Roxanne Missingham is Parliamentary Librarian at the Australian Parliamentary Library. A complete view of her profile as educator, manager and researcher can be found at: http://roxannemissingham.blogspot.com/
This text provides some recent historical background to the establishment in 2007 of the national purchasing consortium of libraries, the Electronic Resources Association (ERA), sponsored by the National Library of Australia. The paper expands on the access and equity issues surrounding digital technologies that drive the national agenda across the library sector today. Missingham addresses government programs and reports that support the aims of Australian libraries to achieve a broader community reach with online services and an increase in digital literacy rates. The author also makes a call for urgent injections of financial support from the federal government and for further action in building an Australian 'digital economy ' and successful digital nation.
Enlightening statistics and discussion are provided regarding data from Australian Bureau of Statistics studies (ABS, 2008a, 2008b) and the 2009 federal government document Australia's Digital Economy: Future Directions Final Report (Australia. Department of Broadcasting, 2009). These documents show Australians access and up-take of Internet, broadband subscriptions and website creation as middling, despite proof of early household adoption of new technologies. Useful comparisons are made between Australian, UK and Canadian populations across access to digital technologies, and how Australia is measured against OECD countries. The point is convincingly made that availability to digital technology across Australia ranks as disappointingly average, and access between metropolitan and regional centres across the country is decidedly uneven in favour of major cities.
Missingham weaves a case around this official data including statements from the Government 2.0 Task Force , reiterating the importance of information sharing for today's citizens in a liberal democracy (Tanner, 2009). She outlines the role of public libraries across Australia in taking on the development of successful opt-in, online programs and access to quality online information that supports all Australians in their lives. Specific emphasis is placed on greater assistance with digital literacy skills (Hilferty & Redmond, 2009) in order to create full participation in education, health services, legal services, employment, as well as government services. The current relationships between public libraries through the ERA involving local, state and national levels and across disciplines (for example, art librarians through ARLIS , the Health professionals through Health Libraries Australia , all schools through ASLA , the Australian School Library Association etc) can assist, explains Missingham with widespread connection to better information for individuals and communities and therefore fulfilment of federal government initiatives of inclusiveness for all regions of Australia.
The ERA has already achieved results by using the bargaining power afforded an organization of over 20 public libraries since 2007. Among the more obvious of their achievements is the provision of more affordable content for smaller, regional and local libraries, for example good quality journal databases. It has also delivered better services, for example remote access to full-text content and virtual enquiries.
While this paper outlines many important national concerns with equitable distribution of digital technology in the daily lives of the Australian population, the reader must first accept the broad-brush language of management utilised by the author in addressing government and industry stakeholders. In context this paper is pitched from a national platform to libraries and their professional organizations and a variety of important community and government partners. It therefore adopts a formal, business management language rather than an academic or journalistic tone. The text was first delivered as a conference paper at the ALIA Public Libraries Summit, 2009 .
While considerable progress has been made by the ERA and the federal government since 2007, there have been delays in the national roll-out of broadband despite The National Broadband Network Commitment . Missingham calls for more national funding and more focus on a targeted national approach. One could say 'it's time'.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Australia. Department of Broadcasting, C. a. t. D. E. (2009). Australia's Digital Economy: Future Directions Final Report. Canberra. http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/future_directions_of_the_digital_economy
Australian Bureau of Statistics, A. B. (2008a). Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, Summary Results, Australia, 2006. Canberra: ABS.
Australian Bureau of Statistics, A. B. (2008b). Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, 2007-08. Canberra: ABS.
Hilferty, F. & Redmond, G. (2009). Implications of Poverty on Children's Readiness to Learn Focusing Paper, . West Perth: Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth.
Tanner, L. (2009). Launch of the Government 2.0 Taskforce. http://gov2.net.au/
