2.4 Strategic Priority Two: Connect
PRIORITIES
- Extend national reach and engagement, increasing the number and diversity of Australians who engage with the Library’s collections.
- Curate engaging onsite and digital experiences that delight, inspire and nourish Australians’ curiosity about the nation’s past, present and future.
ACTIONS 2019-20
sail on HMB Endeavour to conduct scientific research in the Pacific region. In
2017–18, the Australian Government funded the Library to conduct a four‑year
program of work to mark the 250th anniversary of James Cook’s voyage.
Horizons and Reflections: Endeavour 250 was created as a digital platform
to tell stories of exploration, contact and encounter. The Library drew on
expertise and collections from its own and partner institutions to develop the
material, in collaboration with the Australian National Maritime Museum and
the National Museum of Australia.
In 2019, the Australian Government changed the scope of the project—there
was a desire to build a broader public-information website that covers the full
package of 250th anniversary activities and events. Therefore, on 1 November
2019, all responsibility for developing, hosting and maintaining the website
was transferred to the then Department of Communications and the Arts.
The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and
Communications released the Endeavour250 website on 29 April 2020:
endeavour250.gov.au.
over ten years to digitise more of the Library’s superb collections and support
the fellowships and scholarships program.
In 2019–20, the Library further developed its philanthropic capacity by investing
in a new philanthropy team within the Office of the Director-General. The
philanthropy team will work with supporters to realise the Library’s vision of
sharing our most important, impactful and unique collections online, providing
access for all Australians.
The Library is grateful for generous support of its digitisation program. Funds
from Principal Patron Jane Hemstritch have enabled our largest philanthropically
supported digitisation project to date. We also received philanthropic support
that will assist us to preserve and digitise the papers of iconic poet A. B. ‘Banjo’
Paterson and digitise all Australian Jewish newspapers. Work on these
digitisation projects will commence in 2020–21.
The Library’s philanthropic efforts to support its digitisation program have been
assisted by Australian Government funding of $10 million over four years to
digitise significant items from the national collection, beginning with the personal
archives of two instrumental figures in Australia’s history—General Sir John
Monash and Sir Robert Menzies.
General Sir John Monash—polymath, prolific correspondent, engineer, avid
collector and effective military strategist—amassed a personal collection
of some 280 boxes of archival material over his lifetime. It contains diaries;
photographs; plans for the Iona estate—his home in Melbourne; ephemera
from travels; and correspondence, including that from the First World War,
and Gallipoli in particular. Over 160 boxes from this personal archive have been
digitised and are now accessible to all Australians through Trove. Digitisation of
the archive continues. The historically rich letter-books will be preserved and
available online by the end of 2020.
Scoping and planning for digitisation of the personal archives of Australia’s
longest-serving prime minister, Sir Robert Menzies, is underway. The depth
and historical significance of the Menzies archive provides researchers
with extraordinary insight into Australia’s political and military past. This
vast archive runs to almost 600 boxes. The material has been reviewed and
priorities for digitisation have been established. There is a focus on Menzies’
prolific correspondence with world leaders, including Sir Winston Churchill, and
negotiations with his own party and the various opposition leaders he faced.
Digitisation of this material will commence in 2020–21 and is expected to take
some years to complete.
Philanthropy continues to support a range of other Library priorities. Ongoing
and generous philanthropic support continues to fund the Kenneth Myer
Lecture, the Seymour Lecture in Biography and a range of fellowships and
scholarships. We are also grateful to the late Ann Moyal AM for a generous
bequest. We expect that funds generously donated by anonymous donors will
lead to the appointment of a new curatorial position in 2020–21.
In total, the Library has raised $4.23 million to date, against a two-year target
of $4 million and a ten-year target of $30 million.
While acknowledging the likely impact of COVID-19 on giving in the short term,
the Library is committed to its long-term philanthropic objective, to maximise
the enormous benefit digital access can provide to the Australian community.
that offers Australians the opportunity to discover a huge array of unique
Australian content, such as artefacts, curiosities and stories from Australia’s
cultural, community and research institutions. It is one of Australia’s most
popular online search platforms.
Since the launch of Trove in 2009, public appetite for digital material has
grown rapidly, with almost 90 per cent of Trove users seeking digital
information. Increasing digital demand was a key driver for directing the
Australian Government’s modernisation funding towards enhancing and
refreshing the platform.
The rebranded and upgraded platform was officially launched to the public
on 26 June 2020 by the Hon. Paul Fletcher MP, Minister for Communications,
Cyber Safety and the Arts, who also announced a further eight million dollars
in funding over two years, to support ongoing development of Trove. The
refreshed site aims to connect with a broad cross-section of Australian
society, including younger Australians and diverse communities.
The site features a persistent Acknowledgement of Country, a First Nations
portal and other features to create a culturally safe place that will deepen
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander engagement. The Library worked with
the La Perouse Aboriginal Community (Sydney) and Cherbourg’s Ration Shed
Museum (Cherbourg, Queensland) which undertook testing and consultation
throughout the project.
User experience has been enhanced by the addition of browse trails, optimised
access for mobile phone browsing, a curated visual experience and the
ability to form collaborative lists that allow the community, including families,
teachers and students, to research together in new ways.
An essential element of the project was the development of a brand that
accurately reflects the collective and collaborative nature of Trove. The brand
will strengthen the public perception of Trove as a hub of digital content
supported by hundreds of Australian organisations. A new Trove Partners logo,
together with additional features, highlight Partner relationships and content
across the website.
Additional features specifically directed at the Partner community include a
Partner Learning Hub, built using the Moodle Learning Management System,
and a password-protected dashboard that provides Partners with collection
analysis and insights into how their collections are being used. Collection
Feature functionality enables Partners to curate items from their collection
around a particular theme, such as a local event or exhibition.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We develop inclusive collections,
services and relationships to ensure First Nations perspectives are reflected
as a priority and to ensure a culturally safe place to access these collections.
A key step toward deepening our engagement with Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander peoples was the development of the Library’s Reconciliation
Action Plan. Working closely with Reconciliation Australia, a final Innovate
Reconciliation Action Plan has been approved to commence in July 2020.
While this is the first Reconciliation Action Plan in the Library’s history, the
higher Innovate level recognises that the Library has been on this journey for
some years.
To assist in strengthening relationships with Indigenous communities and
expanding understanding of Indigenous culture, an Indigenous Engagement
section has been established under the Library’s new structure. A director of
Indigenous engagement is in place to lead activities in this area and develop a
longer-term plan for engaging with communities.
Time: Australian Children’s Literature—an exhibition of Australian children’s
literature from the colonial period through to the present day. The exhibition
gave families the opportunity to explore the imaginative and magical worlds
created by some of Australia’s favourite writers and illustrators, through books,
manuscripts, illustrations, children’s toys and ephemera.
The exhibition featured modern classics by Shaun Tan, Oodgeroo Noonuccal,
Jeannie Baker, Mem Fox, Bronwyn Bancroft, Robert Ingpen and Emily Rodda,
as well as treasured characters Blinky Bill, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, Mothball
the wombat, Mr Chicken, the Green Sheep and many more. The exhibition
was supported by a companion book, Storytime Stars, and public programs
offering opportunities to engage with writers and illustrators. The exhibition
attracted close to 45,000 visitors. It was presented in association with the
National Centre for Australian Children’s Literature.
To complement the exhibition, the Library’s 2019 Ray Mathew Lecture was
delivered by acclaimed children’s author and Australian Children’s Laureate
(2018–2019) Morris Gleitzman. The lecture, ‘Stories Create Our Future’,
reached an online audience of over 20,000 people.
The 2019 Kenneth Myer Lecture, supported by The Myer Foundation and
presented in Canberra and Melbourne, was delivered by journalist Peter
Greste. The lecture was titled ‘Press Freedom in Australia and Why It Is in
Crisis’. The 2019 Seymour Biography Lecture, supported by Dr John Seymour
and Mrs Heather Seymour AO, was presented by Professor Judith Brett. The
subject was ‘Public Life, Private Man: Writing the Biography of Alfred Deakin’.
Both of these lectures also reached significant online audiences.
Continuing in its role to support research and associated technologies, in
September 2019, the Library hosted the Australian and New Zealand Maps
conference 'Mapping in Action'. The conference showcased research utilising
historical maps and current geospatial data visualisation. Discussion topics
included mapping linguistic properties of Indigenous place names, Pacific
cultural practice and marine protection archaeology. The event attracted
130 participants from Australia and New Zealand.
In September 2019, the Library launched an enhanced eResources portal
that provides readers with a modern interface and improved functionality to
search full-text journal articles and ebooks across databases and platforms.
Following the upgrade, use of the Library’s eResources grew significantly each
month, peaking in May 2020 with 50,000 uses that month.
Participation in Canberra’s Enlighten Festival in early March 2020 gave us an
opportunity to extend audience reach through our digital offerings. In addition
to a soundscape drawn from the Library’s oral history collection, a video
of the projections displayed on the Library building was shared online and
experienced by many more Australians.
The Library’s past investment in digital infrastructure meant that, at the
outbreak of COVID-19, it was well positioned to continue its service delivery
in an online environment. As lockdown restrictions were implemented
and families began homeschooling, use of the Library’s Digital Classroom
increased dramatically, to the point where it had tripled the previous year’s
usage. New content, including the online modules 'Participation and
Protest' and 'Cook: Legend and Legacy', met the high demand for remote
learning tools.
The Library has been streaming onsite events to an online audience for some
time. As restrictions increased from March as a result of COVID-19, the
Library was able to use its experience in this area to transition efficiently to
a digital‑only outreach program. New digital content was created, curated and
released weekly during autumn and winter, and in 2019–20 reached a national
audience of 340,486.
In 2019–20, several National Library Fellowship lectures were delivered to
onsite and digital audiences. Research topics by fellowship and scholarship
recipients this year included children’s engagement with urban nature; love
in China from the 1950s to the present; R.G. Casey and the Bengal famine of
1943; the history of advice to women; Burbang (a work of immersive dancetheatre);
Scottish-Australian musical traditions in the early nineteenth century;
and the idea of Asia in world politics. The Library also offered several webinars,
including ‘Family History’, ‘Getting Started at the Library’, ‘How to Find and
Date Photographs’ and ‘Tracing the History of Your House’, which were aimed
at building online research skills. There was a significant increase in webinar
attendance during the lockdown, with the 500-place sessions consistently
booked out. Learning webinars also attracted higher-than-usual engagement
from rural and remote parts of Australia, with one in three participants
attending from regional areas.
Digital programs took viewers behind the scenes to engage with the Library’s
treasures and explore Australian stories. Audiences were also encouraged to
participate in online discussion about their experiences during the pandemic.
On 10 April 2020, the Library premiered an online digital event, 'This Is History',
with historians Dr Chris Wallace and Professor Frank Bongiorno AM. The
two speakers discussed the importance of documenting everyday life during
irregular times. The event proved to be popular and rapidly achieved over
30,000 views. Since the event, the Library has received many comments
and messages from its audience about how they are keeping, or plan to
keep, a journal of their pandemic experiences or encourage their children or
grandchildren to do so.
While the Library’s front doors were closed for ten weeks during the COVID-19
pandemic, social media provided an essential communication channel to keep
readers and researchers updated on Library activities. The Library used social
media to promote online services, webinars and Digital Classroom, and to
engage our audience with online events. Viewers were able to tune in to events
and webinars long after the initial broadcast, and all of the Library’s video
content was popular. This activity extended the Library’s national reach; many
of the webinar participants were first-time users of Library services.
PERFORMANCE MEASURES FOR CONNECT
Table 2.4 Number of online engagements 2019-20
The number of Australian online engagements with the Library in 2019–20
was similar to 2018–19. In 2019–20, the Library collated geographical
locations of Australian users for the following digital services: the catalogue,
the National Library website (nla.gov.au), digital collections, eResources,
Trove Collaborative Services and Trove. The data show that 75 per cent of users
were from New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. Regional and remote
communities were well represented. Trove and digital collections services
accounted for 89 per cent of digital access services.
Table 2.5 Number of onsite engagements 2019-20
In 2019–20 there were 212,956 onsite engagements with the Library. This is
a reduction of 52.9 per cent when compared with the previous year. While a
reduction was anticipated as a result of programming changes and the conclusion
of activities marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Library building in 2018, and
the very successful Cook and the Pacific exhibition, for the first six months of the
year engagements were tracking well against targets. Visitors responded positively
to the exhibition Story Time: Australian Children’s Literature, which was on display
from August through to mid-February, aligning with activities such as Children’s
Book Week and the announcement of Ursula Dubosarsky as the Australian
Children’s Laureate in February. Onsite learning programs were also drawing
consistent attendance. From late November, however, environmental factors,
including smoke from coastal bushfires, saw visitation diminish significantly
over the summer and some events were cancelled, including a family day. The
State of Emergency caused by the fires across the region slowed interstate
visitation through January and February in particular. From 23 March, the
Library was closed to the public in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and
all onsite public programs ceased from 17 March. Resources were focused on
digital programming for the remainder of the financial year, resulting in high
levels of engagement with Digital Classroom and curated digital events.
Table 2.6 Percentage increase in use of the digital collection 2019-20
In 2019–20, the Library’s online digital collections were accessed for
10.89 million sessions. This a 12 per cent increase on the previous year
(9.72 million). Contributing to this steady increase are outcomes from the
Trove Modernisation project and optimisation of external search functions.
The increase validates the Library’s investments in its digital library
infrastructure, with more Australians able to discover and use its rich
collections from their home, school or workplace.
Visit
https://www.transparency.gov.au/annual-reports/national-library-australia/reporting-year/2019-20-11