The National Library’s role in the Australian Research Information Infrastructure projects

1. The National Library’s role in the Australian Research Information Infrastructure projects Warwick Cathro National Library of Australia Coalition for Networked Information 15 April 2004

2. Why might you want to hear this? • An attempt to support research information infrastructure on a national scale • An attempt to kick-start or accelerate deployment of repositories, extend nationally if possible • An example where policy area of government is actively collaborating with university stakeholders • An example of collaboration between a national library and groups of universities

3. Outline • The Australian Research Information Infrastructure Projects • The National Library’s digital services activities • Project ARROW • Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories • Meta Access Management System (MAMS) Project • Conclusions

4. The Australian RII Projects • Scope of federal government’s research funding activities • “Backing Australia’s Ability” (2001) • Report of the Higher Education Information Infrastructure Implementation Steering Committee • Institutional repositories seen as a key strategy for improved management of research information • Funds (A$12M) allocated to four projects in October 2003

5. Future policy and funding issues • Australian Research Information Infrastructure Committee (ARIIC) • Examination of middleware issues and future funding needs • Report of National Research Infrastructure Task Force (March 2004)

6. NLA digital services activities • NLA’s digital collections • NLA’s digital services architecture • Resource discovery layer • Persistent identifiers and the resolver service • Digital object management layer • Web delivery systems

7. NLA’s Digital Collections • PANDORA (5 000+ web sites, 10 000+ snapshots) • Digitised pictures (70 000+ pictures) • Digitised sheet music (5 000+ multi-page items) • Digitised maps (2 500+ maps) • Digitised manuscript collections (10 collections, 6 500+ items) • Oral history and folklore audio recordings converted to digital form (7000+ hours out of 35000)

8. Examples of principles • Support entire activity cycle for digital collections • Support integrated access to print and digital resources • Ensure every item is citable and accessible in a persistent manner • Support hierarchical digital library data model

9. The Architecture

10. Resource Discovery • Digital collection items will be discovered through multiple entry points • Prime institutional entry point is the catalogue • Public search engines (eg Google) • Federated and specialised discovery services • Metadata Repository and Search System • Based on TeraText Database System • Z39.50 compliant

11. Persistent identifiers • Consultancy on PI framework • See Reference [5] in the handout • PI assigned to every digital collection item and every deliverable component of each item • These citations will never break

12. Resolver service • Simple Java servlet application parses the PI and re-directs user to current web location • All requests in the form http://nla.gov.au/<pi> are passed to the resolver application • Requires that the PI contains some intelligence

13. Digital Object Management • Not possible to source suitable products in the marketplace • Digital Archiving System (PANDAS) • See Reference [7] in handout • Digital Collections Manager (DCM) • See Reference [4] in handout

14. Digital Archiving System • Functions: • controls harvesting of web sites • manages metadata about harvested sites • generates title entry pages • manages access restrictions • Metadata includes: • descriptive metadata • permission status • restriction information • gathering schedule

19. Digital Collections Manager • Functions: • supports digitisation workflow • creates web derivatives • manages storage of metadata and digital files • Metadata types supported: • descriptive metadata • administrative metadata (including technical data such as image resolution) • structural metadata

22. Web Delivery Systems • Web delivery systems developed for pictures, maps, sheet music, manuscripts • Based on Digital Collections Manager • Contextual display allows user to navigate pages, zoom, view metadata • For manuscripts, closely tied to finding aid • For maps, MrSID technology provides powerful zoom capability • To be extended to support delivery of audio files

29. Project ARROW • Led by Monash University • Three other management partners, including NLA • ARROW will identify, test and develop an institutional repository solution • All four partners will commit to using the solution • ARROW will also develop a discovery service with a potential nationwide scope

30. Project ARROW: business context • Desire to integrate support for electronic press, e-print repository and e-theses • Potential future inclusion of learning objects, research resources (not just output) • Potential to utilise annual DEST returns to systematically build repository and showcase institutional output • Potential to drive cultural change • Longer term potential of providing alternatives to current scholarly publishing outlets

31. Project ARROW: deliverables • Software platforms and storage solutions at four sites • NLA will use its repository to complement its digital services architecture • Representative clusters of content • Documentation • Availability of repositories for metadata harvesting • Assistance to other institutions with repositories

32. Project ARROW: stages • Demonstration (2004) • Developing architecture, selecting, testing and developing software • Deployment (late 2004 – end 2005) • Populating the repositories • Distribution (mid 2005 – end 2006) • Enabling others to participate

33. Project ARROW: resource discovery • Metadata will be harvested from ARROW and other repositories using OAI protocol • NLA will build a metadata repository and search service based on TeraText platform • Resource discovery service will support a range of logical views, branded interfaces, alerting services • Discovery service will expose its own metadata for harvesting by international and disciplinary services

34. Progress to date • Management Committee and Technical Committee formed • Project Manager appointed • 2003 study tour (UK and USA) • NLA had already developed “proof of concept” discovery service • Process of selecting repository software is underway

35. Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories • Led by the Australian National University • Four other partners, including NLA • Will develop demonstrator repositories • Will support continuity and sustainability of digital collections • Research data sets are in scope

36. Digital Sustainability Program • Will be led by NLA • Will establish links with the UK Digital Curation Centre • Will develop a national centre of excellence • Will provide advice, documentation, tools to assist the university community to sustain and preserve repository content

37. NLA experience • Development of PANDORA archive • Development of the PADI service • Work on standards for preservation metadata • Membership of International Internet Preservation Consortium

39. Practices and Testbeds Program • Further development of DSpace repository at Australian National University • Development of a physically distributed repository at University of Sydney supporting text, images, spatial data sets, audio files • Development of a repository at University of Queensland

40. Outreach activities • National Services Program will provide technical advisory services, consultation and educational services • International Linkages program will contribute to standards development, maintain a technology watching brief

41. Meta Access Management System (MAMS) • Led by Macquarie University • Will investigate and test integrated solutions for authentication and authorisation

42. Middleware components • An “umbrella” system for intra-institutional authentication and authorisation that recognises realities of legacy environments • An inter-institutional regime based on attribute exchange • Automated decision making using machine readable policy • Extensible, federated identity system

43. NLA role in MAMS • Access policy description schema • Will build on the Library’s work in online directories, including standards for describing services and access policies • Examples: policies on categories of users served, service levels, types of service provided, charging policies

45. Conclusions • Importance of robust research infrastructure has been recognised by Australian Government • Institutional repositories recognised as part of the solution • Further middleware services need to be identified and developed • Four projects are underway • NLA is a supporting partner in three of them

46. Questions? Contact: Warwick Cathro Assistant Director-General, Innovation National Library of Australia wcathro@nla.gov.au