Our Digital Island Tasmanian responses to the digital age State Library of Tasmania Community Knowledge Network Department of Education

Today’s talk: Living in a digital world 1.How we have responded 2.Challenges and benefits 3.What it means when we really do go digital

Part 1 Tasmanian responses

Tasmania Online Indexing Tasmanian information

Tasmanian responses: Tasmania Online Tasmania Online started in 1996 Home grown software, pragmatic approach A librarians’ approach: A-Z title, Subject index, Category groupings, quality indexing Currently over 11,000 web pages indexed Became government portal in 1997 part of (which we also manage)

Tasmania Online Still the only State to provide such a service Used extensively, even in a Google world over 1 million use of links The basis for many other services – “knowing our webspace”

Our Digital Island odi.statelibrary.tas.gov.au Preserving Tasmanian websites

Tasmanian responses: Our Digital Island Conscious of the web as a place of valuable content 1998 – began to selectively capture Tasmanian websites Supported by our legal deposit legislation we can be proactive and don’t need permission so far have PC-based software.5FTE dedicated to process

Our Digital Island Approx 2272 web sites available on ODI We provide quality indexing and public access Not a preservation system, just a capturing one Strong links between Tasmania Online and ODI

Service Tasmania Online Indexing and accessing Tasmanian government information

Service Tasmania Online Liaising with government, leveraging our expertise The government of Tasmania wanted to provide an online channel to government services for Tasmanians consolidated government shops and phone access Chose State Library of Tasmania to develop the online equivalent and then provide as a service

Tasmanian responses: Service Tasmania Online Developed special software in 1999 to do this no wrong way to access info facets based around tasks, subjects, people, life events approximately 4000 government websites across 3 tiers SLT was able to develop and utilise Tasmania Online skill sets and operations to provide the service efficiently

STORS – Stable Tasmanian Open Repository Service Preserving Tasmanian information

Tasmanian responses: STORS The challenge of legal deposit Legal deposit, since 1984, has covered ‘everything’ SLT wanted a way to make digital acquisition easier Business model around publisher contribution easy, fast, stable URL, publication lifecycles Basic preservation capabilities

STORS Promoted mostly to government agencies The reality is that use is sporadic Proactive capture may be better ODI coverage and overlap at times adds confusion But – we have over 7000 items preserved

Part 2 Challenges and benefits

New sites – how do we know? Mailboxes Staff – newspapers, cars, publications …. Daily link checking of existing sites Monitoring software Seed list of about 160 URLs State, Local and Commonwealth Government pages Updated every 2 hours List of new URLs added

Monitoring software

Value adding Specialised searches Search engines Early pickup Clustering of data Informed citizens

Value add Specialised searches

Value addSearch engines

Value add Informed citizens

Preservation Elections

Seed listsTasmanian “domain” captures Not just.tas.gov.au NLA Australian whole of domain captures Tasmania Online links may be helpful Selective Government Business Community

Seed lists

Part 3 Our Digital Lives

Information is becoming transient We know about the new web in an abstract way social networking the beginnings of a new media form not just a new format but a new way of doing things lifestreaming “Blogging feels old. Publishing today is all about The Flow.” Steve Rubel lifestreaming.htmlThe Flow

Information is becoming contextual Information has no boundaries Authorship becomes collaboration – e.g. Sharepoint Forget “document like objects” Google wave “built around a different model of how communication—and collaboration—take place. With Wave, users create online spaces called “waves,” which may include multiple discrete messages and components—“blips”—that constitute a running, conversational document. How do we capture an environment? Like archivists, the context now matters for information

Highlighting the reality of it all: It’s sobering but we don’t live forever and it is something we can’t ignore

This highlights it isn’t just a game What happens to that digital information and presence when we are gone? It has value It needs preservation not just preserving a PDF or a word document context and environment – how?

But it is hard The first of two possible responses: Yes we’ll do it! The library is a broad and encompassing social institution If all we do is the easy stuff, we have failed We must do it right – understand it first, then business process it –the ‘correct approach’ – doomed to fail? Or, it is moving so fast, we’ll do what we can now –Doing something is better than doing nothing

Not our business The second possible response: No we won’t do it! The library is an institution focused on heritage value It is not our business – unimportant, ephemeral “After dissecting over 3,000 tweets from more than 350 Twitter users’ status updates the professors concluded that 80% of users are “meformers,” or “Me Now” status updaters.” Rutgers University Professors Mor Naaman and Jeffrey Boase It could be our business, but technologically impossible Context now means everything, and we can’t capture everything

How should we respond? In the old days everyone knew what libraries were about, and collection policies answered questions of detail Now collection policies are going to have to answer the big questions as well Reviewing / defining our purpose as libraries what type of media for what purpose for how long for whom Go back to basics: redo our collection policies from the ground up – define our goals and objectives in the digital age

The digital world To summarise The implications are profound for libraries Information is changing becoming transient and contextual We have to decide what our role is

Can your library answer this question: Does a tweet matter? If Yes – good answer If No – good answer If ‘it depends’ – bad answer If “what’s a tweet” – time to retire

Thank you Lloyd Sokvitne Senior Manager (Digital Strategies) State Library of Tasmania, Community Knowledge Network (03) Carmel Denholm Senior Cataloguer (Metadata) State Library of Tasmania, Community Knowledge Network (03)