National Framework for the Development of Australian Subject Gateways - Australia

Source: National Library of Australia

• Definition of a subject gateway
• Key issues impacting subject gateway development
• Quality of research content
• Integrated access to print and electronic resources
• Duplication of effort
• Cross gateway searching and tools
• Funding for sustainability
• Archiving and persistent naming
• Possible Roles for the National Library in a National Framework
• Conclusion

Definition of a subject gateway

There is no standard definition of a subject gateway but there is an emerging consensus that it is a Web-based mechanism for accessing a collection of high quality, evaluated resources identified to support research in a particular subject discipline. The resources are evaluated and described by information specialists in the field, such as science librarians. The Australian higher education sector and its partners are in the process of establishing three new discipline-focused entry points - to agriculture, chemistry, engineering and information technology.

Any Australian national framework for subject gateway development will be shaped by the way the following issues are addressed:

1. quality of research content,
2. integrated access to print and electronic resources,
3. duplication of effort,
4. cross gateway searching and tools,
5. funding for sustainability, and
6. archiving and persistent naming.

Key Issues Impacting Subject Gateway Development

The following section canvasses the key issues facing gateway development, as a pre-condition for discussion of the possible roles of the National Library and the further development of a national subject gateway framework.

1. The quality of research content

The issue of an explosion of easily accessible resources, much with little research value, has been of concern to Australia's academic institutions. In addition, budgetary constraints have reduced the ability of universities to provide access to, and choice in, printed research materials. Several academic institutions have tried to address this by bidding for projects that will establish discipline specific gateways. The projects will become operational in 1999. Other subject gateway project bids are likely to be funded in 2000.

Subject gateways are an attempt to overcome the inability to identify high-quality Web content on a selective and significant basis. Australian gateways should focus on subject slices that are solely Australian, or a slice which could fill a gap that is not met by an overseas gateway. However, it will not be possible, desirable or necessary for Australia to establish a gateway for every discipline.

While Libraries and academic institutions in Australia already provide subject-based guides to Web content, the guides usually perform a simple function of listing links, and in most cases only adhere to internal assessment standards.  By contrast, Australian subject gateways are characterised by their combination of distributed maintenance activity, centralised storage and centralised access. An information paper describes the characteristices of the subject gateways.

Subject gateways have also been under development in the United Kingdom and the United States to address similar issues. 

2. Integrated access to print and electronic resources

This is one of the fundamental issues facing the development of Australian subject gateways which has not yet been addressed. The current subject gateway projects have made access to print-based resources a secondary priority. This has occurred for several reasons, firstly because Australia already has several high-value services for print resources such as Kinetica, and the Informit databases. Secondly, Web access has increased expectations of access to content in real time. The subject gateways have not been funded to increase the provision of Web content.

The infrastructure for Web resources can be used for access to print-based resources. The National Library is well-placed to contribute to one or more solutions for integrated access, for example, with the application of Z39.50 technologies. This also helps to overcome the perception that a choice must be made between schemas for describing differently formatted resources such as USMARC for print, and Dublin Core for electronic.

One infrastructure for combined print and electronic resources which has been proposed by OCLC, in which the National Library is a participant, is the CORC Project. It is exploring the co-location of different standards of data, and is supporting the creation of subject guides.

3. Duplication of effort

Since the commencement of the subject gateway projects in both the UK and Australia, it has become apparent that the risk of duplicating effort while creating and maintaining gateway services is considerable. As an adviser in each of the Australian subject gateway projects, the National Library has sought to ensure that the following areas are not re-invented by each gateway, by recommending the use of standards for:

• developing resource selection criteria,
• applying a metadata schema,
• designing access principles,
• determining intellectual property rights considerations (rudimentary, pending future developments such as INDECS),
• filtering (rudimentary, pending future legislation),
• meeting obligations as government agencies, and
• assessing and providing advice on technical architectures.

This reinforcement of the importance of utilising standards has resulted in strong adherence by Federal and State departmental Intranets in using the Australian Government Locator Service standard, and the application of Dublin Core by most subject gateways. The major role of subject gateway participants has been as content provider, and ipso facto, metadata indexer. The Distributed Systems Technology Centre has been a technical solution provider in most, but not to all, gateways. The commitment to the use of standards by Australian subject gateways will ensure a high level of interoperability between these gateways as well as with overseas gateways developments.

The UK is setting up a Resource Discovery Network Centre to overcome issues of duplication. It has sought to resolve not just re-invention of standards and solutions, or resource wastage in management of gateways, but also the identification and maintenance of content on an international scale. To this end it has supported, and invited Australia to participate in, the IMesh initiative.

The need to develop mechanisms to facilitate co-ordinated subject gateway development must also be addressed in Australia, to resolve issues such as identifying the disciplines in which gateways should be established, and ensuring that there is no replication of print-based services while still providing integrate access to them as important sources of research materials.

4. Cross gateway searching and tools

Cross-gateway searching is the ability to search different gateways simultaneously. The capability to conduct cross-gateway searching in Australia is currently available through two service structures:
 

• The National Library's Kinetica's Z39.50 gateway services; and
• The DSTC's HotOil service, which uses a combination of Z39.50 and proxy-based searching.

The identification of scaleable tools to support standards-based gateway creation, cross-gateway searching, and customisation of gateways to target and support discrete groups of users (the latter are sometimes known as portals), will be a key requirement of the national framework. Little work is being done on this issue in Australia. However, it is an international issue and the IMesh group is developing a toolkit to meet this purpose.

5. Funding for sustainability

Long-term sustainability is the most fundamental issue requiring resolution to ensure the success of any subject gateway initiative. With the exception of Agrigate, the Australian subject gateways have all received one-off Australia Research Council funding to achieve their goals.

In line with the UK practice of providing free access to all gateways, the Australian gateways do not currently charge for access. There will be an expectation of continued free access to Web resources unless enhancement in the services provided occurs. However, where the UK has been more generous in its funding in the past allowing gateways three years to prove viability, Australian research grants have only enabled single year funding to each gateway. In 1999, the UK has established a Resource Discovery Network Centre to explore new funding models for long-term sustainability. Areas that will be explored include potential reduction in duplication of effort by making a single hub responsible for a particular discipline or set of related disciplines (thereby reducing the number of times a resource is described), and a perceived lack of true research content in gateways.

The development of sustainable business cases for subject gateways is a critical issue to be addressed in Australia.

6. Archiving and persistent naming

The National Library has been a leader in the exploration of archiving Web documents. In fact, there has been little interest outside the Library in achieving the goal of a distributed national archive, apart from the Australian Digital Theses Project.

The selection guidelines for the PANDORA service are rigorous. They identify significant resources of Australian origin. While the Digital Services Project will provide the National Library with more capacity and capability to archive a larger percentage of Australian Web content, the archive will not include all Australian resources identified by the subject gateways.

In the new Digital Services Project architecture, capacity will also be provided to publishers to register their Web content. The registration process will permit the capture of a metadata description and a Universal Resource Name for each resource. The National Library will make these accessible via its national metadata repository to be called the National Collection of Electronic Publications.

The URN registration will be facilitated by a persistent naming service attached to the metadata repository. Where subject gateways index resources belonging to their participants, they will be able to utilise these services. Content outside their purview will only have metadata recorded in the respective gateway. Australian gateways could take on a role of actively promoting the National Library's archiving and persistent naming services to content creators, and also attach permanent names to resources they are describing, although this would consume more time. The National Library should consider cooperation with the gateways in terms of increased quality services through link management.

Possible Roles for the National Library in a National Framework

The aim of this section is to canvass possible roles of the National Library to address the above issues, by suggesting actions that might be taken with a sense of priority in facilitating its relationship with the subject gateways, and examining the consequences of doing so. Within the next three years, any National Library strategies will also be influenced by the following initiatives:

• moves by the Australia Research Council to develop a strategic framework (and funding) for research information infrastructure development,
• the PRIDE Project,
• Kinetica stabilisation, and
• the implementation of the Digital Services Project, with a particular emphasis on the National Metadata Repository.

Initiatives within the National Library with which any subject gateway development needs to form a coherent relationship are:

• long-standing indexing activities such as APAIS and AMI,
• the distributed preservation model, and
• the Digital Reference strategy.

The following templates are a work-in-progress at the National Library. They are an attempt to chart possible future strategies for action. The National Library is keen to receive input from all stakeholders in Australia's library and research environment, to help establish a set of priorities and strategies in this area.  The Library is also keen to learn about the strategies of others for the development of Australian subject gateways.

Feedback may be sent to the National Library's Coordination Support Branch, via e-mail to dcampbel@nla.gov.au or addressed to:

Debbie Campbell,
National Library of Australia,
Parkes Place,
CANBERRA   ACT   2600

Issue 1 - The quality of research content

Issue 2 - Integrated access to print and electronic resources

Issue 3 - Duplication of effort

Issue 4 - Cross gateway searching and tools

Issue 5 - Funding

Issue 6 - Archiving and persistent naming

Conclusion

In relation to facilitating further development of Australia subject gateways, the Library could play a role in the following key goals for development:

• coordination across the academic and information sector,
• participation in national initiatives which support the research sector,
• participation in international initiatives which will inform Australian developments,
• provision of framework components, and
• provision of content.

To achieve these broad goals requires the Library, in partnership with other key stakeholders, to implement a number of interrelated strategies. Possible priority options (and their consequences) have been outlined in the issues templates. The National Library would like feedback on the issues, options for action, possible priorities, and opportunities for collaboration in order to progress solutions for the strengthening Australia's information and research infrastructure.

[Top]