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Apologies for cross posting
The PADI subject gateway http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/ and associated list padiforum-l http://listserver.nla.gov.au/wws/info/padiforum-l
were initiated as a service to the digital preservation community and have been
maintained by the National Library of Australia since 1997 in order to
collocate selected information on digital preservation. For background
information see “About PADI”, http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/about.html
.
Currently the gateway includes links to a little over 3000
resources organised by over 60 topics which can be browsed using the topic
listing http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/topics/thesaurus.html
.
As is to be expected with any portal to Web based documents maintenance
of web links becomes progressively more demanding over time. Websites are
redesigned, migrated to new platforms, URL’s are changed, projects and
their websites cease, so called persistent identifiers are not, and even when web
documents or pages are archived in a web archive, questions arise as to which
version of an archived page to link to (which date or even which archive as
copies may be held in multiple web archives with different levels of
completeness). The current structure of PADI requires the Library to commit
around 0.5 of a fulltime staff member to locate, describe and enter links to
new information sources and to maintain links to existing resources. Although
originally conceived as a cooperative contribution model, increasingly the burden
of adding material to PADI has fallen to the NLA as input from elsewhere has almost
ceased.
The information-seeking and information-providing mechanisms
of a community also change over time. After reviewing the gateway service the
Library has concluded that the existing website, database and list no longer
meet the current needs and that the Library’s resources are best invested
elsewhere. While there may be more efficient ways of building a service like
PADI today, using Web 2.0 tools, the Library is unable to make the investment
in converting the existing service.
Reluctantly – because we still find PADI useful
ourselves – we believe we cannot sustain PADI, and have decided to cease
maintaining it.
A copy of the website has been archived in PANDORA,
Australia’s Web Archive. The existing live website will remain
available until the end of 2010; however no new resources have been added since
the start of July 2010 and the existing links will not be actively managed. The
archives of the padiforum-l list will continue to be available , however no new
postings will be accepted from 30 September 2010.
Thank you to all who have been interested in and worked on
PADI over the past fourteen years.
Regards
Maxine Davis
PADI Coordinator
Maxine Davis É Web Archiving & Digital Preservation Branch É National Library of Australia, Canberra ACT 2600
email: [log in to unmask]