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Libraries Online/Rural Libraries Online

Progress ReportJuly 2001

  1. Libraries Online Project

BUDGET

As reported last meeting funds in hand on target to complete this round of LOL project obligations. No project budget is presented with this report. However the carryover from the previous financial year is as follows:

$118,259

This will cover additional adaptive technologies that need to be purchased web development work, Gulliver commitments, and the server for the interoperability project. This also covers salary contractual commitments for 3 of the team for a period of 2 Months.

To be allocated as follows:

Voiceprint / $31,000
Melbourne Infrastructure / $11,000
Victoria’s Virtual Library / $20,000
Multilingual / $10,000
Gulliver / $8,000
Project overheads / $38,000
$118,000

As funding will be coming from a range of sources for a variety of projects some as yet unconfirmed LOL will need to develop a new budget structure. Preliminary discussions have been held with VICNET finance.

Gulliver

Julie Rae convenor of Gulliver has sent out letters to the three libraries not participating inviting them to reconsider. We are hopeful that at least one may reconsider.

As reported Libraries Online has invoiced all libraries on the 1st of July and as soon as this money is in we will pay GALE and EBSCO. These invoices will need to be signed off by the appropriate delegation at the SLV.

The Gulliver group is being reformed and had its first meeting for 2001/02 on August the 2nd with representatives from:

  • Collections Co-operative
  • Reference Co-op
  • a library manager from the VICLINK Executive
  • practicing public librarians from the statewide Marketing and statewide training projects
  • Victorias virtual library
  • VICNET

A closed list has been set up for members of Gulliver. This has 2 from each library, library manager and one other. The group is considering its new terms of reference and By-laws.

LOL is acting in a support capacity, in particular Stephanie has been involved in some of the training that GALE has run and reports are that this has been well received. An application is before the Minister for Local Govt. for discretionary funding to support the consortium.

A number of vendors are now showing interest in approaching Gulliver including RMIT publishing, Grolier, and MacqurieNet.

GALE has announced that they have now added ABIX content to InfoTrac OneFile. This further enhances the value of our Gale Group business databases.

Melbourne Infrastructure

Progress at the end of July:

  • Mornington (dish installed) –. Mornington are connected and are experiencing some teething problems.

Darebin (dish installed) – were ready to proceed, however are now reviewing their options. If they say no the dish and satellite modem will be removed at their cost.

  • Bayside (dish not installed) – planning process has not been completed, have a router being reconfigured. Require some further information from Bayside IT.

Vision Australia has been informed of this committee’s decision and will invoice LOL for $5,263.

Victoria’s Virtual Library

Site Statistical results are at See attached for summary year to date.

Hits on the Virtual Library site have continued stay relatively stable around the 200,000 mark. The total is now over 2 million. As reported last meeting it is becoming clear that increased usage beyond this point is reliant upon a more coordinated and focussed promotional effort. Some initiatives from LOL in process are,

  • MMV preparing a ministerial press release,
  • LOL has prepared a localised draft press release for all rural libraries,
  • LOL has had 3CR prepare a radio promotion for community radio and will be circulating this to other community radio stations,
  • LOL with SLV public affairs are developing press releases for the suburban newspapers,
  • LOL are doing a promotional demonstration at the Lowanna College Learning Technologies Conference Sept 2001
  • LOL involved in the 1.000.000th Hour promotion coordinated by MMV which will also highlight the high usage of the Virtual Library

Other ideas are welcome.

Victoria’s Virtual Library has been in the top 10 domains hosted by VICNET since August 2000. In summary the hits for each month from June 2000 to July 2001 are as follows:

Table 1 – Hits on Victoria’s Virtual Library – Raw Data

Month / Hits
June / 62,851
July / 80,570
August / 102,944
September / 137,633
October* / 113,655
November / 130,024
December* / 101,438
January / 143,601
February / 170,014
March* / 198,500
April** / 178,375
May / 205,086
June / 176,641
July / 198,481
Total / 1,999,813

*Dec, Oct, and March include estimations based upon average daily hits as the log server software was changed or down during this period.

** April includes 4 public holidays

Table 2 – Hits on Victoria’s Virtual Library - Graph

Table 3 Victoria’s Virtual Library Daily usage statistics for July

The specification for the site update and database build is complete and we are awaiting a final quote on redevelopment from VICNET web production. Andrew Cunningham led the process and specification development.

We currently have 341 subscribers to the VVL zine.

Ask a Librarian

Ask a Librarian is progressing well with State Library Services doing August and Mildura are interested in September. We have begun the process of evaluating this pilot, with a meeting of libraries involved and those that run online reference set for August the 9th. As all libraries participating surveyed indicated they wish to continue with the service the aim of this meeting will be to set the way forward regarding parameters and process for at least the next 12 months

Some statistics of interest:

  • A total of 174 questions answered since August 2000,
  • 123 questions from Victoria 80 metro and 33 regional, the rest split evenly between overseas and other states of Australia.
  • Feb march and June 2001 the busiest with 25,27 and 21 questions asked.
  • Age groups 13 and under (9), 14-17 (28),18-25 (13), 26-35 (12), 36-50 (19), 51-64 (5) and 65+ ( 8)
  • Weekdays the busiest with only about 10% of queries on weekends
  • 71 of the 174 questions were asked out of library opening hours ( this figure includes OS queries

We are in the process of surveying users.

CIVIC Database.

No further progress to report on this.

Z39.50 cluster searching

The following progress has occurred.

Karen Tandowski from GEAC has nearly completed the transfer Liblink to a server at our site. The research server has arrived and Christian Eyre in Technical at VICNET is setting this up.

LOL staffs are continuing to learn this standard and attended a recent product promotion by Fretwell-Downing. This company has several interesting products however LOL will continue to experiment with open source software. We have been in contact with colleagues in the UK who are working on the Clumps and clusters projects to see if we can share information especially on open source solutions.

Open Road and LOTE access

Training has been completed with Skillsnet and VICNET staff and Jacques has undertaken some training with the SLV staff in how to use JAWS

The OpenRoad website continues to grow and be successful. Hits for the month of June

totalled 20,043 and total nearly 260,000 since its launch.

Andrew Cunningham is currently in the USA presenting a paper at a conference in Buffalo

VOICEPRINT

RVIB have informed of the committee’s decision and will present LOL with the invoices for payment as stage 1 of this project concludes.

OTHER INITIATIVES

1.Regional corporate and community research librarian

Adele Kenneally and Brendan Fitzgerald are submitting an expression of interest to the Regional Solutions fund to fund this position. This will result in further scoping of the project in partnership with Regional Solutions staff. This fund is federal based (Dept of Transport) and will fund staff positions. Nothing further to report on this.

  1. $400,000 Culture Online

LOL have completed a project plan for this outlining the subprojects and issues that will need to be resolved. See attached draft paper.

  1. Printers for libraries (NTN)

NTN has awarded VICNET money to purchase and install printers in rural libraries who don’t currently have a printer. We will be looking at identifying a simple easy to use and install printer to purchase via a statewide purchase. NTN have indicated that the allocation will be no more than $1000 per site and that for libraries or councils to get the printer of their choice (over $1k) then they will need to contribute funds over the $1000.

41,000,000th Hour of Internet access in Public Libraries

This is progressing.

5One System for All ( DoI)

The DoI have indicated that following the report from Practico that they are looking at funding a pilot for One Library System for all Victorian Public libraries. This is in the very early stages and LOL with the DoI have begun the process of scoping the pilot.

EVALUATION

I &J Management Services have now presented Libraries Online and MMV with the final report. This is at MMV for consideration. No further progress to report.

Victorian Rural Libraries Online Project

Expressions of Interest for Stage 3 surveys.

The EOI has closed, and access was gained to the submissions on Friday 3 August. The submissions are listed below, and will be assessed by a group comprising:- Christine Payne, Frances Savage, Peter Schmidt, Brendan Fitzgerald and David Feighan. The group will select a panel of approved contractors to tackle the surveys simultaneously.

LSE Technology (Aust) Pty Ltd
PO Box 233
Frenchs Forest NSW 1640
Paradigm Press Pty Ltd
21 Spring Valley Drive
Templestowe VIC 3106
Siemens Ltd
885 Mountain Highway
Bayswater VIC 3153
ADE Network Technology,division Waverider Communications (Australia) Pty Ltd
2-6 Dublin Street
East Oakleigh VIC 3166
Opticon Australia
19-21 Argyle Place South
Carlton VIC 3053
Tyco Electronics Networks (Trading as Heyday Group)
194 Gladstone Street
Fyshwick ACT 2609
Last Mile Wireless Communications Pty Ltd
Level 2 541 Blackburn Road
Mt Waverley VIC 3149
Radio System Integration Pty Ltd
60 Janna Road
Woodstock VIC 3751
Network Design & Construction Ltd
7/90 Collins Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Consultel IT&T Pty Ltd
Level 1 19-21 Argyle Place
Carlton VIC 3053
APP Technology Mgnt Pty Limited
139 Coronation Drive
Milton
Queensland 4064
Burnett & Associates
PO Box 147
Roseville NSW 2069
Cable and Wireless Optus Pty Ltd
367 Collins Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Andrew Australia
153 Barry Road
Campbellfield VIC 3061
Marconi Australia Pty Ltd
607 St Kilda Road
Melbourne 3004
Tele-IP Ltd
87 Peters Avenue
Mulgrave VIC 3170
Gibson Quai Pty Ltd
Level 3 424 St Kilda Road
Melbourne 3004
Melbourne Satellites Pty ltd
84 Bayfield Road East
Bayswater VIC 3153
Cisco Systems
Level 31 2 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne 3000
Sinclair Knight Merz Pty ltd
590 Orrong Road
Armadale VIC 3143
Structel Pty Ltd
Level 2 128 Exhibition Street
Melbourne 3000
  • Firewall previously installed at Mildura, as of earlier this week the satellite feed is connected.
  • The project team will be meeting with staff from the Geelong Regional Library Service on Thursday 9 August to discuss progress further. The Board accepted at their recent meeting that the Library Service requires a new communications network.

Budget

A spreadsheet is presented showing the actual expenditure for July 2001 and the estimates to 30 June 2002.

Brendan Fitzgerald & Frances Savage

Co-Managers, Online Projects (Acting)

6th August 2001

Libraries Online. Report on Activities: Fourth Quarter 1999/20008 August, 2001

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