Policy on Networked Australian Electronic Documents
This document expresses the National Library's policy at the broadest level. It is anticipated that it will be developed in more detail as a result of work currently being undertaken at the Library.
- Australian electronic publications are documents resulting from the
act of publishing, in which information is encoded, accessed and made
intelligible and accessible through the use of a computer. Although they are
not subject to current Commonwealth legal deposit legislation, Australian
electronic publications constitute part of the national imprint in its widest
sense, and the Library recognises a responsibility for them as part of its
heritage mandate and in its role in providing access to information.
The Library believes that these publications should be subject to legal deposit, and has made a submission to this effect to the Copyright Law Review Committee. In the interim the Library is encouraging publishers to deposit electronic publications, and has drafted a policy on CD-ROMs and other electronic materials received on voluntary deposit. - To fulfil a useful role in facilitating access to Australian documents in electronic form, the National Library envisages that it will have to engage in activities that lead to the discovery or identification of Australian electronic documents. These activities are expected to take a number of forms, such as the maintenance of a list of Australian e-journals, and they will be ongoing. The National Library will seek to establish understandings and agreements with organisations and institutions (such as the State libraries) to ensure continuing access to a broad range of works.
- From the range of documents which come to the notice of the
Library, a selection will be made. In selecting such resources, National
Library policy is to apply the same range of selection policies as are
currently applied to other Australian library materials in the collection. That
is, some material is collected comprehensively, some selectively, and some is
not collected.
There is much Australian material in electronic form for which the Library wishes to establish and maintain a long term access relationship, either through maintenance in-house, or by formal agreement with another body. For this material the principles of the Collection Development Policy apply, with some material being collected comprehensively, and other material collected by sampling only.
Material in electronic form not selected for the above category falls into two groups:
(a) material in electronic form for which the Library is interested in a short term access relationship only, for example, while the information value of the material is current;
(b) material which does not fall into the Library's area of responsibility for collecting. - In controlling such resources, National Library policy is to accept responsibility for a high level of control for those resources for which the Library wishes to establish a long term access relationship. The Library will integrate the control of such resources with that of its print resources, and provide a direct link to the document. For material in category (a) above, links from the Library's server may be appropriate with the server organised into subject categories, and a keyword access provided through Harvest. For category (b) material the Library will not attempt to exercise any control. At this early stage, the Library's policy is still in the process of formation, and is therefore experimental. Options such as traditional library control procedures and other approaches such as the OCLC Netfirst project are being tested.
- National Library policy for the preservation of documents in electronic form is to attempt to ensure the on-going availability of all material in the long term access category. As with the identification and selection of electronic resources, preservation and retention arrangements will be collaborative, involving creators, producers, and a national network of archives and collecting agencies. Library policy is to build into its processes early contact with the creators or producers to ascertain preservation intentions.
- In the area of standards, National Library policy is to support the development and use of agreed meta data standards, and best practice in the description and encoding of electronic resources.
See also [documents to follow]:
- Legal Deposit Policy for Networked Australian Electronic Publications
- Preservation Policy for Networked Australian Electronic Publications
- Cataloguing Policy for Networked Australian Electronic Publications
- Access Policy for Networked Australian Electronic Publications
- Meta Data Standards for Networked Australian Electronic Publications
