[Est.: 5th January 1995. Last revised: 15 February 1995. This facility is provided by the Australian National University (ANU). Usage statistics is listed here.]
Dr T.Matthew CIOLEK,
Social Sciences Information Systems Administrator,
Coombs Computing Unit, ANU
and
Dr Warwick CATHRO,
Assistant Director-General, Services to Libraries, NLA
The following materials constitute a draft of the ISSUE PAPER to be presented for the 3rd National Round Table on Libraries and Asia which will take place on the 16 February 1995 at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia.
The purpose of this paper as well as the related constellation of networked documents is to provide an overview of materials dealing with the trends and likely future developments in the Internet-based information resources within the broadly defined Asia-Pacific region. The bulk of our hypertext references deal with the european languages' (as opposed to the exclusively CJK facilities) WWW systems and is focused on the social sciences and humanities materials about and/or from the countries of the region.
Please mail tmciolek@coombs.anu.edu.au and w.cathro@nla.gov.au if you know of relevant document not in these pages. Currently this page provides WWW links to 233 information resources world-wide.
A key goal of the libraries which serve these users is to ensure that documentary information required by these users can be provided to them in a timely fashion. As with other categories of information, these documents can be provided:
This paper deals with the use of electronic network technologies to improve timely access to these resources by users seeking documents, or by libraries seeking them on behalf of those users. The first part of this paper (Sections 2,3 & 4) will describe the primary Internet resources for Asian information and Asian documents, including the Asian Studies networked information system, maintained by the Coombs Computing Unit at the Australian National University.
The National Library of Australia is attempting to improve this linkage between users and documents through two major projects:
These projects need to be seen in the context of a broader national collection access strategy, also known as the Distributed National Collection strategy. This strategy encompasses all of the major factors impinging on document access in which cooperative or national action is required by the library community. The elements of this strategy include:
Collecting
In 1992 ACLIS commissioned a survey on Agreements about the distribution of the national collection. The survey covered CAUL and CASL members, together with the National Library and the CSIRO. The survey showed strong support for bilateral or multilateral DNC agreements, and majority support for national coordination of this process. Most respondents saw the agreements as having a moral force only, rather than any formal legal force.
At a meeting on the DNC in Adelaide in March 1993, there was general agreement that ACLIS should develop guidelines for the drawing up of such agreements, and should continue to be the focus for policy development. The meeting also encouraged the National Library to establish a DNC Office, to handle matters such as conspectus, collection development policies, the registration of collecting agreements, and the monitoring of the national picture. The National Library has now established the DNC Office with two staff, located within the Executive Support and Policy Coordination Branch.
It would also be appropriate to mention the National Library's own collecting policy. The Library's Strategic Plan for 1993-98, which was widely discussed with the library community last August, sets out the Library's intention to reduce its collecting of printed materials from overseas, to consult with other institutions to minimise unnecessary duplication, and to aim to ensure that national needs are met through the DNC.
Notwithstanding this overall strategy, the Library has announced that it will continue to collect publications from the Asia-Pacific region in some depth. Consequently, the Library aims to be a major supplier of Asia-Pacific documents. It will nevertheless be important, as a key DNC strategy, for the National Library, the ANU Library and the other major collectors of Asia- Pacific materials to define more clearly their collecting intentions, and for these libraries to collectively examine the ions of the overlaps and gaps in their combined collecting strategies.
Commercial document supply services
The last few years have seen major initiatives by some library suppliers and database suppliers to establish document delivery services. The services are based on rapid supply (usually within 24 hours, via fax), credit card or account payment (often around $15-20 per article) and guarantee of copyright clearance. These service providers include UnCover, Dialog's Article Express International, RLG's Citadel, UMI, and OCLC's Article First.
Many of these services lack a strong coverage of Asia-Pacific documents. Since early 1994, the National Library of Australia and the UnCover Company have been cooperating to expand and market the UnCover current awareness and document delivery service in Australia. While this cooperation has to date concentrated on implementing gateways and adding Australian titles to the UnCover service, it can be expected that the next year or two will see more attention given to Asian and Pacific rim title these are likely to be in significant demand.
Resource discovery
For document delivery to occur, users need to be alerted to the existence of documents satisfying their requirements, and need to be guided to appropriate sources for these documents, depending on the format required (e.g. electronic or print). Currently these needs are met through the existence of database services, including citation databases and union catalogue databases.
The National Library has made a major effort in this area over the past thirteen years, with the strong support and cooperation of the library community, through the ABN and Ozline services. The Library's strategy for the future direction of these services is to work with the National Library of New Zealand to develop a National Document and Information Service (NDIS) to replace and extend the functions of ABN and Ozline.
The second half of this document provides some background information about the NDIS Project. The NDIS service is, of course, intended to facilitate access to documents of all types, and not only Asian documents. The NDIS Project is targeted for completion by the end of 1996. The initial implementation of NDIS will not support the display and retrieval of non- roman scripts. However, NDIS will be designed so that it can store non-roman characters, and import and export them according to the standard. The enhancement of NDIS to support the display and retrieval of non-roman scripts is unlikely to be achieved before the late 1990's.
In the meanwhile, the National Chinese, Japanese and Korean Database service will provide interim support for the display and retrieval of vernacular Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts. The eight Australian libraries with major collections of East Asian materials are working together to acquire and jointly operate a service with CJK capability. The service will have a dual national/local role: it will form a national bibliographic database for CJK materials, and it will also serve as the onalogues for most of the partners in the project. The service, which will be based on the Innovative Interfaces system, was selected through a tender process, and contract negotiations are almost complete. It is expected to be implemented by April or May 1995.
People connected to the Internet, that is to the global network-of-networks can do any of the following tasks:
On average, each host provides Internet access to some 10 people (Rutkowski, 1994)
Average time to establish connection to another Internet host is under 2 secs, the average time to send an e-mail message to another person is about 5-20 minutes (person-to-person messages have lower priority than host-to-host messages), and it takes about 3-5 minutes to transfer 300kb of electronic text (approx 150 A4 pages) from Amsterdam to Canberra.
The speed and responsiveness of communication depends on the time of the day, type of the transaction, relative placement of the sending & receiving hosts (on the Internet Australia sits 'closer' to Canada or Switzerland than to NZ or Singapore)
Average cost of a message sent via Internet is approx 1/10th of transmission of the equivalent message by fax, 1/20th of the transmission via voice on the phone and approx 1/100th of the cost of message delivered via air-mail post.
Each local network pays its own costs of operation from levies and contributions collected from its subsidiary hosts.
Most of the Internet software (information-retrieval, publishing tools, communications and system management programs) is developed by 'Internauts' and is placed by them in public electronic archives (ftp archives) for un-restricted & free-of-charge dissemination and use.
'Internauts' keenly compete with each other in development of the best and most effective communication tools. They also compete in the development of the largest, fastest, most up-to-date and most comprehensive information facilities for a given discipline or subject matter.
In sum, "the Internet is a creature of the unregulated, highly dynamic computer networking field - not the traditional regulated monopoly telecom environment. The Internet does best where the environments are subject to little or no regulation of any kind." (Rutkowski,1994)
The data show that the number of hosts connected to the Internet matrix grows at the ever increasing rate:
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TABLE 1 Host Growth Worldwide by Year
Hosts connected Year
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4 1969
23 1971
111 1977
1,000 1984
10,000 1987
100,000 1989
1000,000 1992
2,217,000 Dec 1993
3,212,000 Jul 1994
3,898,233 Oct 1994
4,852,000 Jan 1995
[Src: Zakon (1994,1995) and the Internet Society (1994)]
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The phenomenal growth in the amount of the networked computer systems all over the world is
accompanied and furthered by a series profound social and cultural transformations.
According to the recent analysis of the global IT revolution "Internet is much more than just a new kind of network for
transporting data. Rather it is a broad "redefining paradigm" - in
other words, a fundamental transformation that encompasses:
The Internet has been growing and continues to grow at the
unprecedented exponential rate. The Oct 1994 rate whith which new
systems are connected to the Internet is about 35% per quarter for the
newly networked countries in the Latin America and Africa and remains
to be very high even for regions with hundred of thousands on
networked hosts North America (23%), Western Europe (17%). Asia (15%)
Australia & South Pacific (9%). Analysts expect that the current
growth rate for Asia will be sustained throughout the next few years.
(Asiaweek 1994a, Asiaweek 1994b, Donovan 1994, Lamberton 1994).
Furthermore, available data suggest that Australia, USA, New Zealand and
Canada are among the world's leading countries nor only in terms of
the sheer numbers of networked computers but also in terms of the
number of those hosts per $million of the country's Gross Domestic
Product (GNP/GDP).
A number of observations can be made at this point:
"The [...] measurement (carried out Jul 94) - sometimes referred to
as "the Internet Walk" shows 3.2 million reachable machines. This is
an increase of 81 percent for the past year, and represents an even
steeper than normal increase over the past six months. Indeed, 1
million new hosts were added during the first six months of 1994. Much
of the increased growth is attributable to growth outside the world in
more than 80 countries." (Internet Society,1994)
The number of Internet hosts (and so, the number of people
accessing the system) doubles every 7-8 months. In other words, in
three month from now, in May 1995 there will be 80 million people
using the Internet and its many information retrieval-publishing
tools. Extrapolations of these trends suggest that by the year 2001 the
Internet will link 500 mln hosts enabling thus (1) one-to-one e-mail
communication and (2) access to the world's networked information
resources by the approx. 5 billion people.
"It's asserted that 80 percent of all the scientists who ever
lived are on the Internet today! And in each of these fields, the
people ' networked' constitute the majority of early adopters and
innovators." (Rutkowski, 1994)
"To put current developments into perspective, we can consider the
changes that have taken place in the way that scientific results are
disseminated. We might term the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century as
the era of correspondence between great scholars. The Nineteenth
Century can be classed as the era of the great societies and the
Twentieth as the era of the great journals. The Twenty-First Century
will surely become the era of the [networked] knowledge web..." (Green
& Wesley, 1994)
and finally,
"learning the Internet now, or at least learning about it, is wise. By
the turn of the century, "network literacy," like "computer literacy"
before it, will be forcing itself into the very texture of [...] life"
(Sterling, 1993)
It will be useful to distinguish the 3 following categories of information
resources, namely (1) data systems, (2) directory systems and
(3) information systems.
A short summary of these three types of the Internet tools is given below:
Growth of Internet in the Asia-Pacific Region
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TABLE 2 Host Growth by Geographical Regions
Region 1.Jul.94 1.Oct.94 3 mths Growth
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Latin America &
Caribbean 16,619 22,535 36%
Africa 15,595 21,041 35%
North America 2,172,232 2,678,288 23%
Eastern Europe &
CIS 27,800 32,951 19%
Western Europe 730,429 850,993 17%
Middle East 8,871 10,383 17%
Asia 111,278 127,569 15%
South Pacific,
Australia, Antartica 142,353 154,473 9%
--------- ---------
TOTALS 3,225,177 3,898,233 21%
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[Src: http://www.nw.com/zone/WWW/isoc-pr-9410.txt]
For full details see Host stats by country (Oct 94) (www.nw.com,USA)
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Of course, the growth rates are different for various countries within
a given region:
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TABLE 3 Host Growth in Selected Asia-Pacific Countries
(between January-July 1994)
Country Hosts 6 mths Growth
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US 2,044,401 38%
Canada 127,516 48%
Australia 127,514 42%
Japan 72,409 69%
New Zealand 14,830 157%
Korea 12,109 35%
Taiwan 10,314 29%
Hong Kong 9,141 60%
Singapore 4,014 45%
Malaysia 1,322 204%
Thailand 1,197 334%
China 325 *
India 316 129%
Philippines 65 *
Indonesia 54 *
Macau 12 *
Fiji 5 0%
* Not connected in Jan 1994
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[Src: http://www.nw.com/zone/WWW/bycountry.txt]
For full details see Host stats by country (Jul 94) (www.nw.com,USA)
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TABLE 4 GNP/GDP to Number of Internet Hosts in
selected Asia-Pacific Countries in July 1994
Country Code Internet Hosts GNP Total GNP/Host
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Australia au 127,514 $290,522,000,000 2.28
U.S. Total var 2,044,716 $5,694,900,000,000 2.79
New Zealand nz 14,830 $46,200,000,000 3.12
Canada ca 127,516 $542,774,000,000 4.26
World Median ww 3,225,177 $19,935,936,341,266 6.18
Hong Kong hk 9,141 $71,303,000,000 7.80
Singapore sg 4,014 $43,200,000,000 10.76
R.o.W. Median (not US) 1,180,461 $14,241,036,341,266 12.06
Taiwan tw 10,314 $150,800,000,000 14.62
South Korea kr 12,109 $273,000,000,000 22.55
Malaysia my 1,322 $44,900,000,000 33.96
Japan jp 72,409 $3,140,948,000,000 43.38
Thailand th 1,197 $92,000,000,000 76.86
Macau mo 12 $3,100,000,000 258.33
Fiji fj 5 $1,300,000,000 260.00
Philippines ph 65 $47,000,000,000 723.08
India in 316 $328,000,000,000 1,037.97
China cn 325 $452,000,000,000 1,390.77
Indonesia id 54 $116,200,000,000 2,151.85
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[Src: http://www.nw.com/zone/WWW/bygnp.txt]
For full details see Host counts by country correlated with GNP
(www.nw.com,USA)
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Survey of the Asian Studies Internet resources
Typology of Networked Information Resources
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TABLE 5 Typology of the networked information resources
Information resource Mode of the on-line access
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DATA SYSTEMS
1. Electronic archives FTP
2. Databases TELNET, WAIS, GOPHER-DBASE
3. Mailing lists & electronic agoras E-MAIL
4. Electronic journals E-MAIL, FTP, GOPHER, WWW
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DIRECTORY SYSTEMS
5. Directories (archive, dbases, lists etc
directories & 'switchboards') GOPHER, WWW
6. Subject/Area guides FTP, WWW
7. Meta-resources (directories of
directories) WAIS, GOPHER, WWW
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INFORMATION SYSTEMS
8. On-line 'Libraries'
Data Systems and Directory Systems
residing on the same host or on
the variety of hosts world-wide]
assembled in a form of the specialist
'study facility', 'virtual library'
or 'electronic bookshelf' GOPHER, WWW
9.On-line 'Encyclopaedias'
Data Systems and Directory Systems
residing on the same host or
on the variety of hosts world-wide
assembled and edited in a form of the
large scale, comprehensive, detailed and
continuously updated 'knowledge system'
or 'virtual encyclopaedia' WWW
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Note:
- E-MAIL documents can be archived and then accessed via WAIS system
- FTP documents are accessible via FTP, GOPHER, WWW
- WAIS documents are accessible via WAIS, GOPHER, WWW
- GOPHER documents are accessible via GOPHER, WWW
- WWW documents are accessible via WWW
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For a detailed comparison of properties and applications such various
Internet tools like ftp, goper or wais system see the techology
section in the 1994 paper by D.Greeen & A.Wesley SINS of
the Internet - the nature and organization of Special Interest
Networks. For an attempt at a comprehensive typology of the Internet
tools see the Internet
Tools Summary [by J.December,May 94; v.1.54]
(Dalhousie U,Canada)
An important development among the Asia-Pacific information resources is the appearance within the last 24 months of a number of the meta-resources, that is sources of the networked information about the new (or modified) networked facilities. These meta-resources typically take form of a 'current-awareness' mailing-list (often archived and accessed via wais dbase) through which several of hundreds of subscribers are notified about new networked resources and can request their fellow subscribers for assistance with bibliographical and factual inquiries and searches. A comprehensive listing of the currently active meta-resources in the Asia-Pacific region is available from the following document:
Amongst the hundreds of thousands of networked computers in the world only a fraction of them has established information resources dealing with the peoples, economies, demographies, politics and culture of that region. Even a small proportion of those systems can be regarded as the 'major information facilities', that is hosts which provide:
The next section of this document will summarise the current (Jan 95) range of the major Asia-Pacific information facilities worldwide:
Information Resources at the Australian National University
In December 1991 the Coombs Computing Unit, Research Schools of Social Sciences & Pacific and Asian Studies (RSSS/RSPAS), Australian National University, Canberra, embarked upon a long-term project aimed at the developing a comprehensive information resource (see Table 5 above) for Social Sciences and Asian-Pacific Studies.
The objectives of such information resource , conceived as a public-access, networked and free-of-charge facility are four-fold: (a) to act as the world's central repository of electronic documents and other materials of relevance to the social scientists in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region (b) to provide a dynamic and continuously enhanced guide to electronic resources (archives, directories, databases, electronic mailing lists, resource catalogues etc) in Australia and elsewhere; (c) to remain the world's primary access point and, whenever appropriate, a central directory/register of relevant networked resources at universities and research institutions in Australia, Asia, Europe and North America; (d) to create a set of specialist communication channels facilitating and encouraging the flow of scholarly and factual information in selected fields of social sciences and humanities.
These aims have been pursued by the following closely interlinked on-line ANU services:
Additionally, the Coombs Computing has been providing Unit, ANU practical help with setting up overseas Internet-based Social Sciences information facilities in China and Vietnam:
For additional information on the Vietnam Internet project see also Tran Ba Thai & R. Hurle (1994).
Other major networked information services in Australia include
Finally, two smaller and simpler projects, that is 'Directory Systems' (See Table 5 above), pointing to other institutions' resources have been set up in New Zealand:
Despite the spectacular growth in the number of networked hosts worldwide only a small fraction of all the sites with the on-line connection have set up information resources, and even smaller fraction of those sites have been developing on-line information resources with the Asia-Pacific focus.
Universities
Other Organisations
Other organisations
--------------------------------------------------------------------- TABLE 6 Share of the Internet & Asia-Pacific info. resources in 1994 Country % of all hosts* Hosts % of all hosts world-wide with A-P focus with A-P focus --------------------------------------------------------------------- USA 63% 78 51% Australia 4% 15 9% Canada 4% 9 6% Japan 2% 6 4% Singapore <1% 5 3% Germany 5% 5 3% Philippines <1% 4 3% United Kingdom 5% 3 2% Taiwan <1% 3 2% Malaysia <1% 3 2% Hong Kong <1% 3 2% China <1% 3 2% Thailand <1% 3 1% New Zealand <1% 2 1% Korea <1% 2 1% Israel <1% 2 1% Turkey <1% 2 1% Portugal <1% 1 <1% Macau <1% 1 <1% Norway 1% 1 <1% Italy 1% 1 <1% Indonesia <1% 1 <1% Austria 1% 1 <1% --------------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL 154 100% --------------------------------------------------------------------- North America 70% 87 57% Asia 12% 38 25% Australia & NZ 5% 17 10% Europe 13% 12 8% --------------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL 154 100% [Src: * Values for Jul94 from URL http://www.nw.com/zone/WWW/bycountry.txt) Column 2 & 3 data from the Survey in this document] ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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TABLE 7 Distribution of various types of A-P information resources
(estimated values for 1994)
Information resource % of A-P info resources
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1. Electronic archives 15%
2. Databases 5%
3. Mailing lists & electronic agoras 10%
4. Electronic journals 0%
DATA SYSTEMS TOTAL 30%
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5. Directories/Switchboards 60%
6. Subject/Area guides 2%
7. Meta-resources 2%
DIRECTORY SYSTEMS TOTAL 64%
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8. On-line 'Libraries' 5%
9. On-line 'Encylopaedias' 1%
INFORMATION SYSTEMS TOTAL 6%
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Note:
The figures above are the 'informed guesstimates'.
Scholarly work needs to be done for these issues
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Go to part II of the ISSUE PAPER
URL http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/NLA/AP-Net-Futures.html
Copyright © 1995 by Coombs Computing Unit, ANU & Australian National Library. This Web page may be linked to any other Web pages. Contents may not be altered.
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