A keyhole to the collection: the AIATSIS Library Digitisation Pilot Program.

A keyhole to the collection: the AIATSIS Library Digitisation Pilot Program. The AIATSIS Library Digitisation Noun 1. digitisation - conversion of analog information into digital informationdigitizationconversion - a change in the units or form of an expression: "conversion from Fahrenheit to Centigrade" Pilot Program (LDPP LDPP Low Density Polypropylene ) commenced in2001 with funding for two years. Prior to the LDPP the Library had fewelectronic holdings, no equipment dedicated to digitisation and nopolicies to deal with the management of digital material. The pilotprogram has revealed the complexity of the digitisation processparticularly when dealing with an indigenous collection. This paper was presented at the 11th Information Online Conferenceand Exhibition of ALIA. Sydney, 21-23 January 2003 The Major Sponsor ofthe Conference was Factiva, a Dow Jones Dow Jonesthe best known of several U.S. indexes of movements in price on Wall Street. [Am. Hist.: Payton, 202]See : Finance and Reuters Company ********** The Vision THE AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT Torres Strait(tŏr`ĭz, –rĭs), channel, c.95 mi (153 km) wide, between New Guinea and Cape York Peninsula of Australia. It connects the Arafura and Coral seas. ISLANDERSTUDIES (AIATSIS), the first Commonwealth statutory authority to focuson Australian Indigenous cultures, was established in 1964 as theAustralian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. AIATSIS is the world'sleading research, collecting and publishing organisation in AustralianIndigenous studies. It is a network of Council and committees, members,staff, and other stakeholders StakeholdersAll parties that have an interest, financial or otherwise, in a firm-stockholders, creditors, bondholders, employees, customers, management, the community, and the government. working in partnership with IndigenousAustralians Indigenous Australians are descendants of the first known human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands. The term includes both the Torres Strait Islanders and the Aboriginal People, who together make up about 2.5% of Australia's population. to carry out activities that add knowledge, affirm and raiseawareness of Australian Indigenous cultures and histories, in all theirrichness and diversity. The Library of the Australian Institute ofAboriginal and Tortes Strait Islander Studies and its AudiovisualArchives holds the worlds premier collection of materials relating to relating torelate prep → concernantrelating torelate prep → bez��glich +gen, mit Bezug auf +accAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies. As a research collection,the Library contains both current and historical resources. In 2001 AIATSIS relocated to its new premises on the ActonPeninsula in Canberra--heralding an exciting and challenging era. Forthe first time in the modern history of Australia The history of Australia began when people first migrated to the Australian continent from the north, at least 40,000-45,000 years ago. The written history of Australia began when Dutch explorers first sighted the country in the 17th century. an Indigenousorganisation has received national prominence on a site of internationalimportance. This gives us the opportunity to showcase Indigenouscultures and the richness of our collections in a manner never beforepossible. A fundamental activity on the new site is to ensure that allAustralians have the best possible access to the rich and diversematerials that comprise the library collection. In the 1960s the Institute's Library was little more than a bibliographical reference centre, situated in a small office in Mort Street, Braddon. Today the Library, housed at Acton Peninsula, alongside the National Museum of Australia, Canberra is the major repository of resources concerning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies. The Library is also a very active centre for research by Aboriginal people. (1) Many institutions within Australia and internationally are buildingdigital collections to enable greater access to their holdings, as wellas a part of preservation strategies. Recognising the need to createdigital collections, AIATSIS sought funding for a two-yearinstitute-wide digitisation program. Funds were obtained from ATSIC ATSIC Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (Aboriginal and Tortes Strait Islander Commission). The libraryestablished a pilot digitisation program with the aim of creating,managing and delivering electronic information resources (1) The data and information assets of an organization, department or unit. See data administration.(2) Another name for the Information Systems (IS) or Information Technology (IT) department. See IT. and services toclients via the AIATSIS website and the AIATSIS collections catalogue(Mura). Putting the vision into practice The pilot program revealed the complexity of the digitisationprocess--that it is inherently more than simply scanning the material.At the foundation or core of the program are the users and thecollections. These needed to be defined and described in relation todigitisation. For example: where are the users located and what aretheir computer literacy Understanding computers and related systems. It includes a working vocabulary of computer and information system components, the fundamental principles of computer processing and a perspective for how non-technical people interact with technical people. levels? Once the foundation had been clearlydefined, the initial resources were acquired. These included staff andthe technical and physical infrastructure. Additionally underlyingpolicies needed to be established to cover electronic delivery,electronic access, Metadata, persistent identification and resourcelocation, and electronic archiving/management. All these policies impacton the staff and technical/physical infrastructure requirements--forexample the standard for file resolution dictates the requirements forhardware such as computers and scanners. The library had no digitising equipment prior to the commencementof the project. The LDPP has acquired six appropriate computerworkstations, two Microtek A3 scanners, a Canon A4 scanner, and anImageware Bookeye scanner and the required software. The Bookeye is anoverhead scanner capable of scanning books, newspapers, files, plans,without damage to the originals. A program manager, copyright clearanceofficer and two digitisation officers have been recruited to non-ongoingpositions. They provide the technical and professional expertise, andthe management skills required for the successful conduct of theprogram. With these needs met, the process could then advance throughthe following stages: selection and project planning project planning - project management , copyright,community consultation, conservation, cataloguing, digitisation, qualitycontrol, Metadata creation, image processing image processingSet of computational techniques for analyzing, enhancing, compressing, and reconstructing images. Its main components are importing, in which an image is captured through scanning or digital photography; analysis and manipulation of the image, accomplished , systems building, access,preservation, and management. Each stage of the process revealed its own issues and problems. Theissues were: * Selection * Benchmarking and standards * Copyright issues and community consultation. Selection One of the first policy papers written was the program's'Selection criteria'. It was anticipated that thelibrary's collection managers and clients and AIATSIS researcherswould suggest material to be digitised from the library'scollection, which would then be assessed against the selection criteria.These criteria include copyright, community agreement, volume of demand,client demand, anticipated increase in demand, and institutionalbenefits. The first project of the LDPP was the Treaty website. The materialdigitised for the website was selected to focus attention on the Treatydebate and its history. The website was designed to inform the debateand to stimulate further discussion and interest. It was foreseen that this project would be simple in regard tocopyright and community consultation as the majority of the material hadbeen previously published. This was not the case. Approximately sixtyitems were digitised, cleared for copyright, catalogued and madeavailable electronically (including four books Four BooksChinese SishuAncient Confucian texts used as the basis of study for civil service examinations (see Chinese examination system) in China (1313–1905). ). Much of the materialselected had many authors and or copyright holders. The digitisationprogram proved to be capable of the challenge and the website thatresulted has received a great deal of praise. It is accessed by a wideaudience including students, researchers, and the general public. One of the major driving forces of the retrospective digitisationof material from the library's collection is the return ofmaterials in digital format to indigenous communities. While there is nolegislative requirement for cultural organisations to repatriate repatriateTo bring home assets that are currently held in a foreign country. Domestic corporations are frequently taxed on the profits that they repatriate, a factor inducing the firms to leave overseas the profits earned there. significant cultural property, most have policies in place that supportthe right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to decide thefuture of their cultural property. According to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. the Return of IndigenousCultural Property (RICP RICP Research Institute of Crop Production (Czech Republic)) Program--an initiative of the CulturalMinisters' Council--'The return of this cultural property is akey part of the reconciliation process'. (2) Many communities are setting up knowledge centres and keepingplaces where they plan to store their cultural property in digitalformats. The demand for materials is growing exponentially A two-yearprogram is scarcely able to make an impact on this demand. What isrequired are long term funding and strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. . On a more positive note, selections have met with great interestand enthusiasm from those communities participating in the project. Thefirst newsletter digitised for the Community Newsletters Project was theManingrida Mirage. The Maningrida community has supported the project.Community consultation was completed and copyright issues were easilyresolved. All volumes of the community newsletter (the ManingridaMirage) between 1969 and 1974 have been digitised and returned to thecommunity as PDF (Portable Document Format) The de facto standard for document publishing from Adobe. On the Web, there are countless brochures, data sheets, white papers and technical manuals in the PDF format. files. The files will now be stored on CD-ROM in boththe Cultural Research Office and the school. This will allow the wholecommunity easy access to the information about their community, familyand friends in the early seventies. The files will also be available viathe AIATSIS website shortly. In the digitisation program's schedulefor the next five years (dependent on external funding) another thirtynewsletters from all over Australia have been selected for digitisationand return to the communities. Further selections for the two-year Program include: * Wentworth Lectures--twelve papers digitised, catalogued andavailable electronically. * Community Newsletters--first being Maningrida Mirage--218 volumesdigitised, catalogued and available electronically. * Gumatj language readers--approximately 75 languagereaders/workbooks digitised catalogued and available electronically. * Dawn and New Dawn magazines--267 volumes digitised cataloguedand available electronically. * The Australian Race, its origin, languages, custom, place oflanding in Australia, and the routes by which it spread itself over thatcontinent by Edward Curr Edward Micklethwaite Curr (25 December 1820 – 3 August 1889) was an Australian pastoralist and squatter.Curr was born in Hobart, Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land), the eldest of eleven surviving children of Edward (1798-1850) and Elizabeth (n��e Micklethwaite) ,--three volumes digitised, catalogued andavailable electronically. * Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to TortesStraits--five volumes digitised, catalogued and available electronically * Gerhardt Laves Gerhardt Laves (July 15, 1906 - March 14, 1993) was a graduate student at the University of Chicago and Yale University who spent the years 1929 - 1931 doing fieldwork on Australian Aboriginal languages. language material--2270 vocabulary slips and tenfield notebooks digitised and catalogued. * The Aurukun Diaries by W F Mackenzie & GMackenzie--twenty-three diaries digitised and catalogued. * Sorry Book images--a selection catalogued and availableelectronically. * Representations--Colour plates from rare books digitised,catalogued and available electronically. Best practice and standards From its inception the LDPP has researched developing standards andbest practices that will ensure the ongoing accessibility of digitalcollections. National and international standards have begun toemerge--particularly in the area of strategies intended to preserveaccess to large collections of digital resources, such as migration andemulation. The issue of best practice and standards is particularly complex inthat the institutions and organisations at the forefront of the digitalcollections are often larger institutions with greater resources todevote to digitisation. The AIATSIS Library operates on a much smallerscale. Staff are multi-skilled. In researching the informationtechnology issues for electronic access, our enquiries were often metwith 'We don't do that--that's IT's job'. In asmall organisation our team has to work closely with IT staff and takeon many activities from planning the projects to creating the website.In doing so we often need the expertise of a staff member from the restof the library and or the institute. This meant that expectations wereplaced on staff throughout the Institute in order for the program tosucceed. Fortunately everyone involved in supporting the program hasrecognised the importance of digital formats in providing access to thecollections. Staff have contributed greatly. It has also been ofparamount importance in taking on the standards set by otherinstitutions to take into consideration the differences betweenorganisations. The LDPP's aim is access not preservation--thereforethe standards required are different to those of an institutiondigitising for preservation. Also copyright of the material in ourcollections is rarely held by the Institute and often there are accessrestrictions set by depositors. As well, there are issues of communityconsultation which are dealt with below as part of copyright issues andcommunity consultation. Whilst taking into account the standardrequirements of the LDPP, it has been important to the follow bestpractice standards currently available in order to allow the possibilityof collaboration with other institutions in the future. Copyright issues and community consultation For electronic access to material--which is the LDPP's primeaim, the copyright and access issues are exceedingly complex. Even forhistorical materials, access restrictions must be considered andcommunity consultations practised as required. Restrictions may benecessary for some items not only to comply with copyright law, but alsobecause of conditions set by donors and the general legal concerns ofprivacy and publicity. The LDPP has demonstrated the need for a dedicated copyrightofficer within the library. Initially it was planned that selectionswould be made with the view to using material for which AIATSIS heldcopyright such as the Aboriginal Treaty Committee (ATC ATC Air Traffic ControlATC Average Total CostATC Certified Athletic TrainerATC At the Center (Hartford, Maine retreat center)ATC Applied Technology CouncilATC All Things Considered ) Papers. Thisapparently simple selection from a copyright perspective turned out tobe more complex. AIATSIS held copyright for the material that had beenwritten by ATC members and published by the ATC. However, materials thathad been published by the ATC and credited to a particular author intheir own right had copyright held by that author and permission wasrequired to provide electronic access. Also any illustrations orphotographs that were included in the ATC papers required research toensure that copyright was owned by the ATC and therefore able to behanded over to ALATSIS. Apart from the legal copyright issues there are the moral rights toconsider. The Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000 was passed on7 December 2000 and applied from 21 December 2000. The Act provides forthree moral rights: an author's right to be identified as theauthor of a work (the right of attribution of authorship); the right ofan author to take action against false attribution The fallacy of a false attribution occurs when an advocate appeals to an irrelevant, unqualified, unidentified, biased or fabricated source in support of an argument. A contextomy is a type of false attribution. (the right not tohave authorship of a work falsely attributed); and an author'sright to object to derogatory de��rog��a��to��ry?adj.1. Disparaging; belittling: a derogatory comment.2. Tending to detract or diminish. treatment of his or her work whichprejudicially affects his or her honour or reputation (the right ofintegrity of authorship of a work). The Library has adopted the Aboriginal and Torres Strait IslanderProtocols for Libraries, Archives and Information Services See Information Systems. . Theprotocols are complex with wide ranging implications. One of theintellectual property requirements is to 'develop properprofessional recognition of the primary cultural and intellectualproperty rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Torres Strait Islanders are the indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands, part of Queensland, Australia. They are Melanesians culturally akin to the coastal peoples of Papua New Guinea. and consultwith appropriate Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples on theirapplication'. Information has been gathered on the status of many items. Someitems will not be digitised or have been withheld from distributionbecause of the need to restrict access or re-use. Some digitised itemsmay be accessible in the library's reading rooms or on CD ROMS ROMS Russian Multimedia and Internet SocietyROMS Regional Ocean Model SystemROMS Reactor Operations Monitoring SystemROMS Rated Officer Monitoring SystemROMS Remote Ocean-Surface Measuring Sensor accessible by the communities but not over the internet. There is alsocomplexity in the deposit history of much of the collection. With theassistance of research staff, the library has used the digitisationprogram to further work on establishing procedures, clarifying the legalposition for items and collections not clearly in the public domain, andsecuring explicit permission where possible. Another aspect of the copyright issue that has been highlightedlies with the deposit forms held by the library. There are difficultieswith old deposit forms where contact details have not been updated. Thisis particularly important where there are access conditions whichrequire the depositor's permission. It is essential that thelibrary has up-to-date contact details and deposit conditions. One ofthe requirements for the digitisation program was to create a contactsdatabase for use by the library and the Audiovisual Archives. Thecopyright clearance officer has begun the task of updating the depositconditions and contact details and renegotiating for internet access See how to access the Internet. where applicable. In approaching a digitisation project it is easy to becomeconcerned and overwhelmed about the copyright and community consultationissues, with many of the projects planned for the two years it wasanticipated that a great deal of time and effort would need to be spenton obtaining copyright and community permission for the projects,Instead we were pleasantly surprised with the positive response fromcommunities to our proposals. Every project has been greeted withenthusiasm and support from both the copyright holders and thecommunities. An example of this is the project to digitise Verb 1. digitise - put into digital form, as for use in a computer; "he bought a device to digitize the data"digitalise, digitalize, digitizealter, change, modify - cause to change; make different; cause a transformation; "The advent of the automobile may the Reports of theCambridge Expedition to Tortes Strait. In researching the copyrightissues inherent in the six-volume report it was discovered that theCambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). (CUP) hold copyright on these reports foranother seven years. CUP was supportive of the project and has given thedigitisation program a licence to digitise all six volumes and provideaccess electronically. In addition, the library has permission toproduce copies on CD-ROM for community use. Community consultation was held with great support from the TorresStrait Regional Authority (TSRA) with whom discussions were held. Thechairman, Mr Terry Waia wrote to AIATSIS expressing the TSRA'ssupport for the project. Mr Waia stated in his letter that: This work of Dr Haddon and the other members of the expedition is well known and loved in Torres Strait. Unfortunately the rarity and cost of the books has placed them beyond the reach of most Torres Strait Islanders. The digitisation of this important cultural resource would be of immense benefit to the communities of the Tortes Strait, as it would allow many more of our people to access this information, and assist our elders to pass on knowledge of Tortes Strait history and culture to future generations. The full board of the TSRA recently met and endorsed the proposalto digitise the Haddon Reports. A letter has been sent to AIATSIS toannouncing the decision. Digitisation of the Reports will begin in early2003. Conclusion The LDPP has been a success. It is the vehicle by which the libraryhas developed new relationships and strengthened existing relationshipswith copyright holders, depositors and with communities. Its success isdependent on sound project management skills and the expertise oftechnical staff. Each stage of the project has required contributionsfrom many library staff including collection managers, the systemsmanager, cataloguers, reference staff, family history unit staff, theconservator conservatorn. a guardian and protector appointed by a judge to protect and manage the financial affairs and/or the person's daily life due to physical or mental limitations or old age. . By the end of the two-year program there will be elevenmajor projects completed with nine of those projects available via theinternet--a total of more than 20 000 pages digitised. The program hasmet with overwhelming support and proved extremely successful. It hasshown that the AIATSIS Library can and must have a digital identity inorder to showcase Indigenous cultures and the richness of ourcollections. Digitisation is now an integral part of the way the library managesits collections and provides access to them. It is hoped that furtherfunding will allow the program to continue beyond the end of thisfinancial year. Endnotes (1.) Nugent, Ann. 'Complex collections: the Library of theAustralian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait IslanderStudies'. National Library of Australia News, June 1994 (2.) Return of Indigenous Cultural Property (RICP) Programhttp://www.dcita.gov.au/Article/ RELATED ARTICLE: An invitation to contribute. The Australian Library Journal is ALIA's journal of record. Assuch it reflects a cross-section of issues critical to the profession atany given time. Published continuously for over fifty years it nowrepresents the most substantial and significant archive of thinking inthe established and evolving professions which over time have comprisedthe membership of ALIA. Ground-breaking discussion, controversialpapers, the narrative of professional practice and the evolution of theAssociation itself are all reflected in its pages. The catalogue ofauthors whose work has appeared in it is an honour roll. Many whosefirst tentative reflections appeared there have gone on to becomenotable contributors to the literature which is the foundation of allmature professions. The Journal is open to contributions from students, interested laypeople, practitioners, researchers, educators, whether in Australia oroverseas. Its pages are not restricted to work by members of theAssociation. Publication in the Journal's refereed pages is anasset in any cv or job application. In its fifty-second year, the Australian Library Journal invitescontributions from the wide range of interests in the field. Previouslyunpublished writers and established authors are welcome to discusspossible contributions with the editor, John Levett, PO Box 74 MiddletonTasmania 7163, phone or fax 03 6292 1699, e-mailjlevett@southcom.com.au. Barbara Lewincamp is Library Director, AIATSIS and Julie Faulkneris Project Manager of the Library's Digitisation Program