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n-1-3-020.20.3a
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N-1-3-20.20.3, "AARNet-A Library Perspective", by Jim Cleary,
<uljtc@cc.newcastle.edu.au>
The Australian library community is still grappling with the
implications of a networked environment with regard to information
resource provision and user support. The Australian Academic and
Research Network (AARNet) was a highly centralised technical
initiative by computer scientists in Australian universities and the
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. This
meant that most members of the potential user communities had very
little, if any, awareness of AARNet when it was launched in 1990.
Greeve and Stanton's 1991 survey of two West Australian universities
found only 20% of academics were using AARNet although 59% had access.
The Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee has set up a Standing
Committee on Information Resources to which the AARNet Advisory Board
reports. The Standing Committee has representatives from academic
libraries and computing services but has yet to find a role for
itself. The AARNet Advisory Board has one university librarian among
its members and recently approved the funding of a national marketing
and training program to "train the trainers" and increase AARNet's
visibility in the user communities.
An initiative by the Committee of Australian University Librarians
(CAUL) has led to the allocation of $200,000 Au from the Department of
Education, Employment and Training to the University of Wollongong for
the mounting of Institute for Scientific Information bibliographic
databases on AARNet. It is hoped that the current year's data for the
seven editions of Current Contents will be accessible by all
Australian universities early in 1993.
There has also been some developmental work with regard to Gopher and
WAIS software as well as local interfaces to Internet resources. Tony
Barry at the Australian National University Library has used Gopher to
develop an embryonic campuswide information system linking up with
other Gopher sites around the world. Deirdre Stanton and Neil Huck at
Murdoch University have developed IRAS as a local interface to a
variety of Internet documentation and directories. The University of
Tasmania Library has a simple interface to Hytelnet and WAIS sources
called Libnet.
One of the most interesting FTP archives to emerge in Australia has
been the Coombspapers Data Bank at the Australian National University.
It was established in December 1991 by Matthew Ciolek as an electronic
repository of social science and humanities papers, offprints,
departmental publications, bibliographies, directories, abstracts of
theses and other high-grade materials produced or deposited at the
Research School of Pacific Studies and Social Sciences, Australian
National University. It also serves as a repository of research
materials dealing with the Pacific region, Southeast and Northeast
Asia, as well as Buddhism, Taoism and other oriental religions. The
index and papers can be acquired by FTP from a sub-directory
coombspapers at the node COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU.
One of the pioneers of network user support and training in Australia
has been the University of Newcastle Libraries. Special research
funding was used to employ two contract librarians in 1991 as
researchers and trainers who would run technical tutorials for faculty
and provide support for the faculty librarians in promoting
information resources accessible through AARNet. Agreement was
reached with the University Computing Service that they would
concentrate on providing the technical infrastructure while the
Library would have responsibility for the value added areas of
marketing and training. This model has now spread to a number of
other universities.
Six national workshops run by the University of Newcastle Libraries to
"train the trainers" have been very successful. It is hoped that a
national marketing and training program funded by AARNet will soon be
established to consolidate this effort and provide ongoing support to
computing services and libraries. The annual Networkshop will be held
at the University of Queensland from the 1-4 December.