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Curtin University
John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library
Curtin University Library

The Electronic Research Archive at the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library

By Vicki Williamson, University Librarian and JCPML Director & Kandy-Jane Henderson, Archivist, JCPML

Presented at the Australian Society of Archivists 1998 Conference, Place, Interface and Cyberspace: Archives at the Edge Esplanade Hotel, Fremantle, WA Friday 7 August 1998

Paper 1: How the JCPML developed the Electronic Archive Concept

Paper 2: The John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library Electronic Research Archive

Paper 1: How the JCPML developed the Electronic Archive Concept


Early days and beginnings

In 1988, shortly after his appointment as Vice Chancellor at Curtin University of Technology, Professor John Maloney initiated discussions within the University and the wider community about a project to commemorate Australia's wartime Prime Minister, John Curtin, after whom the University is named. This began a process which a decade later on the 20th February 1998 saw the opening to the public of Australia's first Prime Ministerial Library - the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library (JCPML).

The John Curtin Centre (JCC), inclusive of the JCPML, is situated in a purpose built complex in the grounds of Curtin University of Technology in Perth.

In the conception and early planning stages, the idea of developing Australia's first prime ministerial library relied heavily on the model of the US presidential libraries. Presidential libraries provided the closest match between what was envisaged for Australia's first prime ministerial library and something that was already in operation in the world.

However, as our thinking matured and we researched the US presidential libraries model further (Williamson, 1993) it was evident that we needed to take account of some special Australian characteristics in establishing and developing the underpinning professional values of the JCPML. For example, the legal/legislative environment in which the JCPML operates is quite different from that in North America. So too, there are some social/cultural differences (for example, the general public's attitude towards Australian politicians vis-a-vis the culture of leadership in North America). There is also some different professional practice issues (for example, a lack of a philanthropic tradition and acceptance of private/specialist archives in Australia compared with the US; and, the nature of the relationship between the professions of archives, librarianship and museums in Australia).

While for publicity and public relations reasons the link between Australian prime ministerial libraries (the JCPML and the newly announced Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Library) still frequently makes reference to the supposed similarities between them and US presidential libraries, the reality is that the JCPML has attempted to establish itself in an operating environment which fully recognizes the realities of ourAustralianess.

In particular, JCPML has deliberately set out to:

  • blend professional practice from the fields of librarianship, education, archives and museums into an integrated service model,
  • exploit new and emerging communication/information systems and technology to provide enhanced access, and
  • educate not venerate.

It remains to be seen whether or not the JCPML model will be further replicated in Australia.

New Technology and the JCPML

Part of the initial vision for the JCPML was that it would use new technology to capture, store and make accessible archival records. The vision that the JCPML would include an electronic archive was conceived. However, taking that vision and turning it into reality has taken considerable time and effort and has taken the JCPML staff through uncharted waters and involved much experimentation, innovation and design. The process has offered many challenges.

Digital Projects (1995 - 97)

During the later part of 1995 work commenced on planning what was then thought to be three small scale projects to begin to test the reality of an electronic archive.
These projects were (News Notes, 1997):

1. John Curtin: A Prime Minister and his People.

This was a joint venture with the National Archives of Australia (NAA) whereby a selection of letters to and from the Prime Minister during 1941-45 were chosen from the files held in the Canberra office of the NAA and digitized to make them globally accessible.

This project highlights Curtin's relationship with the Australian public during his time as Prime Minister during the crisis of World War II. It focuses on the viability of providing access to a remote site facility - none of the material ever physically left the premises of the NAA in Canberra. The database is composed of nearly 600 images comprising approximately 500 individual documents which provide high-quality digital facsimiles of the original material. The project was launched on the Web during July 1997

2. John Curtin Memorial Lectures

As the official repository for the physical collection, the JCPML has the responsibility for maintaining, preserving and providing access to these lectures.

To enhance access to this material, the JCPML has converted the lectures to digital form. In this way they can be electronically accessed thus making the speeches easy to search (a valuable consideration since the speeches average 20 typed pages with some ranging to 50 or more pages). This approach has also allowed us to add links to relevant information such as biographies and photographs of the speech givers and to make the speeches accessible to more than one client at a time. This project was launched on the Web in February 1998.

3. Multimedia CD: John Curtin: Australia's wartime Prime Minister

The JCPML has developed an interactive digital project, which gives a brief overview of John Curtin's life and the JCC, as part of its permanent exhibition titled John Curtin: a man of peace; a time of war. The CD features a range of media including photographs, oral history excerpts, video, newspaper and ocumentary items.

This was an ambitious project which brings together a range of media from the JCPML collection, including photographs, oral histories, textual documents, newspapers, and video recordings. Users are able to access aspects of Curtin's life individually or as an integrated "time line". The focus of the project is an educational one. The CD is incorporated into the permanent exhibition housed at the JCPML and will possibly form part of an educational kit for schools. The JCPML attracted substantial sponsorship by a commercial business for this project.

JCPML staff share information about our R & D Projects through channels such as Digitisation Forum Online, the JCPML Homepage, the National Library of Australia's MetaWeb Project and presentations at conferences and professional association meetings.

Challenges and opportunities

The projects offered several challenges. In particular it was necessary to:

  • Test a range of technology and software - there was much talk at the time about various technologies and software capabilities. As we were soon to discover much of this information was compiled by eager vendors keen to sell products. It was often difficult to find out how these products performed and whether or not they could actually deliver on what was promised. There came a point where we simply had to road-test some of the hardware/software combinations and options.
  • Undertake environmental scanning - making some sense of the available information was a challenge in itself. Remember our visionaries were promising state-of-the-art technological solutions. It was necessary for us to cast a wide net and attempt to find out about not only current practice but about other possible projects. The importance of environmental scanning to our approach should not be underestimated.
  • Identify standards for software, hardware, formats, resolutions, and metadata.

There were some key principles that underpinned the way we conducted the projects. In particular, we wanted to:

  • Add value to what other institutions had already contributed, rather than re-inventing the wheel.
  • Build partnerships with other organizations that might lead to other opportunities in the future. For example, with companies like Digital and Touchstone and institutions such as the National Library of Australia.
  • Establish a reputation as a professionally credible and collaborative institution.
  • Focus on imaging and accessing.
  • Enhance access to material from our own collection and that held by other institutions that would give insight into what kind of person John Curtin was. The focus of our work became John Curtin, the man.

What did we learn?

Many things! In particular, we proved (to ourselves) that:

  • it could be done with limited staff (a part time person undertook and project managed all projects). By the end of 1997, three projects had been completed.
  • a huge budget was not necessary, although access to a critical mass and range of professional expertise was important.
  • the technology was not always where we wanted it to be. (e.g. OCR, sound, film).
  • web technology provided an ideal vehicle to access the majority of the JCPML collection.
  • public recognition and interest in what we were trying to achieve was high.

Above all, our primary aim of improving access to archival materials was demonstrated successfully.

Our guiding principles for all of our programs and activities, the values which Curtin himself stood for, are never far from our thoughts, projects and programs. In all that we do we try to:

  • advance our vision for improving access to archival materials.
  • show leadership in professional practice
  • share experience and lessons learnt with our professional community.

The values of vision, leadership and community were clearly demonstrated by Curtin throughout his life time. Curtin University of Technology aspires to articulate these same values in its programs and activities. The JCC was conceived as an ambitious vision, designed to show leadership and to engender a sense of community within the University's community at local, state, national and international level.

The success of these projects has enabled us to move into a new phase, that of creating the JCPML electronic research archive. The electronic archive too gives realization to the Curtin values of vision, leadership and a sense of community.

References

JCPML Website http://john.curtin.edu.au

MetaWeb Project (http://purl.nla.gov.au/metaweb/home)

Digitisation Forum Online (http://www.digitisation.net.au)

Newsnotes (1997) in Archives and Manuscripts 25(2), Nov, 439-440

Williamson, V K (1993) Report on visits to US Presidential Libraries, July-August 1993, Unpublished Report, Curtin University of Technology, Perth

Paper 2: The John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library Electronic Research Archive


Introduction

It is technology and information technology systems that make the JCPML Electronic Research Archive possible. Digitization of our physical collection and John Curtin-related materials held in other institutions will allow researchers and scholars world-wide to have full electronic access to the content of the archives. We believe this is an innovative concept which will, in time, pull together dispersed John Curtin records and will enable the JCPML collections to develop by encompassing the wider collection areas of leadership, international relations, and the role of prime minister.

In essence, then, the JCPML Electronic Research Archive is about enhancing access to records, often including the contents of individual records and series of records, and about maintaining the context in which those records were created.

To achieve the aim of providing access to paper and electronic resources, we have made innovative use of commercial off-the-shelf packages which deliver the functionality we require. The software systems selected by the JCPML are flexible enough to provide the level of functionality necessary to capture, store, manage and access the JCPML collection and other collections to support research and educational activities to clients world-wide.

The JCPML developed the electronic research archive concept for a number of reasons

  • To benefit serious researchers by making use of the experience gained during the pilot digital projects. Projects of the kind previously described in this session will continue to be undertaken and will enhance the outreach and educational programs developed by the JCPML.
  • To create a research archive that is easy to access by serious and general researchers and which is not dependent on a physical presence, and to bring together archival materials that are located not only in the JCPML collection, but in other institutions and private hands in Australia and across the world.
  • To provide integrity and context of digitized archival records by providing a variety of control mechanisms relating to:
    - Intellectual control, administrative and technical metadata,
    - Fixity to ensure there is no change to the digital object, and
    - Reference consistency to ensure the object can always be located.
  • While enhancing access is the primary aim, digitization is also about preservation by limiting handling of the original documents and encouraging use of the digital object for most, if not all, research purposes.
  • To build upon the expertise and confidence which was developed during the pilot projects to move into a phase which is fundamental to our vision. This expertise has been retained in-house and continues to be developed within the JCPML and has been a significant factor in our progress.
  • To establish a professional presence within the Australian archival community and not duplicate what was already being done elsewhere in Australia. Although the JCPML is a new archive which only opened on 20 February of this year, a project office was established late in 1994. An important part of the work in the early years was not only to build a collection but to develop industry and institutional alliances and partnerships.

In developing the JCPML Electronic Research Archive there have been a number of critical steps along the way

A range of policy and planning documents were produced in 1997; including the JCPML Strategic and Information Plan, Program Statement and Collection Development Policy. An Electronic Research Archive Management Framework document was also prepared. This document establishes the principles and
best practices to be applied in the Electronic Research Archive and addresses the areas of:

  • cooperation,
  • selection of material for digitization,
  • integrity,
  • access,
  • technology and systems,
  • storage and back-up,
  • networking,
  • migration, and
  • budget considerations.

During 1997 we also investigated other digital sites in Australia and the United States to better understand the digital environment and to re-confirm the future direction for the JCPML Electronic Research Archive. We had documented our concept in a paper titled: JCPML Strategic Directions for Information Systems and Information Technology, and this assisted us in explaining the concept and direction to vendors and colleagues.

With the Australian visits we found that significant work had been done in digitizing photographs, but apart from the work of the State Library of New South Wales little was being done to digitize manuscript or typescript documents. In the United States we visited: the National Archives and Records Administration: Office of Presidential Libraries; Library of Congress: National Digital Project; the Heinz Archives; the World Bank; and various Presidential Libraries. A digital archive with similar aims to the JCPML concept has been created by the HELIOS Project, developed by the Heinz Archives at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. This archive is now accessible on the Web. As part of the preparation for a visit to the United States we had requested Margaret Hedstrom's assistance to identify any sites that she knew which were looking to achieve a similar aim. The Heinz Archives was the only site she could recommend at the time.

Some of the conclusions stemming from the limited number of United States visits included:

  • The necessity to purchase search/retrieval software. Each digital site visited used different search/retrieval software so it was not possible to conclude that one system was better than another.
  • Resolutions for scanning documents must be flexible. In scanning a document it is critical to capture the information content. Museums and art galleries have different requirements. Where objects may need to be scanned at 2,400 dpi and upwards to achieve the quality required, a typed or manuscript document may only need to be scanned at 300 dpi. This lower resolution obviously has benefits in terms of storage capacity when you are dealing with hundreds or thousands of documents.
  • To meet basic preservation and access requirements the information content needs to be appropriately captured and stored. There must be a migration path to ensure that the digitized material will always be available.

The JCPML, through The John Curtin Centre, has attracted essential sponsorship to enable the JCPML to develop its electronic vision. Digital Corporation is a major sponsor to The John Curtin Centre and has supplied substantial discounts for all of our hardware, including PCs, laptop computers and a Unix server. Digital also met the costs of software training which was provided from the United States. These costs have been substantial and without the Digital partnership the Electronic Research Archive could not have developed to the extent it now has.

Selecting software that provided the search/retrieval capabilities we required was our most critical and expensive decision in this process. Acquiring an imaging system to experiment with its capacity to enhance access to records is now more common. It is an essential decision as pilot projects are transformed and integrated into core systems for creating and accessing digitised documents with long term value. As early as May 1996 the JCPML, with the assistance of Digital Corporation, established that the purchase of search/retrieval software was essential to progress from the pilot project phase. The JCPML does not have the luxury or desire to build its own systems from the ground up. This has necessitated some compromises on our part.

The system selected was the Electronic Filing System (EFS) from Excalibur Technologies. It was primarily chosen because of its search capabilities, especially its "fuzzy" logic which eliminates the need for clean text for searching purposes. Many of the records we are imaging are typewritten and can be converted to searchable text files. EFS allows a number of options when digitizing; including an image, image and text, or text only. This allows us a great deal of flexibility including providing access to our finding aids in EFS. The digitized documents have a range of intellectual control administrative and technical metadata attached to them. EFS is not new technology and has been around for a few years now which means that it is tried and tested. The JCPML does not store image and text files within EFS. They are stored in separate directories. This reduces dependence on proprietary software and allows for access by other software in the future. EFS provides web access.

Excalibur Technologies are currently developing a new system which enhances searching capabilities and provides visual and sound data management and access so there is an exciting migration path available to us. This was obviously a critical element in deciding to purchase EFS.

An important aspect of the work of the JCPML is the gathering of information about collections held in other institutions and private hands at remote sites. The JCPML Collections Information website is now being used to collect data and provide a mechanism for evaluating series and items relating to John Curtin. This means that consistent information can be gathered from anywhere in the world. Once completed, the electronic form is forwarded to the Archivist who can evaluate the information against specified criteria and make a decision in relation to digitizing or some other form of copying. Historians with a particular interest in John Curtin or his times are regularly consulted as a group or individually to assist in determining the research value of records that may be relevant to the JCPML. The website is also building up a resource of information for referral purposes and reference enquiries.

Collaborations and negotiations with institutions to digitize records in their collections have commenced with great success. The National Library has already made available one of its collections for digitization and incorporation into EFS, and the JCPML has previously collaborated with the National Archives of Australia on one large pilot project and collaboration on further proposals will continue. It is essential that mechanisms for the cooperative sharing of information about and participation in digitization continue to be developed. Most of the records of interest to the JCPML for digitizing are held by other institutions, not only in Australia but also in Britain and the United States. Cooperation with each institution is necessary for the planning, capturing and accessing of these records, as experience has shown that individual institutional requirements are likely to differ.

We had hoped to have a portable scanning station available to take to remote locations. We had envisaged taking our notebook computer and scanner along with a researcher or operator, scanning records on-site and down-line loading them to our server. This was a bit of a dream! We think it could be practical in some instances in the future, but for the time being scanners, at least, are not robust enough to be transportable to the extent we need.

The JCPML Electronic Research Archive will be in a developmental and testing phase over the next few months. Access to the archive will be via the Web in the JCPML reading room in the first instance and then full Web access will be provided soon after that, possibly in December of this year. A critical aspect of the testing phase involves representatives of a variety of user groups and reference archivists to determine and implement access requirements.

When discussing digitization with other institutions in Australia there was general agreement to digitize records out of copyright wherever possible. Given that most of the records we are interested in are just over 50 years old and not published, this is not always possible. We gained a great deal of experience when we dealt with the copyright issues relating to our digital projects. We have developed guidelines to assist in this process which can be modified as necessary.

We have not addressed the issue of standards in this paper. That does not mean that we do not think they are of critical importance. We have spent substantial amounts of time investigating relevant standards, reviewing the literature to determine how they have been applied and looking at the emergence of defacto standards where there has been a lack of formal standards. This has to be the subject of a further paper and substantial literature has already been published on the topic.

What have we learnt?

  • Given the will ( and by that I mean the determination that digitisation is going to enhance access to your archives) and of course the funds, anyone can do it.
  • A large staff is not required. The JCPML has a full-time equivalent staff of two and a half working on the Electronic Research Archive and all of the other services and programs provided by the JCPML.
  • We could not integrate all the electronic systems we use to manage the JCPML collections without considerable expense and therefore chose not to at this stage. There is some duplication across the systems - we use MARC records for high level collection access, Archive Manager software for series and item management and access, and EFS to manage and access the images and text. In the future, EFS will provide the primary access point for information about all of the JCPML collection and other collections in the Electronic Research Archive.
  • It is essential that the appropriate technical and systems support be available when embarking on a program of this magnitude. This on-going support is crucial.

Conclusion

In conclusion, working at the JCPML during the development and implementation of the digital projects and the Electronic Research Archive has been a unique and rewarding experience for all those involved. Vicki and I would like to acknowledge the rest of the JCPML team, Lesley Carman-Brown and David Wylie for their commitment and expertise in assisting to turn the concept into a reality. Lesley Carman-Brown has been with the JCPML since 1995 and is substantially responsible for all of the digital project work which has been so successful and gave us the courage to move forward. Staff of the Library and Information Service of Curtin University of Technology are also acknowledged for the professional expertise and assistance they have provided to the JCPML. Particularly those in the systems and bibliographic services areas. Finally, and not least importantly, we would like to thank so many of you who are in the audience today for your unstinting time in being prepared to help us through so many issues that we have needed to discuss over the past two and a half years. A number of you have also provided positive encouragement when we approached you to select records from your collections for digitization. The development of the JCPML Electronic Research Archive has been a truly collaborative one and we are hoping to continue developing our existing alliances and partnerships and build new ones in the future.

References

Carpenter L., Shaw S. and Prescott A. (1998) Towards the Digital Library: The British Library's Initiatives for Access Program. The British Library, London.

Galloway, Edward and Michalek, Gabrielle. (1998) "The Heinz Electronic Library Interactive On-Line System (HELIOS): An Update", The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, Volume 9, Number 1. http://epress.lib.uh.edu/pr/v9/n1/gall9n1.html

Heinz Archives helios project. http://diva.library.cmu.edu/HELIOS/

John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library. (1997) Collection Development Policy. Curtin University of Technology, Perth.

John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library. (1997) Electronic Research Archive Management Framework. Curtin University of Technology, Perth.

John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library. (1997) Program Statement. Curtin University of Technology, Perth.

John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library. (1997) Strategic Directions for Information Systems and Information Technology. Unpublished Paper, Curtin University of Technology.

John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library. (1997) Strategic Plan and Information Plan, 1997-2001. Curtin University of Technology, Perth.

Smith, Clive. (1997)"Implementation of imaging technology for recordkeeping at the Worldbank", Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, June/July