1. Digitisation Policy (http://www.nla.gov.au/policy/digitisation.html).

A key strategy in achieving the goal of "all Australians, a their place of choice, have direct, seamless access to print and electronic sources of information"* is the digitisation of Australian original material in the Library’s collection. To guide the Library’s progress in digitisation, it has developed the National Library of Australia Digitisation Policy 2000 – 2004. A copy of the Policy is attached for information.

* from : Directions 2000-2002, the National Library’s strategic directions statement (http://www.nla.gov.au/library/directions.html)

2. Digitisation projects.

The Library has completed a number of digitisation projects, and has several others in progress or in the planning stages.

Completed projects include:

George Raper Collection (http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/georgeraper/). All items in this newly acquired collection of First Fleet material have been digitised and included in an online exhibition launched on June 5.

Endeavour Journal (http://www.nla.gov.au/pub/endeavour/). A digitised version of the Endeavour Journal, with explanatory material and a journal transcript, has been made available on CD-ROM.

Ongoing projects include:

Images1 (http://www.nla.gov.au/images1/). This project includes over 20,000 images to date, and is being added to on a regular basis.

Rare Maps (http://www.nla.gov.au/rmaps/). A pilot for the project been conducted and documented.

Several collections have been identified as future digitisation candidates, among them the Barton Papers.

3. The Australian Libraries Gateway.

Provision has been made within the Australian Libraries Gateway to include links to digitisation policies in the Australian cultural sector, as well as listings of planned, in progress and completed digitisation projects (http://www.nla.gov.au/libraries/digitisation). Contributors are being contacted at present to ensure entries for digitisation projects are brought up-to-date, and to encourage the entry of new projects into the listing. The scope of the listing is explained at http://www.nla.gov.au/libraries/digitisation/scope.html

4. Digital Services Project (http://www.nla.gov.au/dsp/)

The Digital Services Project has the goals of

• enabling the Library to build and provide access to a distributed national collection of Australian electronic publications,
• providing the Library with systems supporting integrated collection management in a digital environment, and
• providing the Library with cost-effective technical support for efficient development and delivery of digital services enhancing access to the Library’s collections and other documentary resources.

5. PANDORA (http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pandora/)

PANDORA was established in 1996 to provide a mechanism for the archiving of significant Australian networked publications. The archive contains over 500 titles, many of which are updated regularly as new material is made available by the creators. A mechanism has been set up to ensure all electronic serials indexed in Australian indexing and abstracting services are archived in PANDORA, and all archived material has been assigned a PURL.

6. Australian Cooperative Digitisation Project, 1840-45 (http://www.nla.gov.au/ferg/)

The National Library was a partner in this project, which also involved the University of Sydney Library, the State Library of New South Wales and the Monash University Library. This project created a unique research infrastructure in Australian studies through the digital conversion of Australian serials and fiction of the seminal period 1840-1845.

7. PADI (http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/)

The National Library of Australia's Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI) initiative aims to provide mechanisms that will help to ensure that information in digital form is managed with appropriate consideration for preservation and future access.

Its objectives are:

• 1.to facilitate the development of strategies and guidelines for the preservation of access to digital information;
• 2.to develop and maintain a web site for information and promotion purposes;
• 3.to actively identify and promote relevant activities; and
• 4.to provide a forum for cross-sectoral cooperation on activities promoting the preservation of access to digital information.

The National Library has eight exhibitions online at the present time, as a means of promoting its collections to Australians and the rest of the world, however remote those users are from the physical collections in Canberra. Online exhibitions from other institutions are accessible from the Australian Libraries Gateway pages.

9. Creating and managing digital resources.

The National Library is developing a set of guidelines which will assist other agencies in the creation and management of digital resources. In particular, the guidelines look at access to those resources into the future, by setting out a series of issues to be considered by the creator agency.

10. Meta matters (http://www.nla.gov.au/meta/intro.html)

This web site provides information about metadata and links to a large number of useful related sites. The National Library encourages the use of metadata as a way of improving access to digital materials.

Received 14 June, 2000

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This site is written, compiled and maintained by Diane Costello, Executive Officer, CAUL.