Digital amnesia: challenges of government online - 21 April 2005

Roxanne Missingham, ALIA director, May 2005

Summary of key issues and presentations:

Over 150 participants from Australian states and territories and New Zealand attended this seminar, held by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and sponsored by the National Library of Australia and the National Archives of Australia on Thursday 21 April 2005.

The event was organised to discuss and identify issues relating to digital government publications and was requested by the Peak Bodies Forum - a meeting of representatives of peak library organisations which identified significant issues facing the Australian library sector and developed a national plan of action. The Digital Amnesia Forum was conducted to further ALIA's objective of ensuring free flow of information for Australians.

Key issues which emerged during the day were:

• Australian government is now primarily online as part of the Government Online strategy, publishing is predominantly online, services have moved more slowly to online delivery, and the strategic issues now emerging for consideration reflect a maturing in assessing online delivery;
• A new set of questions needs to be asked about online services and publications including whether appropriate technology and delivery strategies are being used;
• The aspiration of placing all services and publications online is near, however whether the delivery method is appropriate has yet to be measured;
• Complex issues exist in relation to audience needs - some, such as health care consumers, have sophisticated needs for accurate detailed information.
• Analyses of types of users, such as that done by ABS, give more insights, and new or novice users require greater assistance;
• Service models for resources and e-government services are still in development and need to evolve to meet changing understanding of consumer need and profile;
• Legal issues, including the use of creative commons concepts should be explored to ensure access to government resources;
• Libraries, particularly public libraries, can enhance access and utilisation of e-government. Adequate access, however, through public terminals and support through library staff assistance requires greater funding;
• Future resource discovery tools are likely to be influenced through the semantic web, these tools will rely on metadata which need to be intelligently and accurately applied;
• Guidelines are required to ensure that government publications are reported to Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) and the National Library Australia to enable information about these publications to be made available to the public in an acceptable and useful format;
• The publishing process needs to incorporate the supply of information for resource discovery to support access and utilise cross linkages;
• Permanent access needs to be addressed as an issue urgently, before more information and publications are lost - AGIMO, the National Archives and National Library all have a contribution to make to solving this problem;
• Ongoing management of resources is required to prevent link rot, and to ensure that as organisations change their resources/publications remain accessible; and
• The National Library Australia needs to have the right to collect, ensure access to and preserve electronic publications of all Australian government agencies.

Summary of presentations

Patrick Callioni, division manager, AGIMO, Department of Finance and Administration, gave the keynote speech. He began by describing the prolific nature of current Australian government publishing and the nature of the federated approach where all agencies have responsibility for their publishing. The overall policy is to make all government publications and services available online. There are many legal obligations contained in the National Library Act, Archives Act, Copyright Act, Evidence Act and Freedom of Information Act. The closure of the government bookshops, due to lack of use, has led to a rethink in the roles and issues in providing access to government publications. Critical issues include understanding what a publication is and taking actions to overcome any possibility of digital amnesia, or loss of electronic publications.

Patrick attributed the cause of digital amnesia to the decrease in hard copy, increased electronic communication, such as email, and inadequate preservation of it, with poor record keeping and data management practices, devolution of responsibility for publications make it harder to track and manage publications. There is also a failure to appreciate new forms of publication. He identified two problems - discovery and retention. Discovery issues are critical for the success of http://www.australia.gov.au. While metadata is the basis for the underlying structure for discovery he proposed that a semantic web would emerge in the longer term based on alternative forms of data. Permanence of resources is a more difficult issue because of the lack of guidance and controls.

There are approximately 1150 government web sites, many with different search engines, interfaces and styles. Questions which need to be asked include are we using the best technology? the right technology? and are resource discovery mechanisms effective? A strategic review of metadata will be undertaken by AGIMO, the National Archives of Australia and relevant stakeholders. AGIMO will work with the National Library of Australia to improve the coverage of the publications web site and develop strategies to ensure that agencies register all their publications with the library.

He forecast that technical storage issues, including technical obsolescence, may never be completely resolved and that policy and guidance must be established as the cornerstone for changing attitudes towards electronic publications and their retention. Discovery mechanisms are developing rapidly and will help address issues of communication with the public. Permanence is the new challenge for immediate attention.

Senator The Hon Eric Abetz, Special Minister of State, then launched the new release of the Australian Government publications discovery service - publications.gov.au. He described the importance of access to government publications by Australians, noting that the definition of publication remained a complex issue. He commented on the closure of Commonwealth Government bookshops and the advantage of creating a web site that provided better access to these resources. Senator Abetz also commented on the importance of clear guidelines, the forthcoming strategic review of metadata and the cooperation of AGIMO with the National Library of recording publications. He noted that the Joint Committee on Publications was interested in issues relating to access to government publications and guidelines and forecast a move to publishing on demand.

Jack Waterford, editor-in-chief, Canberra Times, commented on the difficulties faced by the media in finding government information and publications. He suggested that web publishers are not, by and large, readers and therefore run the risk of creating web sites that are not truly user friendly. He recommended that media savvy users be taken into account, as research into Canberra Times readers had found that many read several papers, listened to news on the radio and television and also used the internet. Jack described the frustration of trying to find older material, having to use resources which were published on the internet in individual chapters and publications which are surrounded by marketing material. He expressed concern about a lack of managing for permanence exemplified by gaps in ministerial records.

Ian Oi, Special Counsel, Blake Dawson Waldron, commented from the perspective of the legal profession. Ian noted that digital amnesia "rips holes in the commons" through link rot, where links break and searchers can no longer locate resources. He described the importance of Creative Commons, such as the AEShare initiative to ensure long-term free access to resources through alternative copyright arrangements. An information commons approach enables storage of resources and depends upon effective tools, such as legal deposit. The lack of legal deposit for digital publications puts long term access as risk. Equally important are adequate means for finding resources and preserving them in context, particularly older content, such as past versions. Ian noted that legal forensics is an important issue. Increasingly government is covered by a complex range of legislation. E-government activities may create new rights and obligations, adding more complexity. There is potential conflict between the imperative to tackle legal amnesia and legislative requirements.

Kerrie Burgess, research co-ordinator, State Library of New South Wales, described research into the role of public libraries in providing support for e-government. She described the stages of e-government, from providing information to full electronic case handling. She noted that public libraries were found to be an effective intermediary linking the public to government and bridging the digital divide. The research found that public libraries provided access to services which were not adequate - for example users may need to book a week ahead for 30 minutes of internet access. Public library staff provide important services in helping searchers overcome digital confusion, assisting in access to high use sites such as that of the Roads and Traffic Authority, Job search and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Ensuring resources are available to provide support is a challenge for libraries. Lithgow is a good example of a combined library, information technology and learning centre. She noted that there is a need to raise awareness of issues and to position libraries to enable supporting access to e-government to be a strong feature in public libraries, supported by funding.

Helen Hopkins, executive director of the Consumers' Health Forum of Australia, outlined the role of the forum providing an informed and respected voice on national health issues. Forum members are Australians with direct experience of the health system, who have a wide range of information needs. They value timely, convenient access to information and are concerned about information overload. The internet has provided increased access to information, however issues such as printing and reading large documents, actually finding information and having appropriate information are critical. An example of requiring access to information about generic medicines revealed that the Department of Health's web site did not provide basic facts, although Healthinsite provided some information links. The flip side of loading everything onto a website was also not satisfactory. She also described having to fax a printed copy of a report on governance, as the electronic copy could not be located. She was concerned that the Forum contributed to reports which either are not published or disappear. For example a trial of Mediconnect health records had not yet resulted in a published record of the extensive research, which could mean that the next stage is not informed by this research. A focus group held in Campbelltown found that the public wants access but find too much information and that it is hard to judge what is quality information. Websites do not always cater to the needs of inexperienced users, and all users need practical information.

Senator John Watson, chair of the Senate Publications Committee and member of the Standing Committee on Publications, described the role of the Parliamentary Paper series in recording government policies and information, noting its development from the Erwin Committee report in the 1950s. He noted that the committee is interested in the availability of the series in print and online, including issues such as distribution, preservation and metadata. He also spoke about the challenge for all agencies in storing and making publications accessible to all users. Challenges include dealing with versions of reports, cross linkages and making more use of metadata for resource discover. He posed the question of what constitutes a publication, and expressed concern over the lack of legal deposit of digital publications which preclude easy collection and preservation in the National Library's digital archive, PANDORA.

Toss Gascoigne, executive director, Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS), described his research for the seminar which including sending messages to the 600 members on the CHASS e-list on a Friday evening. By Sunday evening he had received more than 100 responses, indicating the strength of concerns on this issue. He described concerns about the disappearance of web resources, such as ministerial releases, the AGPS style manual and the national agriculture plan for women. Broken links on web sites, complexity of providing access to current and older materials and conversion of material into usable electronic form from disks and other media are significant challenges. Solutions such as the New Zealand Public Records Office Bill assented to on 14 April 2005, as well as guidelines and standards are required.

Steve Matheson, head, Information Services Branch, Australian Bureau of Statistics, outlined the business of providing statistical information. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is a major component of the national statistics services and delivers its service extensively online. The ABS web site had over 50 millions pageviews in 2003-2004, and is a complex site with approximately 195 000 web pages and over 110 000 downloadable files. Print publications will continue to decline, over the next two years by approximately 15 per cent. He described the ABS access model as a means of making sure that the web site reaches all types of users - typing some as miners, tourists or harvesters, depending on their information need. For example a person in Treasury would use a cube every month for ABS economic statistics but may need information on say a health issue - safety net and they may then become a tourist. He also raised the question of what constitutes a publication for the future and the vulnerability of data, which ABS addresses through retention policies. ABS has an outreach program providing access through public libraries which it supports with training and access to publications.

Adrian Cunningham, director, Standards and Initiatives, National Archives of Australia, described the National Archive's strategic approach to digital record keeping in government, including the Archives' digital preservation project. He described the role of Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) metadata in supporting online resource discovery, noting that the semantic web initiative also relied on metadata supplied by resource creators or owners. The Archives' policy and guidelines for archiving web resources states that web archiving strategies can use a mixture of object-oriented or event-driven approaches to capturing web records. Appraisal disposition of web resources within the Archives' records disposal authority framework must be undertaken by agencies. Preservation is vitally important for a strategy to ensure long-term access.

Pam Gatenby, assistant director-general, Collection Management, National Library of Australia, summarised the key issues of access and permanence. She noted that a survey of resources with urls in the National Library's catalogue found that approximately 14 per cent had 'link rot' and no longer worked. She noted that identifying, describing and storing resources required considerable effort and that while the Library's Pandora archive contained many government publications, it required more resources to expand its coverage. Pam noted that the library would be undertaking a full snapshot of the Australian web in 2005, however these resources would not be available to users unless the library is able to negotiate blanket permission to allow users to access all the government web sites. She noted that the lack of legal deposit for online publications including government web sites meant considerable effort was required to obtain permission for access.

Keitha Booth, e-government unit, State Services Commission, New Zealand, reported that the government's initial e-government policy was that the internet would be the dominant means of enabling ready access to government by 2004. By 2007 networks and internet technologies would be integral to the delivery of government information, services and processes. A progress report in late 2004 concluded that all agency websites provide access to government information. The e-government unit manages functional (FONZ) and subject (SONZ) thesauri and maintains a central repository for the .govt.nz portal metadata. At least one keyword from each thesaurus must be included in each record and there is a quality assurance process for approving service and document records on the portal. New Zealand has mandatory requirements for website accessibility and has funded a national digital heritage archive managed by the National Library of New Zealand.