The Legislative Library of Ontario’s Ontario Documents Repository Road to Partnership

The Legislative Library has a long history of collecting Ontario government documents. Our extensive print collection dates from the Province of Upper Canada. Our challenge was to find a way to continue to build our Ontario documents collection while meeting our clients’ need for timely, desktop access.

Specifically:  How do we build an easy, streamlined process for building a document repository that integrates with our workflows?  How do we ensure the documents we capture can be preserved?

Agenda  Overview of the Ontario Legislative Library’s Ontario Documents Repository  Goals for Partnerships  Partnerships in the Making  The Future?

Size of Ontario Documents Repository As of June 5, 2006, we have archived:  10,915 monographs  710 serial titles  5,506 individual serial issues  3,203 press releases

Use of our Repository Outside of our Client Group 2004/05: Approx. 60,000 visits to the Archive by Library clients, staff and the public (via the Assembly intranet and via Internet) 2005/06: Now over 100,000 visits

Scope of Ontario Documents Repository  Began building our repository in July 2000 with Ontario monographs and a few election campaign websites.  Now have expanded our archive to include:  All serials that we collect  Ontario government press releases

Our Collection Policy  To maintain an extensive collection of Ontario documents not only to serve our own clients, but also to preserve the publishing output of the province.  We select documents that are likely to be of value to our clients or have long-term significance for scholars, researchers, members of the public, and public servants.  Documents not intended for public distribution are stored on the restricted access portion of our server.

How Do We Find These Documents?  Six staff members monitor 85 Ontario government sites and almost 1,000 pages on a daily basis.  Library acts as an agent for LAC in assigning ISBN/ISSN for Ontario documents.  We subscribe to Ontario ministry new publication alerts and scan newspapers & other media.

Record Format  Files are stored in pdf format.  If original is not in pdf, we use Adobe Acrobat to convert the document to pdf.

Cataloguing Practice Both print and electronic versions are catalogued on one record. The description is based on the print format.

Turnaround Time  Archived and catalogued documents are available to our staff and clients the next day or sooner.  Full catalogue records (with LC subject access) may take up to one month to complete.

Sample monograph record

Sample serial record

Index Page for a Serial Title

Public Access to the Repository  At this point the repository can only be accessed by searching our catalogue:  We are now looking at creating our own portal to the Ontario documents portion of the catalogue.

How to access the repository

Move Towards Partnerships  By 1999 library organizations including the Legislative Library and university libraries were concerned about long term preservation of Ontario documents. Groups began to approach the Legislative Library for possible assistance.  Some libraries & the Archives of Ontario were linking from their catalogues to our repository files rather than the official internet versions.

Legislative Library: Goals for Partnerships  Ensure longer-term access to repository files.  Provide broader access throughout the province by making the collection more visible than it is now.

Partnerships in the Making: OCUL/OLL  First OCUL/OLL discussions in spring 2004 regarding shared interest in creating an Ontario documents repository.  OCUL/OLL agree to do a pilot project using D- Space

OCUL OZone Pilot  Oct. 2004: 700 repository records and target files were loaded into OZone, OCUL’s shared institutional D-Space repository.  Crosswalk was developed to map our MARC records to Dublin Core.  Items were assigned a persistent identifier using the Handle System.

Pilot Results  Monographs were loaded successfully.  Serials were another matter!  D-Space is not designed for files to be added to an existing record.  Difficult to do ongoing maintenance required of serial records.

What’s Next  We are currently drafting a formal agreement with OCUL to create an OZone repository of Ontario documents (monographs only at this point).  Repository should be available Fall/Winter 2006.

Partnerships in the Making: ODL Repository has been mentioned in Knowledge Ontario’s Ontario Digital Library’s business case for inclusion in the future ODL

The Future?  Increased collaborative efforts at a provincial/national scale towards building large inter-jurisdictional repositories.  Success in preserving these documents in the long term.

Contact info: Annemarie Toth-Waddell Presented at Access to Government Information Track, CLA 2006 June 15, 2006