Booked to Die: Australia’s Information Future

Abstract

The decline of Australia’s university libraries and information infrastructure is chronicled in terms of diminishing budgets amid the general crisis affecting Australian universities at all levels. The Australian budget in 2000 revealed yet again the lack of action shown by the Liberal Government in terms of addressing the knowledge issues for higher education against relatively weak responses from the opposition party, is noted. Considers the role that national and state libraries can play in redressing this imbalance, pointing to the example of Western Australia, which has announced the aim to ensure that all members of Western Australia are connected to the Internet in five years. Points specifically to the crisis in science periodicals, the issues raised by libraries against the periodicals publishers’ quest for ever greater profits at the expense of scholarly communication and some of the initiatives that are trying to ease matters. Records the decline in book purchasing in Australia’s university libraries, points to the need for national collection co-ordination, along the lines suggested by the Coalition for Innovation in Scholarly Communication (CISC) and a urges a rethink about the whole business of academic book publishing. It is concluded that the issues are long term and the way information is produced and distributed, especially by multinational conglomerates, will see dramatic change in the next few years. If the commercial market is allowed to rule totally over ‘public good’ issues then Australia’s future will be bleak.