Australasian Virtual Engineering Library: Collaborative Development of a Global Resource

• Main Authors: Radcliffe, David F., Cribb, Gulcin, Hill, Claire
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2000
• Subjects: Engineering resources; Global sources; Metadata schema; Professional communities; Engineering; Library and Information Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/library_research/99
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The Australasian Virtual Engineering Library (AVEL) is a gateway to quality WWW resources in the fields of engineering and information technology from sources from the Australasian region. AVEL complements similar gateways in engineering around the world, in particular EEVL in the UK and EELS in Sweden. It is a unique partnership between the library community and the engineering academic and professional communities scattered across Australia. The main lesson learnt in this virtual collaboration was the value of open and transparent communication and sharing of information. We established and articulated a clear set of policies on such things as a metadata schema and resource selection criteria. We maintained dynamic communication network to resolve issues as they arose. Some face-to-face meetings were essential. Equally important was the need to keep the library-based developers of the gateway in touch with the real information gathering needs and expectation of the engineering user community. AVEL is at http://avel.library.uq.edu.au.