The NSCF is a body sponsored by the four Australian learned Academies (now themselves collaborating in the National Academies Forum), which brings together representatives of all sectors concerned with scholarly communication in a rapidly changing context.
Our aim is to consider developments in this area, largely by organising colloquia of various kinds, both as a way of disseminating information and of making proposals for future policy.
We are interested in the provision of and access to the records of the past and to current information, for scholars and researchers in the arts, humanities, social and physical sciences and technology - and beyond that specialised set of users the general public - all clients of the national information infrastructure.
For an efficient and transparent system to exist, not only does it need to provide clear paths of access to all users, but these users also need to understand that system and those paths.
The current dramatic changes in the information sector are provoked by two triggers: economic factors on the one hand and on the other the changes in the means of distribution and storage brought about by technological change. These two types of pressure are not independent, however, and need to be managed with due regard to their interconnection.
The NSCF is dedicated to the proposition that the best outcomes in this time of challenge will be achieved by taking the broadest overall view of the system and finding solutions that take account of the widest possible range of needs and of input.
Clearly, for the NSCF, an efficient and effective Distributed National Collection must be a central preoccupation.
As a teacher and researcher in the area of French Studies, I am tempted to draw attention to a notable historical precedent - the initiative of the French revolutionaries in the 1790s to create a nationwide library system.
Their methodology, like that of the DNC, had two arms: the physical relocation of resources and a comprehensive bibliographical listing.
On the one hand, from late 1789, a series of policies was put in place, confiscating the libraries of the clergy, of religious communities, of émigrés and of victims of the guillotine, and of the disestablished universities. The confiscated books were to be placed in local "dépôts" for the instruction of the people.
On the other hand, an ambitious project was set up aimed at creating a "Bibliographie universelle de la France" - the country's first attempt at a national collective catalogue. Interestingly enough, playing cards were used as catalogue cards, because their images of royal personages made them no longer politically correct.
The bibliographical project foundered under the mass of material that was collected and it was soon abandoned. The policy of relocation was also unsuccessful in the long run because of local resistance to any forms of library centralisation. There are perhaps lessons here for us today in the strength of regionalist sentiment and in the need for technology to be fully adequate to its task.
[See Dominique Varry, STV 304, 1011-1015 (and other publications).
Paul Riberette, Les Bibliothèques françaises
pendant la Révolution, Paris, 1970]
My own experience in checking out this historical precedent is also an illustration of the ways in which Australian scholars, at least in the humanities, are used to working.
I began with a reference in a book I own. I moved then to the resources of my own institution's library. Then, through the possibility of distant access to other collections, I located further sources in another part of the country. Document delivery services would have been the next step, except that I happened to be visiting the city concerned and I went myself to the library concerned.
Of course, French Studies has always been at most a moderately sized discipline in Australia and local collections have never had any pretensions to the levels exhaustiveness that some of our colleagues have experienced in the past. Researchers in my area have long been accustomed to making fairly broad searches, as well as using study leave to visit the great European libraries - this latter necessity to travel being a much appreciated aspect of the work conditions we enjoy.
How can this process of the search for information be made more efficient in its use of resources and more effective of its users? Not only for academics like myself, but for independent and professional researchers of all kinds.
I should like to consider under three general headings the issues that I believe need to be addressed in considering afresh the concept of the Distributed National Collection :
As I have already suggested the DNC in its original concept was based on two major processes: the provision of universal access to catalogues and the rationalisation of the location of collections in particular discipline areas.
The Australian Bibliographical Network has to date been the major mechanism for the provision of information on available resources and, in upgraded forms, will continue to be the cornerstone of the system. The completion of retrospective conversion nationwide (including the cataloguing of microfilm and other "hidden" or idiosyncratic collections, together with the provision of records from libraries that do not currently contribute) remains an essential priority.
At the same time, the types of evaluative survey represented by the Conspectus programme (measuring the relative strength of collections in various subject areas) and the statistical analyses of Australian as against world holdings currently being undertaken by the NLA will provide invaluable guides to the types and levels of local holdings.
Linked to the provision of bibliographical information (local and international) is the need for effective document delivery services, involving a range of kinds of reproductive technology and well as, when appropriate, the physical displacement of materials.
The major emphasis in forward planning, in my view, should be placed on these mechanisms that will ensure access to materials wherever they may be held. Although the original DNC aim of relocating materials (creating major collections in specific subject areas in central locations) could be seen to be in harmony with current calls for the geographical "rationalisation" of the teaching of subjects of low enrolment and for the creation of new research centres, it may well prove to be an unnecessary goal. Just as teaching is likely to be increasingly available by distance education media and research groups will increasingly collaborate from disseminated locations, reticulated virtual library resources are likely severely to restrict the need for physical relocation of resources.
The exception will, however, be the provision of nationally coordinated storage facilities to house and distribute materials of low use. These storage facilities may also eventually undertake the rôle of building up research collections in disciplines not supported, for economic or other reasons, by academic institutions and other research agencies .
It is to me self-evident that an efficient system of information provision will not just create itself. Its construction requires planning, cooperation and financial support. In an era of belief in the virtues of the free market, it needs to be stressed, as other speakers have done, that the infrastructure of the market place (and the provision of information services is part of that infrastructure) must be created before the anticipated benefits of competition can be expected.
The leadership rôle of the NLA in building the nation's new information systems is crucial. At the same time, the provision of effective networks will be the outcome of collaboration at all levels of the national library system and with academic, research and commercial users of that system.
The Commonwealth Government must play a key policy and funding rôle in coordinating the nation's information resources. A National Information Steering Committee (building on the experience of the U.K. Joint Information Steering Committee) should be set up to play a central rôle in ensuring the most effective outcomes from the opportunities offered by a judicious use of new and old technologies. A nationwide review of library and other information provision for research in Australia should be undertaken as a basis for all future developments.
Such initiatives do not necessarily imply an overall increase in government investment in these areas, but rather a redeployment of budgets towards the planning and implementation of national policies for the development of network and virtual library facilities.
The aim of a national information infrastructure is obviously to provide users with the facilities that will allow them to work most productively.
These users are to be found in all areas of research - in the physical and social sciences, in technology as well as in the humanities, and in all economic sectors - and their needs, albeit with varying emphases, are remarkable similar. All require rapid access to data in their disciplines culled from sources that are as comprehensive as they can be.
However, academics and independent researchers will increasingly need learn to play a more active rôle than in the past in assisting with collection building and distribution. To do this they will be required to understand better the current revolution in information provision world wide. Academic and research institutions together with library professionals will have a collaborative responsibility to undertake initiatives in educating the users of the system.
It is encouraging that coalitions of users are now emerging that are increasingly representing consumers' views. It will be vital that planning authorities consult and heed the needs of their constituents.
Coordinated collection development on the local level together with national collection management procedures will ensure that the widest possible range of materials is available locally to scholars. Account will need to be taken of the widening range of media that provide information, from archives to on-line databases. Policies on the digitisation of text, manuscript and audio-visual materials - whether systematic or on demand - will be determined as a function of the most effective use of available funds.
Hurdles to be overcome in the provision of effective information services include current severe problems with copyright and intellectual property questions where the digitisation and distribution of materials are involved. At the same time the costs of virtual library services are an actual and potential barrier to equitable access in many sectors where adequate resources are not currently provided.
In all of these areas - in the development of the information infrastructure, in its administrative and funding structures, and in the match it achieves between services and user needs - the key points remain, in my view, the need for effective collaborative planning and the need for the targeted investment of resources, if the new information media are to build on rather than destroy the resource base achieved to date in this country. The idealism and broad vision of the originators of France's first attempt at a national information system came to little precisely because these essential factors were not present. Two hundred years on, let us hope that Australia - with the greater resources of modern technology together with effective policy making - can manage the processes of change with far more successful outcomes ...
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