News

February 2010

Aus-e-Stage   -  National eResearch Architecture Taskforce Project underway

The Aus-e-Stage project funded by the National eResearch Architecture Taskforce is now underway. It will provide performing arts researchers with platform-independent, remotely accessible and visually interactive access to the AusStage database.

Three new services will be designed, tested and deployed: Mapping Events, Navigating Networks and Researching Audiences. These services will operate alongside AusStage's current text-based search-and-retrieval service

A beta mapping service has already been established at http://beta.ausstage.edu.au/mapping/. Development on mobile feedback capability for the Researching Audiences service is underway.

To provide feedback on the beta services, please contact Aus-e-Stage Project Manager Liz Milford on +61 8 8201 2085 or liz.milford@flinders.edu.au. For more information on the Aus-e-Stage project, see https://www.pfc.org.au/pub/Main/NeATdevelop/Aus-e-Stage_NeAT_May_2009.pdf

 Australian Research Council - Linkage, Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities Grant

AusStage has successfully gained funding from the Australian Research Council and 17 university partners through its Linkage, Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities scheme for AusStage Phase 4: Harnessing collective intelligence and pioneering new visual methodologies for innovative research into Australian live performance. The project will commence in April 2010.

The aims of AusStage Phase 4 are: to build new mechanisms for harvesting the collective intelligence of the AusStage network; to visualise the knowledge embedded in the database by linking live events with digitised resources; to implement pioneering data visualisation technologies for performing arts; to deliver next-generation tools for information analysis in a range of text-based and visual research formats; and to strengthen AusStage by continuing to populate the database with comprehensive coverage of live performance in Australia. These aims will be realised through six projects:

1. Harnessing Expertise - developing new infrastructure to harness the collective intelligence of the research network, and establishing an editorial board to provide authoritative verification of data.
   
2. Researching Audiences - piloting the mobile audience research service by designing, test and refine a robust and reliable audience research method using an automated content analysis system to aggregate audience response data and visualise results using emotional iconography.
   
3. Visual Searching; creating a portable digitisation laboratory, providing researchers with the technical equipment and expertise to digitise all resource documentation integral to contextualisation of live performance. Researchers will archive items in institutional repositories and create linked records within the AusStage database.
   
4. Mapping Events - recording geographic coordinates, where possible, for all venues in the database and using geo-coding as a basis for acknowledging Indigenous traditions of performance.
   
5. Navigating Networks - drawing on network analysis and the new network interface to enhance the representation of artists and their relationships in the AusStage user interface.
   
6. Modelling Knowledge - designing the information architecture for AusStage's evolution from a customised relational database to a standards-based ontology and re-engineering the database to take advantage of advances in open source software for information management.

AustralianPlays.org

Records on over 540 Australian playwrights as listed on Australianplays.org are now incorporated into AusStage, providing links to the production history of each playwright's plays.

Australiaplays.org  is managed by the Australian Script Centre in collaboration with PlayWriting Australia, Currency Press and Playlab Press, to provide an online showcase of the best Australian playscripts. It provides biographical information on playwrights as well as access to a unique online library where subscribing users can read any play from the Australian Script Centre's current catalogue of more than 800 scripts.

Playwrights represented include Andrew Bovell, David Williamson, Dorothy Hewett, Finegan Kruckemeyer, Nick Enright, Hilary Bell, Andrew Upton, Jack Davis, Janis Balodis, Louis Nowra, Melissa Reeves, Patrick White, Ray Lawler, Van Badham and William Yang.

November 2009

The Meg Abbie Denton Collection

Earlier this year the personal collection of dance historian, Meg Abbie Denton was donated to the University of Adelaide Library Special Collection. The Special Collections Librarian, Cheryl Hoskin and the AusStage Project Manager, Jenny Fewster are sorting and cataloguing the collection. Resource records detailing items within the collection are being added to AusStage as part of this process, including:

• a collection of photographs taken at rehearsals of 'Corroboree' by third year students of The Australian Ballet School during which Meg commenced the labanotation of this significant ballet in February 1994, and
• a collection of materials relating to The Night is a Sorceress (chor. Rex Reid). The notated dance score to The Night is a Sorceress was commissioned by Meg Denton in 1986 and completed by Ray Cook in 2002.

AusStage and the Performing Arts Special Interest Group of Museums Australia

The Performing Arts Special Interest Group of Museums Australia (PASIG) has been a partner of the AusStage project since its inception in 2000. PASIG's membership includes museums (QPAC museum, The Performing Arts Collection of SA), libraries (Mitchell Library, National Library of Australia), archives (University of Adelaide Archives, SBW NIDA Archive) , galleries and tertiary educational institutions (University of Adelaide Library Special Collections) at state and national level. PASIG contributes expert advice on information management and facilitates feedback from the collections sector on the development of the information architecture for AusStage, as well as providing support for data entry. Anyone involved in collecting, preserving or researching Australia's performing arts heritage is welcome to join the PASIG group on the Museums Australia Network hub at http://manexus.ning.com/group/pasig.

The AusStage Sustainability Strategy and the Australian Bureau of Statistics

AusStage is developing a strategy to sustain prospective data entry for AusStage in partnership with industry and government. One aim of the strategy is to sustain data entry on recent and forthcoming events produced by government-funded organisations in each state and territory. Analysing and reporting on government-funded performing arts is an important function for AusStage, since arts funding is a key indicator of government cultural policy and peer-based industry esteem.

This strategy targets organisations in each state and territory that receive government funding for the production of live performance with a dramatic component. It draws on an audit of government funding and advice from independent industry-based consultants in each state and territory. This process assists in allocating resources for entering data on events produced by government-funded organisations. AusStage also continues to support any event-producing organisation interested in entering data.

Using the data identified in this audit, AusStage has recently completed a pilot project investigating the future supply of AusStage data to the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the annual overview of Arts and Culture in Australia.

Events performed by Australian arts funded companies in 2007.

ACT NSW NT QLD SA TAS VIC WA OVERSEAS Number of events by primary genre 20 199 12 50 110 35 565 57 69 Theatre - Spoken Word 11 122 7 22 44 27 382 26 9 Music Theatre 4 37 2 15 38 1 89 6 3 Dance 5 23 3 9 24 5 32 17 36 Circus and Acrobatics - 9 - 1 2 4 18 2 20 Physical Theatre - 3 - - 1 - 16 - 2

September 2009

NIDA's Oral History Project

In 2004 NIDA and the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford (SBW) Foundation initiated a joint project to organise and develop their performing arts collections as a major cultural resource. An Oral History Project has enhanced the collection by recording and sharing the memories and working methods of many artists and teachers associated with NIDA, including Helmut Bakaitis, Elspeth Ballantyne, Alan Burke, Alex Buzo, Peter Carroll, Patricia Connolly, John Derum, Bob Ellis, Judi Farr, John Gaden, Ron Haddrick, Robyn Nevin, George Ogilvie, Alan Seymour, Dinah Shearing, John Sumner, Doreen Warburton and John Wood.

Records on over 80 NIDA oral histories in the SBW NIDA Archive are now incorporated into AusStage. The SBW NIDA collection also includes the NIDA Paper Archive, the SBW Foundation Collection, Costume Research Collection, the NIDA Photographic collection, the Marionette Theatre of Australia Puppet Collection (with Peter Scriven's Tintookies), as well as production costumes from the Old Tote Theatre Company, audio-visual material, set models and design rendering.

Resource Directory

 

More than two hundred Australian performing arts collections are now desecribed in the AusStage Resource table. These include collections on artists like John Antill, Robyn Archer, Bland Holt, Katherine Susannah Pritchard, Joan Sutherland, David Williamson and organisations like the Australian Ballet, the Children's National Theatre, J.C. Williamson's, Melbourne Theatre Company (formerly Union Theatre Repertory Company), the New Theatre and the Old Tote Theatre company.

 

The collection records were initially stored in a separate database. They were collated to direct researchers to organisations holding information-rich collections that document live events. They include descriptions of key collections at the National Library of Australia, State Library of New South Wales, State Library of Victoria, and the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland. The records are now fully integrated into AusStage with links to related records so that collections also appear when browsing related contributors, organisations and venues. A Resource Search for Type: Collection will retrieve all the collection records.

 

Google Analytics

 

AusStage is now using Google Analytics to gather information on site activity. This service will provide a clearer understanding of how AusStage is used, including where users are located, how they reach AusStage and what content is most frequently accessed. For example, Google Analytics can report the number of visits by city and country.

 

Number of visits by country (August 2009) Australia 1163 United States 36 United Kingdom 25 Belgium 14 New Zealand 13 Germany 13 France 8 Canada 5 Hong Kong 4 Ireland 3 Israel 3 Cote d'Ivoire 3

Number of visits by Australian city (August 2009) Sydney 303 Adelaide 285 Melbourne 271 Brisbane 101 Perth 98 Armidale 39 Canberra 28 Hobart 7 Newcastle 7 Wollongong 5 Bathurst 3 Ballarat 3 Bendigo 2