From: Rachel Jakimow <RJAKIMOW_at_nla.gov.au>
>Announcing NIAC
>
>NIAC stands for National Initiatives And Collaboration. It is a new
>Branch within the Services to Libraries Division of the National Library
>of Australia. NIAC brings together in one group the National
>Preservation Office, the Distributed National Collection Office and the
>International Relations Section to achieve a stronger more coherent
>focus in the Library's national coordination activities. NIAC will play
>a key role in the National Library's endeavours to pursue strategies
>which address emerging distributed library infrastructure issues in the
>networked electronic environment.
>
>The National Library's vision for national coordination, which NIAC will
>pursue, can be found in the Library's Operational Plan for National
>Coordination. It is to ensure a future in which:
>
>* the Australian people and their libraries have highly effective access
>to information resources in all formats, including electronic formats;
>and
>
>* people outside Australia have highly effective access to Australian
>documentary heritage in all formats, including electronic formats.
>
>The National Library's mission for national coordination, which NIAC
>will implement, can be found in the Library's Operational Plan for
>National Coordination. It states:
>
>By collaborating with Australian and international stakeholders, and by
>participating in the development of government policies, play a leading
>role in developing and continuously improving a national cooperative
>library infrastructure which delivers quality short and long term access
>to information and Australian cultural heritage resources.
>
>Major issues that NIAC plans to address are:
>
>* Integrated access to distributed print and electronic collections
>* Preservation of Australia's documentary heritage
>* Virtual libraries
>* Networked subject gateways
>* Electronic Document Delivery
>* Standards
>* Metadata
>* Digitisation
>* Conspectus
>* Preserving access to digital information
>* International collaboration
>* Research & development
>* Copyright
>
>The strategies to be pursued by NIAC sit within the broader framework of
>the National Library of Australia's statutory national coordination and
>leadership responsibilities and mirror the strategies outlined in the
>Library's Operational Plan for National Coordination. These are:
>
>
>* participate in the development of those government policies which will
>strengthen the national cooperative library infrastructure;
>
>* collaborate on the development, promotion and implementation of
>standards required to support an effective national cooperative library
>infrastructure;
>
>* collaborate with the international library community to support and
>enhance both national and regional information infrastructures;
>
>* collaborate with libraries, museums and archives on the management of
>access to and preservation of Australian information in digital form;
>
>* collaborate to improve network access to information in library
>collections and to integrate this with access to information in
>electronic formats; and
>
>* improve the mechanisms for consultation with stakeholders and
>promotion of the Library's national coordination activities
>
>
>The emergence of the networked electronic information environment raises
>a range of fundamental issues for Australian libraries on how to
>collaboratively build a national information infrastructure that
>provides efficient and integrated access to both print and electronic
>information. In response to these issues, NIAC will work closely with a
>range of groups and stakeholders within the Library community. NIAC will
>be responsible for many of the Library's national coordination
>activities and will also pursue an active involvement with Australia's
>Cultural Network, with the aim of maximising the opportunities presented
>by digitisation and computer networking to improve access to the wide
>range of cultural information and objects available through libraries,
>archives, galleries and museums.
>
>Details of NIAC's activities which are a subset of the National
>Library's Operational Plan for National Coordination can be found at
>URL: http://www.nla.gov.au/niac/plan.html. We would like to hear
>your comments on this document. Our email address is niac_at_nla.gov.au
>(please note that this replaces the email address npo_at_nla.gov.au)
>
>The discussion list NIAC-L has been set up by the National Library of
>Australia to disseminate information and obtain comments on NIAC
>activities. It is an unmoderated list that is also intended to be used
>to generate discussion and share information on a wide range of issues
>relating to national and international collaboration and development of
>the distributed library infrastructure in a networked electronic
>environment. It will replace DNC-L from the beginning of March 1997.
>Users of the DNC-L discussion list will automatically be transferred to
>the new NIAC-L list and need not re-subscribe. Others wishing to join
>the list can subscribe by sending the following message:
>
>Subscribe NIAC-L <your name> (e.g. Subscribe NIAC-L john smith)
>to listproc_at_nla.gov.au
>
>Subscribers are also encouraged to post queries, news and messages on
>NIAC-L by posting to niac-l_at_nla.gov.au
>
>The Director of NIAC is Dr Jan Lyall. Information about NIAC, its staff,
>activities and publications is available from the NIAC Website on the
>National Library's Webserver at URL: http://www.nla.gov.au/niac/
>
>
>
Received on Wed Mar 19 1997 - 10:47:46 EST