Asian Collections Reading Room, National Library of Australia

Australien [cartographic material] / zu finden bey Ioh. Walch in Augsburg. [182-]

The development of CJK collections in Australia: problems and prospects Amelia McKenzie Director, Asian Collections

Overview Australia – 20M population Land mass of 4.8 million square miles 85% of population in urban areas 45 universities 20 universities have Asian studies programs High level of Asia research (but enrolments trending down)

Libraries supporting Asia research Main collections in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane High level of cooperation National Library has always been part of the picture Collecting strengths in CJK and Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia

Access Single National Bibliographic Database since 1981 (1300 members) – hosted by NLA National CJK Service – shared cataloguing on Innopac platform (23 members) A modest success – 1.5M records, 490,000 holdings

Access NCJKS soon to be integrated into National Bibliographic Database on OCLC Pica platform (Unicode-compliant) Implementation late 2005 Improved access for all non-Roman scripts (we hope!) Access to NBD is through Libraries Australia (to be free from Jan 2006) including ‘get’ option – ILL, copies

Access Distant collections and declining resources mean cooperation is essential Models are Collecting agreements, eg NLA and ANU Consortium purchasing Local networks, eg ‘Asian Libraries in Melbourne’

Electronic resources Database products only at major libraries Standalone CD-ROMs common But difficulties with IT platforms for some products

Licensing Typical difficulties encountered in negotiations - permissions Downloading, printing, unlimited viewing Saving, ing Document supply

Prospects – what’s coming next? Use of print collections is declining Use of online services is increasing But university collecting is declining, matching trends in Asian studies NLA collections provide stability at national level

From print to online to what? What new formats should we be collecting? Films, VCDs, images Ephemera – posters, brochures, leaflets Web sites – who is archiving significant research level sites?

Unexpected surprises Deterioration of cellulose acetate microform collections Mainly pre-1984 collections Deterioration has already begun

Thank you!