A National Library for Australian Educational Research

Sue ClarkeManager, Cunningham Library

Australian Council for Educational Research

27th IATUL Annual Conference: Porto, Portugal,May 22-25th, 2006

Strategic Environment

• Researchers require access to research carried out by colleagues worldwide in refereed scholarly journals, books, theses, research reports etc

• Changes to strategic environment for scholarly research in education

• International open access movement, emergence of digital repositories, impact on online publishing & internet services including the social web

• ACER is placed strategically to provide access to educational research information both nationally and internationally, as it is a major research and publishing organisation

Overview

• Cunningham Library – Provides access to information to support researchProvides access to information to support research Pays a major role in disseminating researchPays a major role in disseminating research

• The Library is embedded in the learning and The Library is embedded in the learning and research process byresearch process by Having a close alignment of corporate and library goalsHaving a close alignment of corporate and library goals Through its development and dissemination of Knowledge-Through its development and dissemination of Knowledge-

based products and servicesbased products and services

• Some issues and challenges facing online publishing, information research and retrieval will be highlighted

Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)

• Australia’s premier educational research organisation• An independent, not for profit organisation since 1930• Creates and disseminates knowledge and tools to

improve learning in the context of lifelong learning• International orientation to work with offices in India,

Dubai and Cambridge, UK• Goal is to “improve outcome for learners through

reliable, scientific research and dissemination of a”• www.acer.edu.au

ACER Research Programs

• Assessment and reporting• Early Childhood Education• Learning Processes and Contexts• National & International Surveys• Systems and School Testing• Teaching & Learning• Transitions & Economics of Education

Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)

www.acer.edu.au

Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) – Cunningham Library

Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) – Cunningham Library

• Build and maintain an information resource which supports policy development, research, practice and debate in the field of education

• Provide information access to the education community on research and practice in the field of Australian education

• Compile and maintain the Australian Education Index and other knowledge based products such as the Australasian Education Directory, the Australian Thesaurus of Educational Descriptors

www.acer.edu.au/library

Libraries and Research at ACERHistorical context

• History of ACER Library is linked to the history Australian librarianship (outlined in paper)

• Library has always been embedded in research by being both a publisher and a disseminator of research

• The Library collects and disseminates information by building databases and then re-using and repackaging educational information in a variety of products.

Information Management – Diagram

Australasian Thesaurus of Educational Descriptors (ATED)

Australasian Education Directory (AED)

Australian Education Index (AEI)

Database of Research Int Educ

Library Catalogue

ACER Research Repository

Full Text

Theses

Repackaging and Re-use of information

Australian Education Index

Australasian Education Directory

Australian Thesaurus of Educational Descriptors (ATED)

Research in International Education

Online Content - Full Text: EdResearch Online

EdNA Online

Education Research Theses (ERT)

Doctoral & Masters

Theses

Summary - challenges for Information Providers

• Professional and research organisations have a range of services available to their members and stakeholders

• Explore how ACER fits into the national information infrastructure by continually developing new business models according to customer needs & changes in scholarly publishing

• Researchers want less places to look when finding information and / or

• Federated searching across content & open url compliance

Some Questions??

• The role of information providers in the Google web world – if people want to find information, will they just use Google (and find what they want?) or go to a systematically indexed database?

• The role of organised systematically indexed material and constructed thesauri, taxonomy like Australian Thesaurus of Educational Descriptors (ATED), vs free text searching of full text

• With more and more material being made open access, will people pay for information?

• Collaborative web space – users as providers of information in “My web”, wikis & blogs, RSS feeds

Information Dissemination: new technologies

• New tools emerging that store and disseminate information

• Examples include use of RSS feeds for Library alerting services which are disseminated in a regular way, such as new acquisitions lists / or bringing information to the website from other website, e.g. EdNA

• An idea could be the use of webblog technology to create an Australian Education Webblog

ACER Research Repository

Conclusion

• ACER is strategically placed to work with the educational research community and collaborative partners to explore new business models, develop metadata and document repositories to avoid duplication of effort and fragmented collections of resources

• Examples have been provided of some initiatives with Informit, education.au, and the education community

• We welcome collaborative discussions with people here today so please let us know if you have any ideas!

Contact

Sue Clarke

clarke@acer.edu.au

www.acer.edu.au