, effectively endorsing the National Library's responsibility and approaches to NBD development, while noting the potential of open systems interconnection (OSI) to assist with this process. This endorsed the work already in train through the NLA's Working Group on Library Systems Interconnection. Post-Summit developments in these areas lay very largely in the hands of the ABN Network Committee.

The supply process for documents had been an issue of some contention for many years prior to the Summit. A National conference on interlending had been held in Brisbane in 1980. In July 1984 the LAA's Working Party on Document Delivery in Australia presented a 'A National plan for document supply and delivery in Australia.'26 This led to the Document Delivery Summit in Canberra in 1985 and the commissioning of a 'Survey of Australian inter-library lending' (SAIL)27 in 1986. The Summit discussions, as at the earlier fora, revolved around the roles of libraries, particularly the National Library, in the supply process, charges, the effectiveness or otherwise of the current system, and the need for more research. The key issue on the role of the National Library was not resolved, and conclusion of the SAIL report that the interlending system in Australia was '...not in such bad shape' probably reflected the general view of participants. The next fifteen years were to witness the same debates, while iterative improvements to the interlending system were made possible through developments in the NBD and the employment of new technologies for electronic transmission of requests and of scanned copies. The May 1995 ACLIS National Interlending and Document Delivery Summit in Canberra again reviewed issues, without any significant changes to the overall supply system.

As late as 2002, the National Resource Sharing Working Group, established by the National Library 'in response to concerns expressed by users and librarians about the effectiveness of the current interlending system'28 was engaged in an Interlibrary Lending/Document Delivery (ILL/DD) Benchmarking Study to collect data on the practices and performances of Australian libraries. The results suggest that the battle for full ILL effectiveness remained to be won!

Towards Federation 2001: linking Australians and their heritage

A Summit recommendation (AA7) about the collection of Australian material which received relatively little immediate attention had been introduced by the convenor of the AACOBS Victoria State Committee Resources Subcommittee, Derek Whitehead, viz: 'That the National Library convene a meeting of Australian copyright depository libraries to determine the most appropriate means of ensuring complete coverage of collecting, preserving and providing bibliographic access to Australian published material, including non-print material.'

Within the NLA, the impact of the AA7 recommendation was to focus greater attention on the issues of materials of Australian origin, particularly in relation to responsibility for collecting and for bibliographical control. The NLA determined to interpret the resolution more broadly, and establish an agenda for the development of Australiana which might attract Commonwealth government funding in support of its celebration of the centenary of Australian Federation:

The focus of Federation 2001 was deliberate. Since 2001 will be the Centenary year of the Australian Federation, the planning committee took the view that a carefully identified set of tasks, agreed to by the Australian library community, kindred collecting institutions and related special interest groups, and which would lead to enhanced community access to Australia's recorded documentary heritage by the year 2001, might provide a basis for special funding support over the next decade.

Also the time scale was of a length which:

• provided a long-range target in which even large tasks are achievable
• required a collaborative approach, analogous to successful federation
• forced thinking about new technological opportunities at present only in the early or pilot development stage
• required consideration both of historical records and future needs.29

Detailed planning, led by the NLA's deputy director-general, commenced in May 1990. A Planning Committee was established in November 1990, to include representation from the State Libraries Council, ACLIS and the National Film and Sound Archives, with the mission: 'to enable Australians to have the maximum possible bibliographical and physical access to their recorded documentary heritage by the year 2001.' And it was planned that the conference would 'identify present barriers to access to Australia's documentary heritage, and establish initiatives and mechanisms which will enable the mission to be accomplished by the Centenary of Australia's Federation.'30

The processes leading to the national conference, Towards Federation 2001: linking Australians and their heritage, in March 1992 were heavily based on the Summit model, but involved a wider audience. On the basis of twenty-four widely circulated preliminary papers prepared by, or commissioned on behalf of, the Planning Committee and feedback from ACLIS State and Territory Committees, the conference agenda was built around sixty-six draft resolutions. It was facilitated again by Margaret Trask, as chair, over a four-day period. In his introduction to the conference, Eric Wainwright stated that the ambition was for Australia to have:

...the world's best national system for providing access to documentary records which will enable an understanding of the history and development of the nation and its people; and that by 2001, we needed to develop a system which would: enable all Australians, from their home, place of work or a publicly accessible information service point, to locate all significant items of the Australian recorded heritage and to obtain access to the intellectual content of those items within a reasonable time, at a reasonable cost. 31

Of the 140 participants, there was substantial representation from collecting institutions other than libraries, particularly from the archives sector, publisher and bookseller representatives, senior bureaucrats from the relevant Commonwealth department, (then) the Department of the Arts, Sport, the Environment and Territories (DASET), and a number of university academics with particular interests in Australian studies. The conference final report concluded that the mixture had been successful:

...in reaching a high measure of agreement on the tasks to be addressed, in improving interactions between the library and archives sectors, in reaching very strong agreement on the principle of collaboration, in raising consciousness among general administrators of issues relating to special formats, for example, oral history, and special groups such as Aborigines.

But that:

...the conference did not get to grips fully with some of the issues arising from the rapid development of Australian information in electronic form, in particular, issues relating to Australian databases, both bibliographic and numeric; and that the format did not allow effective consideration of the problems of particular client groups in obtaining the information they need, for example, business. The process also fell short of identifying practical actions of a political or community oriented nature which might result in greater resources for achieving some of the outcomes sought. 32

In retrospect, the latter might be regarded as crucial to final outcomes.

Again the National Library devoted resources to rapid and widespread dissemination of the conference outcomes. It co-ordinated meetings in all States and Territories, which aimed to identify and stimulate local supporting activities. Key factors in assisting progress were the NLA's establishment in June 1992 of a National Preservation Office (NPO), announced at the conference itself, and the early acceptance by ACLIS of responsibility for all twenty-eight resolutions directed to it for action, and by the NLA itself which took sole or shared responsibility for fifty-four resolutions.

The NLA was to provide a high level of support for activities arising from Towards Federation 2001, through to mid-1996, when the director-general concluded in the final 'Progress Reports 1994-1996':

The National Library has now decided to wind down the Towards Federation 2001 Process which commenced with the Towards Federation 2001 conference in March 1992. Given the excellent progress to date as recorded in the following report, and the tighter budget situation now facing the Library, it feels that it is no longer appropriate to continue the process in its present form, nor to undertake a formal review process as recommended at the 1993 review meeting.

The completion of the TF2001 process in no way lessens the commitment of the National Library to improving access to Australian heritage materials. The Library will continue with this objective, taking account of the many changes that have taken place since 1992, and the need to address the challenges of long-term access to material in both print and electronic formats. 33

The final 'Progress Reports 1994-1996' document records a strong array of advances over the four years since the March 1992 conference, aided by the National Preservation Office, the DNC Office set up by the NLA in 1993, and the Working Group on High-Priority Cross-Sectoral Projects, composed of high-level staff from the NLA, CAUL, ACLIS and the Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL) which raised around $200 000 for project seed funding for the years 1993 to 1995. It is interesting to note that in writing to the Minister for Communications, Information and the Arts in July 2001, the present NLA director-general, Jan Fullerton, should conclude the Towards Federation 2001 process: 'It is fitting in this centenary year that... most of the tasks defined in 1992 have been successfully achieved ... an excellent testimony to the commitment to co-operation and collaboration across the library sector...34

Related sector impacts

The Towards Federation conference had included several representatives from the archives, museums and galleries sectors, and senior DASET bureaucrats. The inclusion of DASET officers was not coincidental. While meetings of Commonwealth, State and Territory 'arts' Ministers had been held irregularly since 1979, only in its later years did the 1983-1995 ALP federal government start to develop significant cultural policy. In 1992 the (by now more formally constituted) Cultural Ministers' Council established a Heritage Collections Working Group (HCWG). Thus ideas coming out of the Summit and Towards Federation processes were able to feed in to an emerging government agenda, encapsulated initially in the 1993 Cultural Policy Statement Distinctly Australian, which referred to the 'national distributed collection of museums, galleries, libraries and archives.' Though the HCWG and its successors, the museums and galleries sectors, in particular, were able to leverage extra federal government funding, leading to such developments as Australian Museums and Galleries Online (1997), Australia's Cultural Network (April 1998), Australian Libraries Gateway (March 1998), and more recently the 'Australia Dancing' portal produced collaboratively by the National Library of Australia, National Film and Sound Archive, and ScreenSound Australia.

It may seem remarkable that use of the DNC terminology has lasted as long as it has. Even in 2003, a 'DNC Program' remains within the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA) to provide co-ordination for collaborative activities in the cultural sectors. However, it may be argued that the idea of 'a national collection which is distributed' has greater utility in related collecting fields such as museums, galleries, and archives, where a much higher proportion of the material is uniquely held than in the case of libraries.

Technology issues

Neither the Summit nor the Towards Federation 2001 conference were devoid of discussion on the impact of technology. Indeed, Richardson's Summit discussion paper35 still reads well. But the focus of both events was on preservation aspects, building on the work since 1988 of the ACLIS (formerly ALIC) Working Party on Preservation of Machine Readable Records. Electronic materials were still being thought of as if they were simply another format with specific problems - rather than presaging a wide-scale change in the nature of library services, particularly in higher education and special libraries. In retrospect, it is reasonable to conclude that the timing of the Summit was both too late for rectification of the document supply problems of a print-based world, and too early for clear understanding of the implications of the communications revolution.

In January 1990, the National Board of Employment, Education and Training (NBEET) had commissioned a Review of Library Provision in Higher Education Institutions. Given that the investigating Working Party (chaired by Professor Ian Ross of the Australian National University) included both the Summit chair, Margaret Trask and the NLA's deputy director-general, Eric Wainwright, it is not surprising that its report in December 199036 expounded several ideas that had come out of the Summit, notably the DNC and Conspectus. The Working Party noted the potential impacts of electronic publishing and networking, but concluded rather tamely 'Electronic publishing is a rapidly developing area, the full implication of which, both for academics and libraries have yet to be revealed' (!)

Criticised for being insufficiently forward looking,37 the Ross Report nevertheless led to changed relationships between the Committee of Australian University Librarians and both the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) and the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee (AVCC). Acceptance by successive Ministers of a funding program for library-related projects, originally as recommended by the Ross Report, was to lead to the formation of a Libraries Working Group (with both CAUL and NLA representation) to advise DEET on project priorities and funding allocations. The Ross Report's recommendation for an AVCC Standing Committee on Libraries also led to the establishment of the AVCC Standing Committee on Information Resources (SCIR) in 1992. A momentum for involving CAUL, and to some extent the NLA, in the development of higher education policy relating to information services had been created.

From 1993, the technological focus was to shift very quickly from the previous priority of machine-readable records for access and preservation, to the implications of electronic publishing. CAUL had moved in late 1991 to establish a Working Party on Networked Electronic Information, and catalysts for action were CAUL's 1993 report 'Libraries at the AARNet Crossroads'38 and the April 1993 Canberra conference Changes in scholarly communication patterns: Australia and the electronic library39, under the aegis of the Australia Academy of the Humanities, and with substantial funding from DEET. By October 1993, the National Scholarly Communications Forum (NSCF) had been established. The National Library was involved in both the April 1993 conference Steering Committee, and in the formation of the NSCF, and has continued to be involved in many NSCF Round Tables over the succeeding ten years.

But it can be perceived in retrospect that the Summit directions for national collection building and document supply had been essentially overtaken by 1995. The higher education sector was moving in new directions, with the internet facilitating changes in open learning and in the nature of academic collaboration and research. DEET's establishment of the Working Group on Research Libraries Infrastructure in 1995 was to confirm a momentum away from National Library leadership, and towards a sectoral agenda for dealing with electronic information. Through several metamorphoses of committees and working groups, this momentum has continued right through to the August 2003 formation of the Australian Research Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee (ARIIAC), chaired by the vice-chancellor of the University of New South Wales, as part of a broadening agenda of higher education infrastructure, in which university librarians have established themselves as major players.

Co-ordination of library and information services

The establishment of ACLIS in June 1998 was the culmination of some years of dissatisfaction with the two cross-sectoral bodies which preceded it - the Australian Advisory Council on Bibliographical Services, set up in 1956, and the Australian Library and Information Council, established in 1981 by the (Commonwealth/State) Conference of Ministers for Cultural Affairs and the Arts.

ACLIS, supported by and together with the NLA, became the major agency for progressing many of the proposals coming out of the Summit, and to a lesser extent, Towards Federation 2001. As a more broadly representative and better-funded body, its various working groups, task forces, and National Council were to produce an array of policy statements and reports from its first Action Plan in 1988. Among them, for example:

• ACLIS National Task Force on Conspectus (Final Report, 1989)
• ACLIS Survey of Collection Development Policies (1991)
• ACLIS Task Force on the Preservation of Australian Electronic Information (Position paper, 1992).
• ACLIS Serials in the DNC (Report, 1991)
• ACLIS Task Force on Documentary Heritage (Draft Report, 1992)
• ACLIS Report on DNC Progress (1994)
• ACLIS Task Force on Documentary Heritage in Australia's Libraries (Final Report, 1995).

ACLIS retained a strong interest in the DNC concept as a gathering device for national activity up until about 1996. But by 1996, the effectiveness of ACLIS was beginning to be questioned, as its president, then Helen Hayes, revealed in the organisation's own newsletter.40 ACLIS and the Australian Library and Information Association (formerly the LAA) had never been fully able to resolve their different views on user-pays and inter-library charging issues, which had caused deep discussion at the Summit. The two organisations continued to have overlapping interests, and some felt that a consequence was a confusion of advice to government. During 1997, the two organisations commenced formal discussions with a view to a merger. There is insufficient space to delve here into the politics of the time (interested readers might start with the ACLIS Newsletter for August 199841), but suffice it to say that the merger talks failed, the National Library withdrew its funding support for the ACLIS National Office and by the end of 1998 ACLIS had ceased operations.

From the high Summit hopes for improved collaboration in 1988, the Australian library sector was thus left, ten years later, without a national cross-sectoral body through which libraries (rather than individuals) could pool resources for policy development, influence government policy, and encourage cross-sectoral projects. Did this matter? Both CAUL and CASL had become stronger, better-supported bodies over the decade. CAUL in particular appeared able to exert significant influence on the relevant officials of the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA) and the Australian Research Council, leading to increased funding of CAUL-influenced projects in the areas of document delivery and shared access to electronic information resources. And CAUL and the National Library had been jointly responsible for improved input into policy issues by university academics and researchers, particularly through the National Academies and the National Scholarly Communications Forum.

The National Library itself also moved rapidly to fill part of the vacuum formed by ACLIS' demise. In February 1999 it established the Australian Library Collections Task Force to focus particularly on issues of access to monographs, and in May that year set up the National Resource Sharing Working Group with a broader remit. By February 2002 the wheel had turned full circle, with the NLA hosting a 'Peak Bodies Forum'42 in Canberra to 'Identify significant issues facing the Australian library sector and to develop a national plan of action to address those issues that participants agree can be successfully managed at a national level.' The agenda had an eerie similarity to that of the 1988 Summit.

Finally at the time of writing [November 2003] the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee, in reporting on 'Libraries in the Online Environment' in October 2003, recommended 'That the Cultural Ministers' Council appoint a standing libraries working group to provide regular reports on library and information matters which need to be addressed as a priority.'43 Shades of ALIC!

Some conclusions

This brief essay omits any analysis of the impact of the Summit on particular library sectors, such as multicultural services, services to aboriginals, and services to people with disabilities. Those lacunae aside, tentative conclusions can be drawn. On the positive side:

• The Summit and its outcomes derived very much from the vision, leadership style and commitment of the National Library's director-general, Warren Horton, over the decade 1986 to 1996.
• The process achieved reasonable success in consensus building in the Australian library community. It reset the NLA's own priorities, and established many of those of ACLIS, for around seven to eight years.
• The process further consolidated the NLA's position as a leader and facilitator of cross-sectoral national library development.
• The Summit set much of the agenda for improving access to material of Australian origin, and strongly influenced access developments in related cultural sectors.
• The Summit established a process for co-ordinated action which was to be followed several times over the following fifteen years: careful analysis of the issues, bringing together the major stakeholders, and public acceptance by assigned stakeholders of responsibility for agreed actions.

However, a pessimist might conclude that

• The process had little impact on the formal structure or mechanisms of the Australian library system.
• It largely failed to gain the attention of the Commonwealth government, nor was it successful in preventing further financial reductions for the National Library.
• It had minimal impact on the structure and functioning of the Australian document supply system.

Fifteen years on, the Summit may be seen as a child of its time - a national consensus building process through which people of goodwill could agree on longer-term beneficial change. It seems probable that Warren Horton would have been influenced in his conception of the nature and role of the Summit by the 'grand gatherings' orchestrated by the Hawke government, such as the National Economic Summit in 1983, and the National Tax Reform Summit in 1985. He was also aware of the US White House conference on Library and Information Services of 1979 and the nature of the planning and preparations that went into this. In 2003, sectoral library organisations have become stronger, institutions have become more competitive, and in my view, most of us have less belief both in grand visions and the likelihood of broad consensus. It may be argued also that the need for such gatherings has also changed. The information and communication fields are now so fast-moving that institutions are having themselves to react more quickly. While strategic goals may remain important, it may be less likely that national mechanisms built on consensus can respond within the timescales needed for decision. Vale the Summit - I suspect that we shall not see its like again!

End notes

1. Horton WM, 1987. 'The National Library of Australia: future directions'. Australian Library Journal: pp88-102.

2. National Library of Australia, 1988. Australian Libraries Summit, October 16-19, 1988: final report. Canberra: NLA, p2.

3. Australian Libraries Summit op cit p5.

4. idem, p10

5. Australian Advisory Council on Bibliographic Services, 1965. Report of the National Book Resources Development Committee. Canberra, NLA.

6. Bryan H, McGreal RM, 1972. The pattern of library services in Australia. Canberra: National Library of Australia.

7. Biskup P, 1994. Libraries in Australia. [Topics in Australian Library and Information Studies, Number 9]. Wagga Wagga: Centre for Information Studies, p2.

8. Wainwright E, 1988. 'Collection development'. Australian Libraries Summit: Discussion Papers. Canberra: National Library of Australia, pp14-18.

9. Fielding D, 1990. 'The Distributed National Collection, an alternative view. The Distributed National Collection concept'. Clayton. P, ed. Cooperative collection development: discussion papers. Canberra: Australian Council of Libraries and Information Services, ACT Committee pp51-55.

10. Crook A, 1990. 'The Distributed National Collection: its implications for an Australian inter-lending system'. Clayton P, ed Cooperative collection development: discussion papers. Canberra: Australian Council of Libraries and Information Services, ACT Committee pp34-50.

11. Thawley J, Kent PG, eds The Distributed National Collection: papers prepared for an ALIA acquisitions seminar. Perth: Australian Library and Information Association, Acquisitions Section. Melbourne, 1991.

12. Thawley J, 1991. 'Science and technology and the Distributed National Collection'. Australian Academic & Research Libraries 22: pp1-17.

13. Richardson WD, 1991 'The Distributed National Collection as it will affect collection building'. Australian Library Journal 40: pp222-231.

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Biographical information

Eric Wainwright is currently Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Information Services and Technologies), after periods as Deputy Director-General at the National Library of Australia and University Librarian at the University of Adelaide. He is a Fellow of ALIA and recipient of the HCL Anderson Award. He was a colleague of Margaret Trask for many years through the LAA Board of Education, AIMA and several consultancies.