Asian Collections Reading Room, National Library of Australia

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(No Transcript)
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Asian Collections Reading Room, National Library
of Australia
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Australien cartographic material / zu finden
bey Ioh. Walch in Augsburg. 182-
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The development of CJK collections in Australia
problems and prospects
Amelia McKenzie Director, Asian Collections
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Overview

• Australia 20M population
• Land mass of 4.8 million square miles
• 85 of population in urban areas
• 45 universities
• 20 universities have Asian studies programs
• High level of Asia research (but enrolments
  trending down)

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Libraries supporting Asia research

• Main collections in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne,
  Brisbane
• High level of cooperation
• National Library has always been part of the
  picture
• Collecting strengths in CJK and Southeast Asia,
  especially Indonesia

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Access

• Single National Bibliographic Database since 1981
  (1300 members) hosted by NLA
• National CJK Service shared cataloguing on
  Innopac platform (23 members)
• A modest success 1.5M records, 490,000 holdings

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Access

• NCJKS soon to be integrated into National
  Bibliographic Database on OCLC Pica platform
  (Unicode-compliant)
• Implementation late 2005
• Improved access for all non-Roman scripts (we
  hope!)
• Access to NBD is through Libraries Australia (to
  be free from Jan 2006) including get option
  ILL, copies

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Access

• Distant collections and declining resources mean
  cooperation is essential
• Models are
• Collecting agreements, eg NLA and ANU
• Consortium purchasing
• Local networks, eg Asian Libraries in Melbourne

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Electronic resources

• Database products only at major libraries
• Standalone CD-ROMs common
• But difficulties with IT platforms for some
  products

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Licensing

• Typical difficulties encountered in negotiations
  - permissions
• Downloading, printing, unlimited viewing
• Saving, emailing
• Document supply

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Prospects whats coming next?

• Use of print collections is declining
• Use of online services is increasing
• But university collecting is declining, matching
  trends in Asian studies
• NLA collections provide stability at national
  level

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From print to online to what?

• What new formats should we be collecting?
• Films, VCDs, images
• Ephemera posters, brochures, leaflets
• Web sites who is archiving significant research
  level sites?

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Unexpected surprises

• Deterioration of cellulose acetate microform
  collections
• Mainly pre-1984 collections
• Deterioration has already begun

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Thank you!
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www.nla.gov.auwww.librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au
amckenzie_at_nla.gov.au