Australian Museum of Architecture
Architecture historian Philip Drew has launched a campaign for an Australian
Museum of Architecture. Drew hopes the museum will: act as a national
lighthouse for architecture and design; stimulate public understanding and
appreciation of architecture; present displays on ‘classical’ Australian
Aboriginal architecture, individual architects and architectural topics;
collect and preserve drawings, records, models, images, videos and
contemporary comment; commission research, surveys and retrospectives on
leading architects and designers and on Australian architectural history;
and host public forums on architectural matters of public concern and
lecture series by eminent scholars on Australian architecture.
In Housing Our Best Designs (The Australian 18 June 2008), he reviews
designs for such a museum on the Fort Street Primary School site south of
Sydney Observatory overlooking the Sydney Opera House, undertaken by design
students from the University of NSW Faculty of the Built Environment. In the
context of the economic importance of architecture (the building industry is
worth more than A$70 billion in Australia), he concludes: “Not only would a
national architecture museum educate Australians and encourage sensitivity
to design, it would be vital to a growing sense of who we were, our place in
the world, and whether what were forming in this place was indeed a bona
fide civilisation.” If you would like to record your support, contact Philip
Drew at 12 View Street, Annandale, NSW 2038, email pdrew@idx.com.au (phone
02 9660-8369).
Australian performing arts collections
conference
Museums Australia’s Performing Arts Special Interest Group held its 2008
conference at Queensland Performing Arts Centre on 23-24 June. The program
included presentations by Richard Fotheringham, Mark Cryle, Clay Djubal,
Jenny Fewster, Jonathon Bollan, Richard Stone, Michael Marendy, Gayle
MacGregor and others on performing arts collection, online resources and
projects. Further details: Beryl Davis
beryl.davis@qpac.com.au
Ballets Russes in Australia symposium
In May 2008, Adelaide played host to a symposium exploring the important
influence of the Ballet Russes on the development of classical ballet in
Australia. Organised to coincide with the Australian Ballet’s Adelaide
season, the seminar took place at the Elder Conservatorium (University of
Adelaide) and Adelaide Festival Centre. For further details see the article,
Diaghilev’s Legacy by Lee Christofis, (National Library of Australia News
March 2009) and
http://www.nla.gov.au/balletsrusses
National Film and Sound Archive
The Australian government has passed legislation to establish Screen
Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive as separate statutory
authorities. Screen Australia brings together the Australian Film
Commission, Film Finance Corporation and Film Australia. The National Film
and Sound Archive will be separated from the Australian Film Commission and
become a national collecting institution in its own right from 1 July 2008.
Singapore’s Library@Esplanade
Low Si Wei describes the growth and evolution, collections and services of
The Library@Esplande, Singapore’s first dedicated library of the performing
arts, in Continue, the Journal of the International Association of Music
Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres Australian Branch (vol 35/36,
2006/2007). In 2006, the library, attracted 719,957 visits, lent 359,942
items and handled 125,568 enquiries.
Australian cultural institutions and
technology
Michael Middleton and Julie M. Lee, in their report Cultural Institutions
and Web 2.0 (Smart Internet Technology CRC, November 2007) investigate how
Australia’s cultural institutions are taking advantage of Web 2.0
technologies. Among their observations, based on consultations with
representatives from major libraries, archives and museums, are: (1)
improvements in access will depend upon improving retrieval capabilities in
repository software and rationalisation of descriptive metadata to permit
unification of different types of information repositories; (2) audience
support may be fostered by the use of software that supports collaborative
spaces in conjunction with information resources from institutional
repositories; (3) mechanisms for retaining and identifying authority of
institutional data must combine a management framework, a design framework,
and a technical framework; (4) collaboration by combining distributed
collections through federated search mechanisms may be further pursued by
inter-institutional development of educational products and extended public
and professional participation; (5) current awareness facilities need to be
exploited more effectively; (6) metadata continue to provide a foundation
for effective retrieval; (7) publishing opportunities are virtually
limitless based upon the extent of collections; (8) recordkeeping has the
potential to become a process more prominent for all institutions; (9) there
is a great deal of potential for exploiting rich Web applications for
associating material from distributed repositories, for bringing different
metadata to bear on the information that it describes, and for introducing
material to and from socially constructed avenues; (10) although seeding of
external social networks with information about repositories is a useful
exercise, it is unlikely to be sustainable while the process is carried out
manually on an ad hoc basis; (11) cultural institutions have the opportunity
to contribute to skills development by providing ‘laboratories’ for student
projects; (12) there is much to be learnt through social network analysis,
supported by suitable metrics; (13) a flexible approach to management of
digital content is desirable under the umbrella of wider sector strategy,
which responds to the rapid environmental changes. To access the report:
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00010808/. Smart Internet Technology CRC
http://www.smartinternet.com.au
Digital Preservation
Brian F Lavoie in The Fifth Blackbird: Some Thoughts on Economically
Sustainable Digital Preservation (Dlib Magazine March/April 2008,
http://www.dlib.org/), says that “we have not yet established a systematic
mapping between general economic models of resource provision and particular
digital preservation contexts.” The ease with which we create information in
digital form tends to obscure the true cost of maintaining it over long
periods of time. Our capacity to produce digital materials far exceeds our
capacity to maintain. The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital
Preservation and Access, funded by the National Science Foundation and
Andrew Mellon Foundation with support from the Library of Congress, Joint
Information Systems Committee, Council on Library and Information Resources,
and National Archives and Records Administration, will review the issue. An
interim report is expected by December 2008 and a final report in December
2009. Lavoie says there may not be a single model. A key aspect of the
challenge is the need for a transition from "lakes of funding" to "rivers of
funding" — from a reliance on project-based, one-time grants of soft money,
to the establishment of self-sustaining flows of resources sufficient to
support ongoing digital preservation activities. Another challenge is to
change perspectives from a micro approach to a macro approach — organising
limited institutional preservation resources as community-wide initiatives
that produce maximum output of digital preservation activities from a given
set of inputs. But economic sustainability is not an issue that can be
considered in isolation: it must take into account surrounding technical,
social, and legal environments.
Digital universe
John F Gantz, Christopher Chute, Alex Manfrediz and others, in The Diverse
and Exploding Digital Universe: An Updated Forecast of Worldwide Information
Growth through 2011, say that the digital universe is already bigger than
the number of stars in the larger universe. In 2007 there were 281 billion
gigabytes (281 exabytes) — about 45 gigabytes of digital information for
every person on the planet. By 2011, this is expected to grow ten-fold to
1.8 zettabytes (1,800 exabytes). And, because the digital universe is
expanding by a factor of 10 every five years, in 15 years it will surpass
Avogadro's number (602,200,000, 000,000,000, 000,000). Web: www.scribd.com/doc/
2264647/The-Diverse-and-Exploding-Digital-Universe-EMC-IDC
Library spaces
The Association of College & Research Libraries and the Library
Administration and Management Association have jointly produced a Guide for
Planning Higher Education Library Spaces, in response to inquiries from
architects about background materials, models and best practices Web:
http://wikis.ala.org/acrl/index.php/ACRL/LAMA_Guide_for_Architects
MUSEUMS
Museum Computer Network
The Museum Computer Network’s Project Registry, MuseTech Central, provides a
place to share information about technology-related museum projects.
Although anyone is welcome to browse, only registered users may create new
records. Web:
http://www.musetechcentral.org
Community archives
The National Archives of Australia has published Keep It For the Future!:
How to Set Up Small Community Archives, a 64-page publication available
for A$4.95 plus postage and handling. The contents include sections on
getting started, collecting records and keeping archives, acquiring and
organising archives, preserving archives, access archives, and preparing a
disaster recovery plan. Appendixes include sources for further information,
archiving software, suppliers and a glossary. May be purchased online from
the National Archives of Australia or local NAA offices. Web:
http://www.naa.gov.au
Ephemera
Lorien Milligan, in The Long Term Significance of Ephemera
(Australian Society of Archivists ACT Branch newsletter ACTive Archives,
March 2008), reports on a talk at the National Library of Australia on 6
February 2008, Dr Michael Twyman, Director of the Centre of Ephemera
Studies, University of Reading, UK. The word ephemera has a Greek lineage
and can be translated roughly as “through the day.” Britain's Bodleian
Library was the first major cultural institution to form the view that there
was value in retaining ephemera, when it purchased an extensive collection
from the Oxford University Press in 1968. Without ephemera it is unlikely
that a full picture of the work of printers and their allied trades could be
formed. “How can you capture an age without ephemera? The value of these
passing prints is undeniable, particularly in view of the extraordinary gift
received by the National Library last September from the Canadian government
– the 1796 Sydney playbill, which we were fortunate enough to see on the
night. When two Prime Ministers exchange paper, you know that something
momentous has occurred.” Web: http://www.archivists.org.au
Australian METS Profile
Judith Pearce, David Pearson, Megan Williams and Scott Yeadon in The
Australian METS Profile - A Journey about Metadata (D-Lib Magazine
March/April 2008), chronicles work towards a common way of packaging and
exchanging digital content in a future Australian data commons, using METS
(Metadata Exchange Transmission Standard), extended by PREMIS (PREservation
Metadata Implementation Strategies). It describes how the main profile and
the sub-profile work together and what additional profiling work is planned
by the National Library of Australia and its partners to address the needs
of the Australian repository and international communities. They conclude:
“METS is a good fit for reaching our destination. It is, however, one of a
long line of standards developed to meet emerging needs. Standards will
continue to be developed to meet changes in technology and the dynamic
nature of the digital universe…As part of the international METS community
we still have a lot of thinking to do. The community itself is currently
reviewing the profile process to move towards best practices, rather than
registering solutions developed for specific implementations. Perhaps in an
ideal world there would be no need for an Australian METS Profile. In the
meantime we are hopeful that chronicling the journey we have taken may be of
assistance to those travelling to a similar destination.” Web:
http://www.dlib.org/
Open source social software
Erik Mitchell and Kevin Gilbertson, in Using Open Source Social Software
as Digital Library Interface (DLib Magazine March/April 2008),
investigate social software applications as the interface in digital library
environments, using as a case study the Digital Forsyth project in the
United States Wordpress blogging software for metadata management, data
migration and user interface management. They explore technical and
sustainability issues, list key questions to ask in selecting existing open
source applications, and conclude “We found that the implementation of the
user interface was accomplished quickly…Despite the issues that we
experienced with metadata management, system assumptions/limitations, and
interoperability, overall the use of WordPress lowered our development and
maintenance costs. We are hopeful that the system will benefit from
increased sustainability and portability as future releases of WordPress are
installed, and as special functions are developed and deployed.” Web:
http://www.dlib.org/
Searching the Deep Web
Joan A. Smith and Mike L. Nelson, in Site Design Impact on Robots: An
Examination of Search Engine Crawler Behaviour at Deep and Wide Websites
(D-Lib Magazine March / April 2008) examine the conventional wisdom that
search engines "prefer" sites that are wide rather than deep and that having
a site index will result in more thorough crawling by the Big Three crawlers
– Google, Yahoo, and MSN. After creating three sites, they analysed the logs
of the sites for a year to see if the conventional wisdom holds true. They
found that each spider exhibited different behaviour and crawl persistence.
In general, width does appear to be crawled more thoroughly than depth, and
providing links on one or two "index" pages improves crawler penetration.
Google was quick to reach and explore the new sites, whereas MSN and Yahoo
were slow to arrive, and the percentage of site coverage varied by site
structure and by top-level domain. Google is clearly king of the crawl: its
lowest site coverage was 99%, whereas MSN's worst coverage was 2.5% and
Yahoo's worst coverage of a site was 3%. Web:
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march08/smith/03smith.html
Jody L DeRidder, in Googlizing a Digital
library (Code4Lib Journal, Issue 2, 24 March 2008) describes how to
increase access to digital library content by leveraging the capabilities of
popular search engines. He provides overview of the problem, discusses
solutions being developed, and explores some current methods before
concluding: “With the use of the sitemap method of communication with…search
engines, the freely available wget software, and a few Perl scripts,
dynamically delivered digital library items can be captured statically and
provide functionally via web searches…In addition, browse indexes, which
serve to increase page ranking in search engine results, also increase
usability to consumers.” Web:
http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/43
Subject guides
Edward A Corrado and Kathryn A. Frederick, in Free and Open Source
Options for Creating Database-Driven Subject Guides (Code4Lib Journal,
Issue 2, 24 March 2008), review cost-effective options for updating and
maintaining pathfinders such as subject guides and course pages. Static HTML
guides, while useful, have proven difficult and time-consuming to maintain.
The article discusses the functionality, strengths and weakness of open
source database-driven solutions (such as SubjectsPlus, LibData, Research
Guide and Library Course Builder), Wikis, and social tagging sites like
del.icio.us. Web:
http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/47
This issue of Cross Currents compiled by Paul Bentley
FEEDBACK
The
Wolanski Foundation would be grateful for feedback
on the scope, format and content of this bulletin..
