Our Digital Island Tasmanian responses to the digital age

State Library of TasmaniaCommunity Knowledge NetworkDepartment of Education

Today’s talk:

Living in a digital world

1. How we have responded2. Challenges and benefits3. What it means when we really do go digital

Part 1

Tasmanian responses

Tasmania Onlinewww.tas.gov.au/tasonline

Indexing Tasmanian information

Tasmanian responses: Tasmania Online

•Tasmania Online started in 1996• Home grown software, pragmatic approach• A librarians’ approach:

• A-Z title, Subject index, Category groupings, quality indexing

• Currently over 11,000 web pages indexed

•Became government portal in 1997• part of www.tas.gov.au (which we also manage)

Tasmania Online

• Still the only State to provide such a service• Used extensively, even in a Google world

• over 1 million use of links

• The basis for many other services – “knowing our webspace”

Our Digital Islandodi.statelibrary.tas.gov.au

Preserving Tasmanian websites

Tasmanian responses: Our Digital Island

•Conscious of the web as a place of valuable content•1998 – began to selectively capture Tasmanian websites•Supported by our legal deposit legislation

• we can be proactive and don’t need permission • so far have PC-based software• .5FTE dedicated to process

Our Digital Island

•Approx 2272 web sites available on ODI•We provide quality indexing and public access•Not a preservation system, just a capturing one• Strong links between Tasmania Online and ODI

Service Tasmania Onlinewww.service.tas.gov.au

Indexing and accessing Tasmanian government information

Service Tasmania Online

•Liaising with government, leveraging our expertise•The government of Tasmania wanted to provide an online channel to government services for Tasmanians

• consolidated government shops and phone access• Chose State Library of Tasmania to develop the online

equivalent and then provide as a service

Tasmanian responses: Service Tasmania Online

•Developed special software in 1999 to do this• no wrong way to access info• facets• based around tasks, subjects, people, life events• approximately 4000 government websites across 3 tiers

•SLT was able to develop and utilise Tasmania Online skill sets and operations to provide the service efficiently

STORS – Stable Tasmanian Open Repository Servicewww.stors.tas.gov.au

Preserving Tasmanian information

Tasmanian responses: STORS

The challenge of legal deposit

•Legal deposit, since 1984, has covered ‘everything’•SLT wanted a way to make digital acquisition easier•Business model around publisher contribution

• easy, fast, stable URL, publication lifecycles

•Basic preservation capabilities

STORS

•Promoted mostly to government agencies•The reality is that use is sporadic

• Proactive capture may be better• ODI coverage and overlap at times adds confusion

•But – we have over 7000 items preserved

Part 2

Challenges and benefits

New sites – how do we know?

•Mailboxes•Staff – newspapers, cars, publications …. •Daily link checking of existing sites•Monitoring software

• Seed list of about 160 URLs • State, Local and Commonwealth Government pages• Updated every 2 hours• List of new URLs added

Monitoring software

Value adding

•Specialised searches•Search engines

• Early pickup• Clustering of data

•Informed citizens

Value add Specialised searches

Value add Search engines

Value add Search engines

Value add Informed citizens

Preservation Elections

PreservationElections

Seed lists Tasmanian “domain” captures

•Not just .tas.gov.au•NLA Australian whole of domain captures

• Tasmania Online links may be helpful

•Selective• Government• Business• Community

Seed lists

Part 3

Our Digital Lives

Information is becoming transient

We know about the new web in an abstract way• social networking• the beginnings of a new media form• not just a new format but a new way of

doing things• lifestreaming

• “Blogging feels old. Publishing today is all about The Flow.” Steve Rubel http://www.micropersuasion.com/2009/06/so-long-blogging-hello-lifestreaming.html

Information is becoming contextual

•Information has no boundariesAuthorship becomes collaboration –

e.g. SharepointForget “document like objects”• Google wave “built around a different model of how

communication—and collaboration—take place. With Wave, users create online spaces called “waves,” which may include multiple discrete messages and components—“blips”—that

constitute a running, conversational document. http://www.educause.edu/Resources/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutGoogl/188963

How do we capture an environment?Like archivists, the context now matters for information

Highlighting the reality of it all:

• It’s sobering but we don’t live forever• and it is something we can’t ignore

This highlights it isn’t just a game

•What happens to that digital information and presence when we are gone?• It has value• It needs

preservation• not just preserving

a PDF or a word document• context and

environment – how?

But it is hard

The first of two possible responses:

Yes we’ll do it!

The library is a broad and encompassing social institution

• If all we do is the easy stuff, we have failed• We must do it right – understand

it first, then business process it– the ‘correct approach’ – doomed to

fail?

• Or, it is moving so fast, we’ll do what we can now

– Doing something is better than doing nothing

Not our business

The second possible response:

No we won’t do it!

•The library is an institution focused on heritage value

• It is not our business – unimportant, ephemeral• “After dissecting over 3,000 tweets from

more than 350 Twitter users’ status updates the professors concluded that 80% of users are “meformers,” or “Me Now” status updaters.” Rutgers University Professors Mor

Naaman and Jeffrey Boase • It could be our business, but technologically

impossible• Context now means everything, and we

can’t capture everything

How should we respond?

•In the old days everyone knew what libraries were about, and collection policies answered questions of detail•Now collection policies are going to have to answer the big questions as well

Reviewing / defining our purpose as libraries

• what type of media• for what purpose• for how long• for whom

•Go back to basics: redo our collection policies from the ground up – define our goals and objectives in the digital age

The digital world

To summarise

•The implications are profound for libraries

•Information is changingbecoming transient and contextual

•We have to decide what our role is

Can your library answer this question:

Does a tweet matter?

If Yes – good answerIf No – good answer

If ‘it depends’ – bad answerIf “what’s a tweet” – time to retire

Thank you

Lloyd SokvitneSenior Manager (Digital Strategies)

State Library of Tasmania,Community Knowledge Networklloyd_sokvitne@yahoo.com.au

(03) 6233 7943

Carmel DenholmSenior Cataloguer (Metadata)

State Library of Tasmania,Community Knowledge Network

carmel.denholm@education.tas.gov.au (03) 6233 7586