Cultural collections case study:
State Library of New South Wales
Requirement
In 2004, the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) launched the ‘Horizon’ initiative – a project designed to introduce new sustainable business and technology platforms. Horizon’s objective was to improve the management of SLNSW’s vast cultural assets and allow the organisation’s five million items including significant Australiana collections, and other resources to be managed in on-line digital form.
Solution
Enterprise architecture reviews were extensively undertaken scoping key issues; creating a well-defined three-year timeline; and establishing key requirements for proposed processes, architecture and technology infrastructures.
An integrated lookat.me™ total solution was developed, comprising:
- The lookat.me™ Archive Collection Management System (ACMS) to catalogue the Library’s extensive collection of more than five million valuable artifacts.
- The lookat.me™ Digital Asset Management (DAM) to capture, house and manage the associated digitised assets (images, video, audio, and other file types) and the digital rights management of collection items
- Business Process Management (BPM) designed to support, track and automate the operational workflow including the digitisation of collection items.
Additionally, me™ designed the website for the State Library of New South Wales – a project requiring the creation of 30 templates with dozens of variable elements for more than 5,000 static and dynamic webpages.
These templates now support 400,000 dynamic database-driven photographic catalogue items, and more than one million bibliographic catalogue items.
Benefit
The multi-million dollar project completed in 2009, and launched by NSW Governor - Professor Marie Bashir - and actor Jack Thompson, was the culmination of a number of milestone achievements achieved through me™ technology solutions:
- Controlled system-based management has replaced manual file storage management providing considerable cost and human resources benefits
- Federated search function is now available to search across all SLNSW catalogue databases (including other commercially purchased databases) where international standards for metadata are met
- Electronic-delivery of key heritage items, digitised material with curatorial knowledge and expertise, and published content is made accessible on the World Wide Web. This has increased awareness of SLNSW and transformed the perception of the library from being only a physical space with ‘books on shelves’ to an international showcase of iconic collections (such as digitised versions of the extant First Fleet journals) and exhibition spaces.
- Future plans to integrate electronic commerce solutions are being investigated
