NED, Australia’s national edeposit service , is a finalist in this year’s Australian Government Digital Awards in the category of ‘Excellence in multi-agency partnership’.
NED collects, preserves and provides access to every Australian publication available in electronic format. It is the largest collaborative project that NSLA libraries have embarked upon, and a world-first for the library sector.
NSLA Executive Officer, Dr Barbara Lemon, said the nomination was a “cherry on the cake” for the project, which was the result of four years of intensive collaborative effort by Australia’s nine national, state and territory libraries – the members of NSLA.
“The vision for NED was to create a service that would make legal deposit easier for everyone involved,” Barbara said.
“NED gives publishers a simple means of fulfilling their legal deposit obligations – for each work, they deposit once and NED does the rest. Librarians benefit from much more efficient workflows, less duplication, and less time spent identifying gaps in the collection. Most importantly, for the public, the majority of works will be viewable or even downloadable through Trove, removing some of the greatest barriers to access in regional and remote communities.”
In its first three months of operation from 30 May 2019, over 8,000 books, government and non-government reports, newsletters, music scores, maps, brochures and other electronic publications have been deposited via NED and made available to the public.
The winners of the Australian Government Digital Awards will be announced in Canberra on 3 October.
