AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource(also known asAustLit: Australian Literature Gateway;andAustLit: The Resource for Australian Literature), is the national bio-bibliographical database ofAustralian Literature.It is aninternet-based,non-profitcollaboration between researchers and librarians from Australian universities, housed at TheUniversity of Queensland(UQ). The AustLit database comprises a comprehensive bio-bibliographical record of Australian storytelling and print cultures with over 1 million individual 'work' records, and over 75 discrete research projects.
 | |
| History | 2000– |
|---|---|
| Languages | English,Australian Aboriginal languages |
| Access | |
| Cost | By subscription; individuals may access it via their library. Limited guest access. |
| Coverage | |
| Disciplines | Australian literature:includingcriticism,bibliography,biography |
| Geospatial coverage | Australia |
| Links | |
| Website | www |
One such project,BlackWords,is a landmark research project and comprehensive dataset by and within AustLit that details the lives and work ofIndigenous Australian authors,which includesAboriginal AustraliansandTorres Strait Islanderwriters and storytellers.
History
editAustLit, as it is known today, was formed in 1998, when groups of researchers across eight universities (UNSW @ ADFA, The University of Queensland, Monash University, Flinders University, Deakin, the University of Western Australia, the University of Canberra, and the University of Sydney) and the National Library of Australia, who had created several independent databases on a variety of themes related to literary studies, combined the datasets into a single information space. This cooperation and collaboration created AustLit.[1]The AustLit website was released online in 2001, and formally launched in 2002.
Initially led byUNSW at ADFA,the University of Queensland has led the consortium since 2002, although AustLit is now overseen wholly by The University of Queensland.[2]The firstdatasetcomprised about 300,000biographicalandbibliographicalrecords, many in the form ofindexestomagazines,newspapersandscholarly journals.[3]Most of the indexing has been done at UQ since 2014 and AustLit is now maintained and published by UQ.[4]
Over the years, AustLit has been funded by participating universities, with various projects funded by theAustralian Research Council(ARC).[3]One example of ARC funding wasA$500,000provided for a 2008 project to complete the retrospective record of Australian book history, establish a new resource for historical research onchildren's literature,and to further develop the database ofIndigenous Australianwriters and story tellers (see BlackWords below).[5]
In 2012, AustLit underwent a comprehensive redesign of both the public interface and the indexing infrastructure, creating the current version of AustLit.
Owing to funding cuts to the participating universities, AustLit had to make a change to its indexing policies from 2017, including a reduction in the number of periodicals indexed. Periodicals' publication details are still provided, and the contents of a range of significant newspapers, periodicals, and anthologies are still indexed, but the comprehensive indexing of contents, particularly in sole-author collections, is no longer undertaken.[6]However, there is a system whereby volunteers can help to index these works.[7]
Organisation and governance
editNames have varied over time. While the official name is AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource, it has also been known as AustLit: Australian Literature Gateway and AustLit: The Resource for Australian Literature, but the organisation, website and database are generally referred to simply as AustLit.[4]
Partner universities include theUniversity of New South Wales,theUniversity of Sydney,Flinders University(inAdelaide), theUniversity of Wollongong,James Cook University(North Queensland),Monash University,Queensland University of Technology,University of Canberra,University of Tasmania,and theUniversity of Western Australia.TheNational Library of Australiais also a collaborating partner. UQ's School of Communication and Arts provide most of AustLit's "core non-operational funding, infrastructure, office, and administrative support".[2]
Kerry Kilner, who was involved with the project since 1999, was the director of AustLit since 2002. In 2020, Dr Catriona Mills (AustLit’s Content Manager and senior bibliographer) took on the role of Acting Director until July 2023, when Associate Professor Maggie Nolan stepped into the directorship role.Professor Anita Heisswas the inaugural coordinatar of BlackWords.[8]
Data Model
editAustLit was the first large-scale implementation of theFRBR Model(Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) in the world. Rather than treat each publication as a separate entity, as standard library cataloguing does, the FRBR model represents the publication history of works by incorporating the following four concepts of Work, Expression, Manifestation and Item into a single record. AustLit expanded the model with 'event modelling', showcasing creation events for Works, realisation events for Expressions, and embodiment events for Manifestations. It gives attributes to Works, Expressions, Manifestations, Agents, Creation, Realisation and Manifestation events. Additionally, it introduced the concept of a Super Work and includes contextual records about individuals and organisations beyond the standard library catalogue.[9]
AustLit adopted the FRBR model as it was the best choice to serve as a comprehensive information hub for Australian writers and their works, regardless of format. It offers enriched research-friendly data, documents publishing histories, contextualises works, and establishes diverse relationships among authors, organisations, works, places, times, subjects, settings, and publishers.[2]
Coverage and activities
edit
AustLit publishes biographical entries and brief essays on Australian writers, critics and storytellers, organisational histories relating to publishers, theatre companies and other arts organisations,artsand other cultural festivals, national and international awards, as well as works of fiction and criticism.[2]Its coverage includes the history and other details of many Australianperiodicals.[3]
BlackWords, separately published database within AustLit, covers all aspects ofIndigenous Australian literature.It was developed from an existing dataset in 2006, and launched in 2007. As of 2024[10]there are approximately 24,000 indexed works by nearly 7000 authors and organisations indexed on the database, and there are also thousands of full-text works, includingThe BlackWords Essays,byProfessorAnita Heiss. There are many interviews withIndigenous Australianauthors, and teaching and educational guides and content.[11]
AustLit has had severaldigitisationprograms to generatefull-textversions ofout-of-printandout-of-copyrightliterary works and critical articles about Australian literature;[12][13][14]it provides full-text access to samples of works published from 1795.[15]AustLit also provides access to full-text material hosted by other platforms, includingTrove,libraries and other publicly available digitisation projects, as well aselectronically published works.[16]
In addition to providing access to already-published works, AustLit publishes new scholarly texts and datasets in digital format, for example, itsAustLit: Literature of Tasmania,Beyond Goggles and Corsets: Australian SteampunkandSettler Colonial Literature.[16]
TheAustralian Multicultural Writerssubset includes thousands of writers whose cultural backgrounds are other thanAnglo-Celtic.[17]
The South Australian Women Writersdataset contains thousands of records migrated from the originalBibliography of South Australian Women Writers,compiled by Anne Chittleborough, Rick Hosking and Graham Tulloch of Flinders University and published electronically in 1999 by theState Library of South Australia.It was added to AustLit in 2000, and has continued to grow thanks to AustLit contributors.Flinders Universityis primarily responsible for the further development of this subset,[18]and the dataset was completed in 2003.
Changes in coverage over time
editOver time, some inclusion criteria have widened, for example:[6]
- As part of the development of BlackWords in 2007,oral historiesandlife story worksstarted to be included.
- TheAustralian Popular Theatredataset led to the inclusion ofburlesquetheatre works.
- TheColonial Newspapers and Magazines Projectadded advertisements, and also the works of international authors
- The coverage ofscriptwritersin thefilmand television industry was extended in 2010, together with production history of associated works.
Use in research
editAustLit is a key information resource for the study of Australian literature and related fields. Because of its status as the most comprehensive record of a nation's publishing history, AustLit remains an important source of data for analysing and understanding Australian literary history.[19][20][21]
Researchers can work within AustLit to create datasets around a specific field. These projects range across book, magazine and publishing histories, subject specific surveys of regionally-based publishing and thematically-based subsets. Research into the history of Australian popular andpulp fictionis supported alongside research into theatre history, drama and multicultural writers.[22]
Usage
editAustLit subscriber include research and educational institutions, and libraries, which allow home access for their member communities and subscribers. Guest usage is limited to volunteers and access under special circumstances,[23]and the general public can access five pages per day.
Subscribers canelectronically export datafrom AustLit.[2]
AustLit is archived by the National Library of Australia’s PANDORA archive and the USLibrary of Congresshas archived snapshots of the AustLit website since 2009 as part of its Web Archive collection.[24]
AustLit'scopyrightpolicy is that it is free for use under theCreative Commons License: Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Australia.[6]
References
edit- ^Ayres, Marie-Louise (1 January 2001). "Austlit: A Gateway on steroids".Computing Arts 2001: digital resources for research in the humanities: 26th-28th September 2001, Veterinary Science Conference Centre, the University of Sydney / hosted by the Scholarly Text and Imaging Service (SETIS), the University of Sydney Library, and the Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (RIHSS), the University of Sydney.
- ^abcde"About AustLit".AustLit.Retrieved6 March2021.
- ^abcKilner, Kerry (30 April 2014)."AustLit and Australian periodical studies".TEXT.18(Special 25).doi:10.52086/001c.27482.ISSN1327-9556.
- ^abAustlit."AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource | AustLit: Discover Australian Stories".www.austlit.edu.au.Retrieved21 March2024.
- ^"AustLit Phase Two: Research Infrastructure for Humanities and Education Researchers".Monash University.Retrieved16 March2021.
- ^abc"About AustLit: Scope, Policies & Practices".AustLit.Retrieved15 March2021.
- ^Austlit."About AustLit - FAQs | AustLit".www.austlit.edu.au.Retrieved21 March2024.
- ^"About AustLit: The Current Team".AustLit.Archivedfrom the original on 15 March 2021.Retrieved15 March2021.
- ^Ayres, Marie-Louise (February 2005)."Case Studies in implementing Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records [FRBR]: AustLit and MusicAustralia".The Australian Library Journal.54(1): 43–54.doi:10.1080/00049670.2005.10721712.ISSN0004-9670.
- ^Austlit."AustLit: Discover Australian Stories".www.austlit.edu.au.Retrieved21 March2024.
- ^"Introducing BlackWords by AustLit".National Library of Australia.11 November 2020.Retrieved15 March2021.
- ^Austlit."Children's Literature Digital Resources - Overview of CLDR | AustLit".www.austlit.edu.au.Retrieved21 March2024.
- ^Austlit."The Colonial Newspapers and Magazines Project - About | AustLit".www.austlit.edu.au.Retrieved21 March2024.
- ^Austlit."The AustLit Australian Drama Archive - Introduction | AustLit".www.austlit.edu.au.Retrieved21 March2024.
- ^"AustLit".Research Data Australia.15 August 2012.Retrieved15 March2021.
- ^ab"AustLit Publishing and Full Text Delivery".AustLit.18 October 1917.Retrieved15 March2021.
- ^Jacklin, Michael (1 January 2009)."Multicultural literature in Australia and the AustLit database".inCite.30(4): 25–26.Retrieved15 March2021– via Research Online.PDF
- ^"South Australian Women Writers - About".AustLit.Retrieved16 March2021.
- ^Bode, Katherine. "From British Domination to Multinational Conglomeration: A Revised History of Australian Novel publishing, 1950-2007".Resourceful Reading: The New Empiricism, eResearch and Australian Literary Culture,Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2009. pp. 194-222.
- ^Kilner, Kerry. "AustLit: Creating a Collaborative Research Space for Australian Literary Studies".Resourceful Reading: The New Empiricism, eResearch and Australian Literary Culture,Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2009. pp. 299-315.
- ^Ensor, Jason. "Still Waters Run Deep: Empirical Methods and the Migration Patterns of Regional Publishers, Authors and Titles within Australian Literature".Antipodes,December 2009.
- ^Jacklin, Michael (April 2009)."Multicultural Literature in Australia and the AustLit Database".InCite.30(4): 25–26 – viaUniversity of Wollongong.
- ^"About AustLit: Availability and Access".AustLit.Retrieved15 March2021.
- ^"AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource".The Library of Congress.2 June 2009.Retrieved16 March2021.