Integrating Electronic Publishing and Information Provision at ANU
Tony Barry, Centre for Networked Access to Scholarly Information,
Australian
National University Library,
Canberra A.C.T. 0200, Australia. Phone +61 6 249 4632. Fax +61 6 279 8120.
Email: tony@info.anu.edu.au. Home Page: http://snazzy.anu.edu.au/People/TonyB.html
Keywords: Libraries, Publishing
This paper is a version of an ongoing web
page which traces the history of electronic publishing at the
Australia National University and it's future development
The ANU has had a long history of work with electronic information sources and
an extension into network publishing is a natural extension.
The Social Science Data Archives was set up in 1981 in the Research
School of Social Sciences with a brief to collect and preserve
computer-readable data relating to social, political and economic affairs and
to make the data available for further analysis.
The National Dictionary projects have worked on electronic publishing of their
material in various forms.
The library was one of the early pioneers in installing an integrated library
management system (1984) and later a network accessible online public access
catalogue in 1987. It was the first Australian library catalogue available on
AARNet. In 1985 it was the second University library to install a CDROM
service and was the first some years later to network cdroms across the campus
network.
The Australian Centre for the Arts and Technology is a centre for the teaching,
research, recording, publishing and performance of the music and the dynamic
visual arts made with new technology. It provides a unique environment in
Australia for the artistic use of computers and a focus for the education of
mutli-disciplinary artists interested in using new technologies as expressive
tools. ACAT's interdisciplinary pursuits within the arts and sciences,
associate it with other academic and artistic centres throughout Australia and
around the world.
Almost completely a brainchild of Matthew Ciolek from the Coombs Computer Unit
of the Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies, and the Research School of
Social Sciences , the Coombspapers server is AARNet's oldest (est. Dec 1991)
and largest (1870 files, 68Mb of data) systematic collection of scholarly
documents (research papers, bibliographies, abstracts of theses) in the social
sciences and Asian studies collectionc.
The server is closely
integrated with the CERN virtual library.
Starting first with FTP as each new technology became available it was adopted
and exploited to expand this remarkable archive.
In early 1993 David
Green, then employed at ANU, established a web server on the
machine life.anu.edu.au which
was one of the first three server in Australia. David is now a
Professor of Information Technology, Environmental & Info Science at
Charles Sturt University and
continues the server
he started at ANU.
Very early he saw the possibility of this technology for academic communication
as his publications show,
in particular his paper
proposing an international biodiversity network.
He participated in the CERN World Virtual Library establishing both the education page and the
Guide to Australia
(in the geography
page) which he continues to maintain.
Much of his work while at ANU was done with the two of the other large electronic
publishing groups in Canberra at the Environmental
Resources Information Network and the Australia National Botanic Gardens
although he also participated in the work of other biological groups notable
establishing the FIRENET node at the
ANU Department of Forestry
and creating the first server for the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife
Service.
In 1993 Michael Greenhalgh, the Sir William Dobell Professor of Fine Art
saw great potential in WWW for teaching and publishing and set up a web server
on a unix machine in his office where he developed a range of electronic
publications getting an honourable mention in the 1994 Best of the Web
competition for multimedia and also nominated in the education category.
His first major work is the well known The "Palace" of Diocletian at Split
. He has since developed innovative ways of interfacing Image databases to
WWW.
The University Library mounted one of the first two gopher servers in Australia
and one of the first four web servers. These both came about not through a
deliberate long term plan but through sensible exploration of opportunities.
Within the ANU there is a tradition for the disbursement of funds
which come available outside reccurrant funding to be targeted to
projects that would not otherwise be funded.. Within the University
Library it is not unusual to divert such funds to projects outside
the day to day operations of the library. In 1992 such fund became
available and a project to mount a variety of public domain networked
information retrieval tools was proposed.
After discussion with the Director of Computing Services, the Library purchased
a Sun SparcServer2 and the Computing Service Centre seconded a programmer and
a number of projects were undertaken by Centre for networked Access to
Scholarly information, CNASI within the library.
This included Wide Area Information Server (WAIS), gopher, hytelnet, LIBS
software for Unix and client software for Macintosh, PC, Unix and X-Windows
interfaces. A CERN WWW server was also installed but not used due to the poor
state of client software at that time. The Library was able to mount a range of
documentation items relating to the operations of the Internet and Australian
Academic and Research Network (AARNet) which were made available to the public.
The gopher software was used to build a prototype Campus Wide Information
System. The project was carried out co-operatively with staff of the
Registrar's Division.
In part, this project was a consequence of a recommendation of the Working
Party of the Administrative Guide, mentioned below which had recommended
the establishment of a Campus Administrative Information System (CAIS). By the
end of the year the Library's Annual Report listed the following services
as being mounted electronically on Gopher software and tested:
- An electronic WAIS-based version of the campus telephone book;
- An e-mail directory for the University based on Netfind software;
- The University's Finance and Accounting Manual in full text and with
WAIS-based indexes;
- A database of the Library's serials;
- User guide material for the Library;
- Campus lecture timetables;
- Links to most of the public data services on campus;
- Links to the prototype campus information systems in 10 institutions in
Australia and about 300 overseas;
- Direct gateways to the library catalogues of the National Library of
Australia, University of Canberra, ADFA and CSIRO as well as the Hytelnet
software used to access other catalogues;
- A prototype Electronic Library, organised by subject classification which
gave access to network resources.
None of these developments would have
been possible without the strong support of the University Librarian
particularly after he attended the INFORMA 1992 conference and returned to ANU
convinced that such systems were of great importance to the future of the
University and the library in particular.
The 1992 Annual Report of the Library stated -
Early in 1992 Library management recognised the need for a
review of its computing operations. This was caused partly by the increasing
demands for new software development and enhancements, and partly by the rising
need for ongoing support of daily activities. A consultant was appointed to
conduct this review, which recommended the separation of computing into two
sections, one dealing with ongoing day-to-day support, the other concentrating
on development work.
and
A Centre for Networked Access to Scholarly Information (CNASI),
headed by Tony Barry, was established. The Centre reports directly to the
University Librarian. This Centre's focus is on development work, the creation
of new networked information services, and monitoring networking and
technological developments of interest to the Library. It is working on a
co-operative basis with other areas on campus, within Australia and
overseas.
The development of WAIS and gopher capabilities within the library as part of
the project to produce a campus information system quickly spun off a Library
service after the administrative information was removed to it's own server
. This gopher service, Electronic library Information Service at ANU
(ELISA) quickly became a central service for the library taking over 2.2
million connections in 1994 up from 1.2 million in 1993.
A number of policy initiatives with the University also drove the development
of electronic publishing.
In 1991 the University conducted an inquiry into it's central administration.
One are of weakness identified was in the documentation of central functions
and administration which only existed in the form of a l loose
leaf service, difficult to update called the Administrative Guide. As a consequence of this
report a Working Party on the Administrative Guide was set up which recommended
the establishment of a Campus Administrative Information System (CAIS),
mounted on the University network where administrative information could be
provided for public access. This recommendation enable resources to be gathered
for the creation of the ANU Campus Information Service.
Also in 1992 it became apparent to the University that continuing developments
information technology were likely to have a major impact of the future of the
University and a committee was established with a series of subcommittees to
write an Information
Technology Directions statement to chart the future of the University in and
with IT. Two of the subcommittees, that devoted to desktop
delivery and that on Campus
Wide Information Systems had direct relevance to electronic publishing.
The work of these committees has led to progressive IT strategic plan for the
University which has, as one of its aims, the desktop delivery of
information across the campus with clear implications for electronic
publishing. Another development was the recognition of the need for far
stronger support services based on a multi tiered approach. One possible mid
level service was in networked information.
With the completion of the pilot project in the library the University set up a
Campus Information Service in 1993 with a staff of two based on gopher
technology. This service, while still being supported, is now slowly
being transferred to WWW as new material is added.
The problems encountered in this are probably common to many universities.
Having committed to one technology, gopher, and deployed clients and training ,
switching to a web viewer so soon is not easy.
The need to acquire information from author areas in a format easily
convertible to HTML clashed with the large variety of desktop publishing and
word processing formats used across the campus. The procedures by which this
material was created and approved were based upon an ultimate print product and
by the time machine readable copy could be obtained it required a considerable
degree of re engineering before it could be mounted on the network. Electronic
publishing then came to be seen as additional work rather than providing what
it promised in the long term, a reduction in the costs of disseminating
information. So far centralised electronic publishing has not been simple to
introduce.
The Quality funds awarded by the Commonwealth to ANU in 1993 were dispersed
across the campus on the basis of bids from individual areas.
The amount
sought exceeded by a factor of five the amount available. A number of those
bids were for various aspects of electronic publishing and included a bid from
the then Computer Services Centre (now Information Technology Services) and the
University Library.
This submission was to set up a centre to provide a focus for network
information service including publishing as part of the mulitiered model of IT
support the University had adopted. This submission together with some aspects
of a number of the others was funded and became the Centre for Networked
Information and Publishing which was opened in September 1994.
The Centre for Networked Information and Publishing is in some ways a federation
of components rather than a traditional organisation. Staff and facilities
have been contributed by the Library, Information Technology Services and
progressively other parts of the University and co-located with the intention
that their would be some synergism between them. Located in the CNIP area at
the moment are -
- The Campus Information System (2 staff)
- The ACT Educational Information Network (1 staff)
- The Centre for Networked Access to Scholarly Information (1 staff)
- CNIP support (3 staff)
Associated with CNIP are -
- The CAUT Clearinghouse and Coordinating Centre (2 staff)
- The Library electronic outreach group (3 staff)
The creation of this Centre allows the University to bring together a range of
initiatives in the area of networked information services in a way that will
benefit not only the University community but also demonstrate to the wider
community the University's commitment to this form of information management -
which is based on a philosophy of providing the widest possible access to high
quality, well-supported information sources. CNIP includes the following
services:
The Committee for the Advancement of University Teaching (CAUT) in 1993 let a consultancy for a
network of discipline based
clearing housed for teaching and learning. As a result of that
consultancy they sought bids to mount networked, discipline based clearing houses
on teaching and learning with a central coordinating centre to provide an
overview. ANU was successful in obtaining the coordinating Centre and the
Law Clearinghouse.
This program was funded initially by the
Australian National University , the Australian Defence Force Academy , the
University of Canberra and the Australian Catholic University - Signadou campus,
to introduce the Internet to primary and secondary schools and colleges in the
Australian Capital Territory. This year the project is starting to recover funds
from the schools and there is considerable activity by students and staff
including the development of publishing activity by individual
schools, the use of internet material for teaching and contacts with schoold
overseas via email and video.
The Centre was set up within the Australian National University Library to
undertake innovative projects for the delivery of information to the academic
community.
The Centre has been involved with a variety of projects including -
- Many of the original services on the ELISA gopher
- the introduction of various electronic services by the ANU Library
- Consultation with government
Electronic publications by the Centre
include -
and is currently working on -
- The redevelopment of the ELISA service
- The development of an electronic public face to the campus based on
online.anu.edu.au
- Assisting in drafting an Electronic publishing policy for the Campus
- Coordinating all information technology projects for the library
Designated staff within the Information Services Division of the Library
provide assistance to Library users in locating and using electronic
information resources both acquired by the Library and freely accessible over
the Internet. They provide a range of introductory courses and in the last
six months have moved into the area of HTML training with considerable success.
These staff are also the principal supporters of the ELISA service although the
library is now considering starting to move the responsibility for the
maintenance of access to internet information on a subject basis so as to
become a more general responsibility across the staff.
The staff of this area have also been involved in providing networked service of
a library nature such as an access list to Australian electronic serials ,
and electronic library
services and publishing electronically the proceedings of the recent
OnlineOndisk95 conference
The genesis of the Campus Information Service has been described in the
sections above. Over the network it publishes internally generated official
sources of information which include official documents such as administrative
manuals, the Faculty Handbook, Student Timetable, and other administrative
information. The service currently also includes popular and unofficial
information useful for administrative purposes such as , current local and
world times, airline, campus maps, etc.
The service is facing a number of challenges -
- The transition to web technology
- Finding a clear definition of content
- The need to alter publication procedures in most areas of campus away
from a print orientation to one based on content.
- The need to shift from a centralised model of content preparation to a
decentralised one where content providers are able to mark up and take
responsibility for their own material
- To modify user behaviour from a reliance on print products to one where
online products are not just acceptable but preferred.
It is intended that the Centre will:
- Develop & support networked information resources (eg. Clearing
Houses)
- Assist academic staff in the preparation of online material
- Deliver awareness, training programs and resource material
- Support electronic publishing
- Expand the services and visibility, internally and externally, of the
Campus Information Service
- Support selected authoring tools and client software
- Cooperate with other groups on the Internet in the development of
information resources of interest to the University.
In support of its role
in publishing information, CNIP maintains a network information server
online.anu.edu.au for use by the members of the University community. This
server was purchased under a joint research agreement between the University
and Digital Equipment (Aust) Pty Ltd. The server consists of a DEC 2100 alpha
machine with 20 GB of disk and will primarily be used to publish material
through the World Wide Web (WWW). The Centre also provides support for those
wishing to publish information using CDROMs.
The Centre also provides access to a range of facilities and services related
to authoring and publishing information electronically.
- An archive of useful software tools is maintained.
- A high performance scanning/OCR facility is available
- A graphics/video workstation is supported for author wishing to develop
material
- Commercial software tools are being evaluated.
- A drop in Centre equipped with Unix, Mac, Windows and X equipment for
viewing published material is available.
- Some training courseware being offered and further developed.
All
this comprises components of a virtual author's workbench.
CNIP has in the last few months been involved in mounting material for a number
of groups on campus who lack server capacity. Most of these groups have
prepared their own material after doing a HTML course provided via the
Library outreach group.
Servers mounted by CNIP
As part of the Outreach function for the campus services have been also mounted
for some outside groups
There is a wide range of other servers operating independantly across the campus.
Publicity within the University for the service has also been an important
concern. As well as the usual printed material a two day demonstration for
central administrative staff in the Chancelry via specially written web pages
was very successful. As part of this the Submission for 1995 University
of the Year Award was marked up in HTML and links to those services on the
network provided. This proved to be a very useful demonstration.
Elsewhere on campus there has been a wide range of activity at different sites
some with considerable help from CNIP others with none. Some of these, noteably
the Coommbsweb have also been active in mounting material of academic
interest for outside groups.
A variety of electronic serials have been stated on the campus some officially,
some as private projects and other mounted for external bodies.
- ANU Reporter
- Weekly newletter of the Australian National University. Editor: Elizabeth Tynan
(Elizabeth.Tynan@anu.edu.au)
URL: gopher://cis.anu.edu.au/11/News/Reporter
- Complexity International
- "Complexity International is a refereed journal for scientific papers dealing
with any area of complex systems research. The theme of the journal is the field
of complex systems, the generation of complex behaviour from the interaction of
multiple parallel processes". ISSN 1320-0682
URL: http://life.anu.edu.au/ci/ci.html
- Federal Law Review
- The Federal Law Review has been published by the Faculty since 1964. It has established itself as an
important journal in the field of Australian federal law. This area is broadly defined. It includes legal and
policy questions relating to the nature of federalism, Commonwealth constitutional and administrative law
and international law in so far as it affects the Commonwealth. The Review is published twice a year. Each
issue contains four or five major papers, together with topical commentaries and occasional book reviews.
The Review's present editor is John Seymour. Agasha Mugasha is in charge of book reviews.
URL: http://www/law/law10
- HASN: History of Australian Science Newsletter
- This newsletter is published by the Australian Science Archives Project three
times a year in March, July and November. HASN has been published in hardcopy
since 1983. >>>From November 1993 it will be simultaneously published in both
electronic and hardcopy forms.
Contact: Tim Sherratt,
Australian Science Archives Project,
Canberra Office
GPO Box 783
CANBERRA ACT 2601.
URL: gopher://cis.anu.edu.au:70/1ftp%3acoombs.anu.edu.au%40/coombspapers/
otherarchives/australian-sci-archives/hist-aus-sci-newsltr/
- IMS Bulletin
- URL: gopher://info.anu.edu.au:70/11/ser/anu/ims
- Matilda In Cyberspace
- This is a rolling newsletter on happenings about or related matters in Australia, unfortunately moribund at present.
Contact: Tony Barry (tony@info.anu.edu.au).
URL: http://snazzy.anu.edu/Matilda/start.html
- Pacific Islands Group Newsletter
- Newsletter of the Pacific Islands Group, Research School of Pacific Studies,
Australain National University. ISSN 1322-8404
Printed version also available.
Other title: PIG newsletter
URL: gopher://cis.anu.edu.au:70/1ftp%3acoombs.anu.edu.au%40/coombspapers/coombsarchives/pacific-islands-group/
- PAMBU: Pacific Manuscripts Bureau Nwsltr (Coombspapers,ANU)
- Pambu is the newsletter of The Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, Research School of
Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra
URL: gopher://cis.anu.edu.au:70/1ftp%3acoombs.anu.edu.au%40/coombspapers/coombsarchives/pacific-manuscripts-bureau/newsletter/
- Thai-Yunnan Project newsletter (Coombspaper, ANU)
- The Thai-Yunnan Project is concerned with the study of the peoples of the border
regions between the Peoples Republic of China and the mainland states of
Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma). The project encompasses the
study of the languages, cultures and societies of the constituent peoples as well
as of their inter- relations within and across national boundaries.
URL: gopher://cis.anu.edu.au:70/1ftp%3acoombs.anu.edu.au%40/coombspapers/coombsarchives/thai-yunnan-project/thai-yunnan-newsletter/
- Woroni
- The regular students paper
produced by the Students' Association.
URL:http://student/Woroni/index.html
A number of groups are starting to use the network actively to deliver course
related material to students notable in Commerce, Art history , the Library and
Forestry. Due to copyright restrictions much of this material is unavailable
off campus. As part of it's Electronic Reserve project the Library has
provided a centralised point of access to such material mounted via WWW as well
as material it has mounted itself such as University Exam papers.
Growth of interest in the internet and World Wide web in particular has created
a great demand for information and assistance not just from the private sector
but also from Government subsequent to the creation of the Commonwealth
Internet Reference group and the National Library of Australia's Government
page previously mentioned. This obviously has had
an impact on the ANU. So as to keep commercial work generated by this at arms
length from internal services, the ANU's spinoff company, ANUTECH has set
up a commercial group Internet ACT to deal with this demand. They
describe their services -
The resources and experience of the Australian National
University are now accessible to the business community, companies, government
and individuals through INTERNET ACT, a
division of ANUTECH Pty Ltd, which provides a one-stop shop access to expert
staff, training and extensive communications resources. INTERNET ACT uses
skilled ANU consultants together with the expertise of other specialist service
providers to equip organisations with the tools and know-how needed to access
the full resources of the Internet, and to project exactly the image they want
into this new and dynamic arena. INTERNET ACT provides your managers with the
knowledge they need to make policy decisions and to develop the skills to
exploit Internet to best advantage. details of the services they provide are
available from their server and this includes an electronic publishing service (source).
While it is easy to see that electronic publication via World Wide Web has an
assured future at ANU in the short term the longer future is unclear (remember
gopher). Even so there is still not great clarity as to which publishing model
will become the predominant format. Three apply at present.
- A central publisher model where a central body takes copy from author
areas and places it on the network
- A facilities based model where a central facilities are provided for
publishing as well as advisory services which end users may or may not use.
- A self-support model where the less capable rely on central services
until they are able to make their own arrangements
So far it would seem
that the campus is in mixed mode but tending more and more towards the end of
this list.
While success so far has been mixed recent decisions will result in further
groups and staff being associated with the centre in the areas of graphics
design, video technology and instructional design adding to CNIP's capability.
The signing of an agreement with Sun to establish the Australian Sunsite at
ANU will also impact onthe electronic publishing activities at ANU. At this
stage the Sunsite is proposed to have a linkage with CNIP and there is an expectation that
some projects associated with this may have a national component.
It is possible that further projects of a national nature will be undertaken.
Section 5(2) of the Australia National University Act 1991 states -
In the performance of its functions, the University must pay
attention to its national and international roles and to the needs of the
Australian Capital Territory and the surrounding
regions.
One of the University's most recent projects, to electronically publish the Debates of the
Commonwealth Parliament and other parliamentary documentation via the
Pastime project falls into this category.
Copyright
© Southern Cross
University, 1995. Permission is hereby granted to use this document for
personal use and in courses of instruction at educational institutions provided
that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced.
Permission is also given to mirror this document on WorldWideWeb servers. Any
other usage is expressly prohibited without the express permission of Southern
Cross University.
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