Libraries Australia and PictureAustralia: Innovation in access at the National Library of Australia

The National Library of Australia has coordinated a national bibliographic database and resource sharing service for Australian libraries since 1981. Over the last two years, this service has been redeveloped and branded as Libraries Australia. In February 2006 a free version of the Libraries Australia Search service was released to increase access to the collections of Australian libraries. The service provides simple 'google-like ' searching and extended getting options: online, via loans or copies from Australian libraries, or via online booksellers. Through this service anyone with an Internet connection can find out about 42 million items held by 800 Australian libraries. Item descriptions have also been exposed to Internet search engines such as Google so that content appears in web search results. The second part of this paper describes a pilot project involving collaboration between the National Library and Yahoo!, owner of the Flickr photo sharing service. The aim of the project was to increase the number of contemporary images of Australian people, places and events in the National Library’s PictureAustralia service. This was achieved by engaging with the Flickr online community and encouraging individuals to upload photos of Australia t