Content Block
1994-2000
One of the major challenges the JCPML faced was that most of the official material relating to John Curtin’s prime ministership was held in other institutions, largely in Canberra. The answer was never seen as acquiring or permanently transferring this material to the JCPML, but in getting electronic access to it.[1] The problem was that appropriate technologies were then only in their infancy and little used by other libraries and archives.
According to University Librarian Vicki Williamson, in an early press release someone had written that in the future there would be all this wonderful technology and the JCPML as a state-of-the-art institution would of course have a digital archive. The notion took on a life of its own, mentioned at focus groups and workshops, and soon it was written into the Program Statement – even before they really understood what it meant.[2]
Deciding “not to run the marathon before [they] could walk the course”[3], the JCPML started with what other libraries and archives were doing – getting photocopies or microfilm copies of material held elsewhere and scanning this for the JCPML collection. They then moved on to test a number of newer technologies: “remote scanning” on other institutions’ premises, using OCR software to convert old, lengthy transcripts into digital format, and bringing together a range of media from the JCPML collection (photos, textual documents, oral history and video recordings) to develop an interactive CD-ROM.[4]
Through 1996 and 1997, the Library conceptualised and documented what they wanted: to digitise the JCPML’s collection to give researchers around the world full access to it, as well as digitising John Curtin-related material held in other institutions, to eventually allow them to pull together dispersed records whilst maintaining the context in which those records were created.[5] The only other archive/library or cultural collection that they identified doing the same sort of thing that they wanted to do was the Heinz Archive at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, US.[6]
The JCPML didn’t have the time, expertise or desire to build their own systems – they preferred to make use of commercial off-the-shelf software systems which were flexible enough to provide the necessary functions.[7] With the help of one of the early sponsors of the John Curtin Centre, Compaq Computers Australia, they identified the Electronic Filing System (EFS) from Excalibur Technologies in the US as providing them the search and digitisation options they needed.[8] It was a software package designed for records, therefore archives, which provided the hierarchy they wanted, relating records, series, donors and collections. Most importantly, it had “fuzzy logic” which enabled searching of scanned documents even where optical character recognition wasn’t very good. Unlike library systems, which in those days relied on you putting in terms exactly or the system finding an exact match, it didn’t matter where you put a word, in any field, anywhere, it was fully searchable. Sponsored by Compaq, JCPML staff did online training with Excalibur and JCPML Archivist Henderson visited their offices.[9]
The JCPML adopted the name ERA (Electronic Research Archive) for their system[10] and in the last few months of 1998 tested it using representatives from a variety of user groups and reference archivists.[11] In February 1999 ERA was launched for public use within the JCPML reading room, providing electronic access to 90% of the JCPML collection of more than 7000 image and text files. Researchers described it as “brilliant” because it cut access and searching time, the images retrieved were of high quality and the information they sought was easily copied for research purposes.[12] In July 1999 ERA was made available on the internet. In a major advance, in April 2001 “deep linking” to records held in a National Archives of Australia database was enabled. For the first time, researchers could search for and view items in another institution although they had entered their search through ERA and not the other institution’s search engine.[13]
Content Block
2001 –2004
2001 found the University Library looking for a new library management system. One company, ExLibris, had a rudimentary module for digitisation (Digitool) that they wanted to develop further and saw in the JCPML a means of assisting them in that development. A partnership was arranged and work started on transferring the JCPML’s records to ExLibris. Given the latter’s location in Israel and the differences between their software and Excalibur’s, the transition to the new system was challenging but satisfactorily completed by 2003.[14]
From the JCPML’s viewpoint, one notable advance was greater compliance with internationally recognised standards of archival description. For researchers, Digitool was more user friendly with significantly reduced download times for images, easier access to audio and video files and a seamless interface when accessing linked records in other collections.[15] (In October 2004 there was a further migration – from Digitool version 2.2 to version 2.4 – offering users for the first time the ability to put multiple records in a basket for saving or emailing as a set, rather than one at a time.[16])
The Nichol’s Review of the JCPML in 2003 noted that “this aspect of [the] JCPML’s activities was the subject of much favourable comment. It is well-known through the website, is innovative and is immensely useful to researchers irrespective of location. The fact that other institutions are now pursuing similar strategies in no way diminishes the achievement and its innovative nature. A willingness to work at the frontier and a record of success have earned the JCPML professional respect amongst archives and libraries.”[17]
In a similar vein, foundation JCPML Archivist Kandy Jane Henderson reflected: “ERA has been our biggest success story and others in Australia, whether they were national institutions, small institutions, whatever, were all interested in what we were doing and how we went about it.”[18]
Accordion
- Kandy-Jane Henderson, interview by Heather Campbell, 4 April 2011, transcript, John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library, Perth, WA, JCPML01295/1, 12.
- Vicki Williamson, interview by Lesley Carman-Brown, 9-17 October 2001, transcript, John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library, Perth, WA, JCPML00676/1, 16.
- Vicki Williamson and Kandy-Jane Henderson, “John Curtin Records Open to the World: How Australia’s First Electronic Research Archive was Developed,” LASIE (March 1999): 16.
- Williamson and Henderson, “John Curtin Records Open,” 16-18.
- Williamson and Henderson, “John Curtin Records Open,” 18, 21.
- Henderson, interview, 10.
- Williamson and Henderson, “John Curtin Records Open,” 18.
- Williamson and Henderson, “John Curtin Records Open,” 19.;
Henderson, interview, 10–11. - Henderson, interview, 10–11.
- To complement the Electronic Research Library they already had in the University Library.
- Williamson and Henderson, “John Curtin Records Open,” 18, 21.
- JCPML Information Update, April 1999.
- JCPML Information Update, April 2001.
- Henderson, interview, 11.
- JCPML Information Update, April 2003.
- JCPML Information Update, December 2004.
- George Nichols, “Report on the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library at Curtin University of Technology” (unpublished internal Curtin University Library report, 2003), typescript, 14.
- Henderson, interview, 11.