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Digital issues IIICreating Content for Cyberspace: Victoria's Virtual LibraryBrendan Fitzgerald and Rebecca TooheyProject co-ordinators, Libraries Online, State Library of Victoria Abstract [this paper] Describes the design and creation of Victoria's Virtual Library (VVL) as the library portal for the Victorian community. VVL (www.libraries.vic.gov.au) is part of the Libraries Online program, funded by Multimedia Victoria. The aim of the VVL is to create a library and information gateway with quality content and value added library services for all Victorians available 24 x 7. It consolidates existing online information resources and provides library services for Victorians that are not provided in other ways. As an action research project, the VVL will research and develop online information services and profile the identities both of Statewide and Local Libraries. Launched in May 2000, Victoria's Virtual Library will foster the development of an online community for all library users and library staff. IntroductionVictoria's Virtual Library (VVL) is the public library portal for the state of Victoria. The VVL is a library and information gateway with quality content and value added library services for all Victorians and is available 24 hours per day. It consolidates existing online information resources and provides library services for Victorians that are not provided in other ways. Multimedia Victoria funded the Libraries Online program for a total of $2.1M over 2 years. The VVL was developed in the second round of this funding with $150 000. This paper reports on the VVL project and describes some of the key issues that have arisen from the Victoria's Virtual Library project especially as they relate to the creation of content for the online environment. The first part of this paper deals with the policy and project environment within which the VVL project was developed. The second part of this paper explores some of the content creation issues around the individual components of the VVL. Developing and sustaining an online library service has many facets and associated issues, especially one that has at its core collaboration with 44 independent partners. Victoria's Virtual Library from inception, implementation and beyond has encountered many of these issues and at times can be analogous to the issues faced in building and developing a bricks and mortar library and this analogy is picked up in the second part of this paper. From the very beginning VICNET and the Libraries Online team took the approach that what was being developed was an online library service and not purely a website. We recognized that approaching the project from a holistic point of view would allow us to test fully the issues of online library service development and identify the appropriate resources required to sustain an online library service. Public libraries and the internet in VictoriaInternet connectivity in Victorian public libraries is at a point where largely with the assistance of Libraries Online it is two to three years ahead of where it would have been naturally with no intervention. Currently in Victorian public libraries:
This development of public access Internet connectivity is an impressive achievement by both the state government funded programs and the 44 local government library services. However, several key issues have arisen from this growth in information and communication technology (ICT) in Victorian public libraries that need resolution. Broadly, the issues for public libraries are:
The sustainability of funding for Internet access is clearly one of the biggest issues that public libraries in Victoria face. Information technology and telecommunications, particularly in relation to the Internet, are becoming central to library operations. However, this has imposed new ongoing costs on to libraries without, in most cases, any substantial increase in funding levels. The consequence is that other aspects of library operations are paying for the technology. A number of recent studies have also identified professional development especially in relation to technology as an issue amongst public library staff. Souter and Chong, both highlight an aging, immobile workforce, struggling with the impact of and difficulties in implementing and promoting use of new technology, as well as keeping up with ever developing information technologies. This is especially the case in rural Victoria where support from outside the library is almost non existent. I&J Management also support those findings and add that library staff have a reluctance to promote resources reliant on technologies that they are not comfortable with. This is especially the case with online resources such as Gulliver, which is an interesting paradox in that from a reference point of view public libraries in Victoria have never before had such a powerful information source at their fingertips. Even though there are clearly issues with sustainable funding for Internet services and professional development for library staff in public libraries it is safe to say that public access to the Internet and online resources is here to stay in public libraries. When the last public library to develop Internet connectivity and access is quoting a doubling of Internet users in its annual report you know that there is no turning back. How Internet services in public libraries in Victoria are funded, used, and evolve are a whole separate series of question. Libraries Online: PolicyThe Libraries Online program did not and could not have happened by accident. All that has and is being done is linked directly to government policy and a series of related programs and projects. The policies and programs behind libraries online are: Policy
Programs/projects
Victoria21 and Library21 were the two key policy statements that drove the development of Libraries Online. Victoria21 had at its heart an aim for widespread take-up of the internet and considered that it should be cheap, easy and useful. The issues of sustainable funding and professional development seem to reinforce this principle. The associated Rural Libraries Online project in Victoria has at its roots rural telecommunications policy and the Libraries Online program comes through the Connecting Victoria policy and can be traced back through Victoria 21 to Library 21. It is interesting to note that the forces driving these two projects are not library centred but are broader government policies that see libraries as being one of a number of delivery points for social inclusion policy. It is also interesting to note that approximately 70-80 percent of funding for public libraries in Victoria is provided by local government. Apart from those councils that have adopted and endorsed the Library 21 policy and those that have library specific policy, very little of that 70-80 percent of funding sits within a policy framework. This is a great inhibitor to significant service improvement in the public library sector because in local government the status quo is easiest to maintain. However, governments and government policy around the world are increasingly becoming committed to ICT development, largely driven by the pressure to economize and improve responsiveness to citizens. Public libraries in Victoria have an opportunity to play a key role in this deployment of ICT as a new Victorian Libraries policy is to be developed in 2001 to replace Library 21. Given the Victorian State Government's commitment to ICT growth it is most likely that ICT development will be a cornerstone of the new libraries policy. Libraries Online: The relationship between infrastructure and contentLibraries Online is a project team of six which operates from within VICNET at the State Library of Victoria and is one of a suite of ICT projects under the Connecting Communities umbrella including the Skills.Net, and My Connected Community(MC2) projects. The stated aims of Libraries Online are to:
Libraries Online has as its core 'action research' and ' collaboration' as a principles of operation as well the intention to (wherever possible) implement solutions that are cheap, easy and useful. An action research approach enables conditions for success to be tested and mistakes to be made only once and collaborative relationships are mission critical as a top down approach in Victoria is doomed to fail. The collaborative approach also recognises that there is great potential and power in sharing resource and service development. In basic terms, Libraries Online covered both infrastructure and content initiatives, adding over 300 public access workstations to the Victorian public library network (total number of public access terminals in Victorian Public Libraries is now nearly 1000), connecting the last 33 static branch libraries to the Internet. The Libraries Online project and the associated Networking the Nation (NTN) Rural Libraries Online project have also been responsible for significant enhancements in access to bandwidth for Victorian public libraries. There was within the Libraries Online project a deliberate recognition that content and infrastructure developments were not mutually exclusive and in fact operated best when directly linked. It is of little value having a rich source of online content if the access to that content is limited and vice versa. The actual projects covered by Libraries Online are: Infrastructure:
Content:
The first major content initiative of the Libraries Online project was Gulliver. Gulliver established in March 1999 provided access to over 1000 full-text magazines and other content in all 44 public library services across Victoria as a quasi consortium. Some of the aims of Gulliver were to:
The Gulliver project is outlined more fully by Whitehead and Toohey, however two major developments have been made since that paper was presented. Firstly, World Magazine Bank and the two Gale products have been made remotely accessible using library card barcode numbers as the authentication method. This is aimed at increasing the potential number of access points for Gulliver and alleviates the bottlenecks to access in public libraries. The second development is that a representative group of public librarians including the State Library of Victoria under the auspice of VICLINK (the peak body for public libraries in Victoria) is working towards the transition of this project into a true consortium from June 2001 onwards. This is a significant development for Victorian public libraries as the implementation of this consortium provides the public library network with the necessary framework for further collaborative service enhancements. It is conceivable that future consortium projects in Victoria under this VICLINK framework could go well beyond the bounds of purchase of online resources. Victoria's Virtual library: the projectVictoria's Virtual Library was the second content initiative of Libraries Online. Victoria's Virtual Library was developed via significant consultation and cooperation with its many stakeholders. An information paper titled 'Victoria's Virtual Library proposal' was circulated to VICLINK and other stakeholders in July 1999. The followed a round of consultations to all public library services via Libraries Online regional forums, reports to the web Developer's Network, the reference co-operative, and extensive discussion with the Librariesvictoria marketing committee. The VVL was built between January and March 2000. The Hon. John Brumby, Minister for state and regional development launched Victoria's Virtual Library in May 2000 during library week at Camperdown Library and since the launch the site has received over 700 000 hits. The aims of the virtual library were to:
The virtual library was envisaged as an evolutionary web project. A project plan was developed and circulated in late 1999, which was a further consolidation of ideas first articulated in the earlier Information Paper. In the project plan, tasks were prioritized. In particular, the content and services that needed to be in place for the May 2000 launch were identified. These were the Stage 1 tasks:
Victoria's virtual library: DesignThe design of the VVL by VICNET editorial and web design staff took about 6 months in all largely due to the extensive consultation, planning and testing process. The VVL has a deliberate text bias, which is a clear and conscious recognition that the users of this site require and are seeking text based information. Also they require that information fast and having too many graphics only serves to impede the download times. This is especially the case in libraries with low speed or limited time connections. Designwise, the idea was to keep the site simple and easy to navigate. This is certainly in keeping with the philosophy of implementing technologies that were cheap, easy and useful but also recognises the fact that users of web resources in general like to get to were they want to get and back with a clear idea of where they are at any time. One comment about the design of the site that surfaced especially from librarians interested in promoting libraries is that the site is dull and boring and that it looks too much like a catalogue card. This is interesting simply from the point of view that the designers of the site didn't know what a catalogue card was. The catalogue card and web design for the VVL seem to have in common quite by accident the ability to organise and present a lot of information on a flat surface. This project and the associated collaborations are clearly in the embryonic stages as are the design issues. Libraries Online has always viewed this project as a project that would grow and evolve over time and as such we are looking at redesigning and databasing the site although keeping in mind our principles of cheap easy and useful. Victoria's Virtual Library: The issues in content creationThe experience of building Victoria's Virtual Library has already unearthed a number of issues relating to content creation. In one sense, the issues that need to be addressed parallel the establishment of a traditional bricks and mortar library. Staffing, technology, service delivery, collection development, accessibility, promotion and marketing of services, statistical reporting, collaboration and partnerships are all key issues that arise in content creation and have all become issues for Libraries Online and the Victoria's virtual library project. StaffingLike a traditional library, over 50 percent of the budget for the virtual library would be spent on staffing and paying for external expertise. The in-kind support from areas of VICNET and the Hot Topics contributors would push this figure significantly over the 50% mark, and hence the long-term sustainability of the Virtual Library needs to be considered. The site requires daily updating that is relevant and useful for the Victorian public library community. In addition, collaborative content projects such as Hot Topics need to co-ordinated and facilitated. New content needs to be continually sourced from library groups and bodies especially for the Infonet. New content initiatives are planned for the future, which will grow and enhance the existing offerings, and these initiatives will require particular skill-sets. Already we utilise knowledge of the Victorian library network, librarianship skills, web skills and project co-ordination skills to facilitate the professional collaborative site Hot Topics and the other content projects. Further development in cross searching Victorian public library catalogues is planned, and this will hinge upon having substantial z39.50 skills in-house. The Open Road Project employs its own range of skills in the multilingual fonts arena, which also cross-over into the area of z39.50. It is obvious from the litany of skills listed above that the virtual library is not your average library or library website. TechnologyLibraries have long grappled with technology; moving catalogues' online was a big step for libraries, and a few of our Victorian public libraries are still to make that leap. The Virtual Library faces many technological issues, and many have been resolved because of our ready access to the substantial and varied skills that are housed within VICNET. It is not only a matter of having a vast range of Internet design, creation and maintenance skills in-house, particularly in graphics, databasing and accessibility, but an openness to new ideas, a lack of fear of ideas or failure, and a can-do attitude that we believe is at the centre of VICNET's success. Our site could not have been built, maintained and continually developed without VICNET's in-kind support. And again, the benefits of linking both content and technical infrastructure projects via the Libraries Online and Rural Libraries Online projects can not be underestimated. Those staff developing content are continually made aware of the physical demands websites make on networking equipment and bandwidth, and the technical staff are in-touch with the development of content for the network. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement and creates a synergistic environment where impacts and consequences are revealed in the early planning stages of any project, and can be resolved without substantial impact to service. Two major technical achievements of the Virtual Library have been the Liblink project and setting-up the remote access to Gulliver databases. Libraries Online has taken-over the Liblink project, which is a multi-catalogue search using the z39.50 protocol. There is some funding available to do further research and development in this area, with the ultimate aim of having the ability to cross-search or cluster search a small number of Victorian public library catalogues simultaneously (any more catalogues and the search would become too slow). There is potential to cross-search with other z39.50 catalogues also, perhaps within TAFEs or universities. Remote access to the Gulliver databases has been achieved by a number of methods. At the time of writing, World Magazine Bank is available remotely in all Victorian public libraries. The Gale databases Health Reference Centre and Custom database are scheduled to be set-up remotely very shortly. For many library services with limited technical support, this facility would not have been possible, if it was not set-up by the Libraries Online team, with support from other VICNET staff. Service DeliveryJust like your traditional library the virtual library delivers services. Whether they be content services such as Gulliver (access to over 1000 full-text magazines and other publications) or the more traditional reference service, albeit online, the Ask a Librarian service. Clearly for the pilot projects we are testing a range of service delivery solutions however, we are aiming to deliver a quality, consistent, relevant and timely service that meets and hopefully exceeds our user community's expectations. With Gulliver, where the content has been externally sourced, the performance is measured by statistics, down-time is monitored, problems are tracked and recorded, and user suggestions are incorporated if possible into our site enhancement schedules or those of our vendors. The performance of the current products will be fed into the current review of this project, as Gulliver transitions into a fully-fledged consortium, with members 'buying-in'. Another of the content projects, Ask a Librarian, is running as a pilot with the aim of testing new working relationships between different library services and working towards creating more common service delivery across the State. Ask a Librarian builds on the ideas of Kevin Kelly which he outlined in his book 'Out of Control: the biology of machines'. He portrays human knowledge as a 'shared brain' that is the centre of our universe. For Kelly, the fax effect rules: where networked resources are exponentially more valuable than their stand-alone counterparts. Ask a Librarian employs the idea that there are a critical mass of librarians around the State, with common skills and more specialised ones. The idea runs that if these skills are networked, following Kelly's theory, they are more powerful and provide a greater potential resource. So we are moving toward a time where all these skills will be more immediately available to the Victorian library community. Hence, the first phase of this pilot is relying on the existing service standards in the individual libraries that are rostered on each month. At the end of each month there is a hand-over period where the library staff pass on their experiences and suggestions to the next library. The technology facilitates entirely new ways of collaborating and working together to achieve efficiencies and develop better service from a broader base of resources. Harnessing these resources and developing relationships are the areas that need attention and effort, whereas the technology is really only an instrument, albeit a fun one! Of course there are a number of similar online reference projects operating at present. Most notably perhaps is the Library of Congress (LOC) project called the Collaborative Digital Reference Service which is trialing an international project of which the National Library of Australia is a participating member. They too are exploring services methodologies, technologies and all associated issues. It is our belief, that the LOC project, our Ask-a Librarian pilot and other similar projects are all worthy endeavours. We are all testing technologies, exploring new ways of operating and delivering services, though perhaps in different ways, but these are all early editions of future services which will be central to the operation of libraries. We believe there is no one right or correct testing methodology and it is our hope that we will look back at our project in years to come as a significant trial that heralded a new era of library service in Victoria. We believe that entirely new models for service delivery will evolve for a new paradigm, that is the online reference service. Collection developmentLibraries began as small warehouses for books and so have always been about collecting books. As we move into the online or virtual environment, the idea of collection development takes on a whole new significance for libraries. Take the Gulliver resources for instance. They are accessed via a subscription that permits access to the resources for the period of that subscription. Only one of those products (World Magazine Bank) has arrangements for perpetual access in the event of a cancellation of subscription from either side. So these other products are not really 'collected' as such, as we do not have continuing access to them. One could say they have been 'chosen' or 'selected' of course, but no physical or virtual collection is being built. So it is really 'selection' that we are doing on the Virtual Library, with Gulliver and the other content services such as Hot Topics. Other content services such as Hot Topics have an editor, who periodically reviews and updates content submitted by the professional volunteer contributors of the project. websites chosen by library staff for inclusion in Hot Topics are to the meet the following criteria:
You may note that these are same criteria that reference librarians use in their daily work to judge the appropriateness of information for a reference and research inquiry. In addition to these criteria, the accessibility of the site, including its formatting should be considered. AccessibilityPhysical libraries must be accessible all within the community under government regulations. Accessibility to libraries should extend onto the web as well. Accessibility on the web includes being accessible to sight-impaired people, those who have a motor disability and to those for who use English is a second language (ESL). The difficulty is that the graphical interfaces that ESL users prefer are less accessible to sight-impaired people; that the techniques and technologies employed to cater to one specific user group often impede another group. The answer of course is to provide multiple access paths, which is our ultimate aim, but with current funding we have employed a middle-of-the-road path which tries to cater to a broad spectrum of the community. Victoria's Virtual Library has been tested on Bobby (http://www.bobby.org). Bobby is a site that tests the ability of a text reader to read the site to a sight-impaired person and we are currently working through the suggested improvements from Bobby. We have attempted to choose simple English to facilitate access to those for whom English is a second language, and have done things such as provide roll-overs to explain various project names to enhance access. For users with slow Internet connections, we have attempted to limit both the number and the size of graphics, and we support multiple versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape MarketingMarketing libraries has become increasingly important and in Victoria this is epitomised by the establishment of the Statewide Marketing Project. Marketing is a significant issue too for the Virtual Library. Providing a useful resource for the Victorian library community is a clear goal for the Virtual Library. Presently we measure our usefulness via the number of hits on the website, via qualitative comments that users make in our Guestbook and in the future we will survey users to elicit further qualitative feedback. Our budget for marketing has to date been quite small therefore we have had to rely on the following for marketing purposes:
The virtual library was also featured in the presentations to public library staff in a number of regional centres. And an e-zine has been created as an additional means of introducing as many library professionals and users to the Virtual Library and other online resources. Multimedia Victoria has most recently produced a publicity bookmark for the Virtual Library that has been shipped to all public libraries and other interested bodies. We need to do more direct marketing to end-users particularly to schools and local news sources. Of course a thorough media campaign requires significant investment and to date we have not had funding at this level. Improved funding for publicity materials would be useful for in-library marketing too. There is clearly an opportunity for the Statewide Marketing Project to leverage of the success of the VVL project and promote more heavily the www.libraries.vic.gov.au URL. Statistical reportingWe rely heavily on statistical reporting in our traditional libraries to monitor performance and as a means of identifying services areas that require review. Similarly statistics on use of the Virtual Library are central to the ongoing development of the site. web statistics can identify a number of things including:
Reporting back to stakeholders, particularly funding bodies is an essential task, and provides for an opportunity to further publicise the site and gain additional feedback. CollaborationCollaboration has long been a central method of operation for libraries, and is a great feature of public library services in Victoria. Historically, inter-library lending of books and other materials has facilitated broader potential access to resources for library users everywhere. There are many other examples too. The important thing here is that library staff have recognised that if they operated as silos, serving their jurisdictions alone and not participating in joint ventures, partnerships and collaborations that their service would have been severely limited, and become entirely dependent upon budget. The Virtual Library plays host to a number of collaborative ventures operating in the Victorian Library Network, including the Ask a Librarian pilot, Hot Topics and Gulliver. Public library staff have been heavily involved in the planning, implementation and ongoing development of the virtual library project right from the conceptual stages. These projects have enabled staff from Bairnsdale to Wodonga, Hamilton to Cranbourne to contribute to a shared resource, eliminating unnecessary duplication across library services and at the same time enhancing staff skills. There is great potential here to collaborate with libraries from other sectors, and other jurisdictions. But there are web-specific issues too... Although the virtual library is built on the foundations of service development, collection development and the like, it is different from a traditional library in a number of ways. These include perhaps by stating the obvious, that the library is virtual not real, with issues such what is a digital or a virtual library and perhaps most importantly who is the audience. In the library world, 'digital', 'electronic' and 'virtual' library are defined in a multitude of ways; digital or virtual libraries could mean a metaphor for a networked library, a reference to a library that offers access to digital information, or a distributed library information service, a wholly new organisation (like the Internet Public Library), a hybrid library. Regardless of what category or classification the VVL falls into in library terms, it is in our terms entirely 'online'. That is it is on the web, and it probably crosses over a number of the definitions above including a distributed library information service, and a library that offers access to digital information. Unlike a physical library, the VVL does not have opening hours, as the information that is there has no time limitations; it is there as long as the website is available. And quite obviously it has no building; no physical manifestation, apart from the space on the hard-drive. Perhaps unlike a local public library where the audience is very definitely local, the Virtual Library has global reach. Public libraries have long been grounded and defined by their local region, to serve residents within a local council area, but the Virtual Library, although funded by the Victorian State Government and having a primary audience of the Victorian population, could be viewed potentially by anyone anywhere. The Internet has closed geographical boundaries and made distance irrelevant. So now we have to balance the needs of those that fund our existence versus those virtual visitors who may come to our virtual door-step. (Do we have the 'Welcome' mat out?) And that is what we do. We aim to make content locally relevant but remember that we may have 'overseas' visitors looking-in, and keep in mind their possible needs and understandings. Based on a traditional library, the Virtual Library faces many of the same issues like service delivery, collection development and marketing. But we have outlined the audience considerations and a lack of physicality that set the Virtual Library apart from a bricks and mortar library. Conclusion: What future for Victoria's Virtual Library?Current funding expires at the end of June 2001 and until then the following priorities for the site are:
Victoria's Virtual Library is only in its infancy however one thing that we have learnt is that libraries need to realise that the Internet is part of their core business. Therefore, resources need to allocated so as to integrate online service deliver and website development into other administrative and operational activities of the library. Many of the services on the VVL have become part of the Victorian public library landscape now, that they will have to find a home somewhere and someone to look after them even though after June 2001 VVL developments are yet to be funded. Finally, Libraries Online has been successful as an incubator of research and development projects for the Victorian public library system. One critical thing that comes through the VVL quite strongly is the need to successfully collaborate with a range of partners, the 44 library services, professional database vendors, community information bodies, translators, grassroots public library reference staff, funding bodies, policy developers, peak bodies such as VICLINK and the Country Public Libraries' Group (CPLG). We believe that the future is indeed a bright one for libraries if we collaborate, innovate and ultimately are successful in exceeding our community's expectations. |
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