Culture Portal, connecting you with Australian culture online

culture.gov.au

Connecting you with Australian culture online

Culture Portal closure and archive

The 1st July 2010 marks the cessation of the Culture Portal at www.culture.gov.au.

The Culture Portal closure is part of the Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2009-10 announced on 2 November 2009 by the Treasurer, the Hon Wayne Swan MP. This measure will provide savings of nearly $0.8 million over three years starting from 2010-11. (See http://www.budget.gov.au/2009-10/content/myefo/html/appendix_a_03.htm )

The Culture Portal was launched in 2001, developed from the platform of Australia's Cultural Network (ACN), available since 1997, as part of a vision of a national network providing wide electronic access to cultural material. It was the premier online access point for Australian culture.

The closure of the Culture Portal was a policy decision in order to reduce duplication with other websites that provide information on Australia's cultural resources.

The Culture Portal website is being archived by the National Library of Australia, and will therefore be available as a permanent static resource through PANDORA at http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/21007.

Please note that the static website will not be updated; links to external sites may become inactive and the Bluey Search functionality will not work.

As at 1 July 2010, a static seed list of the websites previously listed on the Culture Portal Websites Administration DataBase will be available for public use at www.culture.gov.au/websites.

All existing .gov domain names associated with the Culture Portal will be re-directed for a period of two years. This includes the re-direction for other Culture Portal information and resources to other relevant websites.

Australian Stories will be hosted in future by Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) in association with Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) following their successful migration to www.australia.gov.au. They can still be viewed at www.culture.gov.au/stories.

Users may download and republish resources from this website, for the purposes of fair dealing, personal and non-commercial use with acknowledgement to the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Culture Portal, 1 July 2010 <relevant URL>.

Requests for any purpose other than fair dealing, personal and non-commercial use of Commonwealth copyright material published on the Culture Portal should be made to Commonwealth Copyright Administration (CAA). Please see Copyright information at http://culture.gov.au/copyright/

Enquiries by stakeholders regarding the closure of the Culture Portal can be made to the 'Comments and Feedback' page, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts' (http://www.environment.gov.au/about/contacts/index.html)

Summary of the transfer of functions and content

The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) held discussions with interested government agencies to explore the hosting and transfer options for the various parts of the Culture Portal. Arrangements were made with regard to the various services as follows:

  • Australian Stories - The rich content with links to cultural resources in over 200 Australian Stories will be transferred to Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) and remain discoverable at www.culture.gov.au/stories.

  • 'Bluey' Search - The Bluey Search, including the index and search facility to approximately 4250 evaluated Australian culture websites and the 'Bluey' search service for websites listed was not transferred. However a seedlist of the websites administration data base will be available through the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) in CSV format for public use from 1 July at www.culture.gov.au/websites/seedlist.csv.

    Australian cultural organisations utilising aspects of previous search functionality include:

    The Northern Territory Library hosting OzIndigenous Search and the Northern Territory collecting institutions search.

  • Weekly News service and monthly Newsletter - The weekly News service with RSS feeds and monthly Ozculture Newsletter will not continue to be distributed. Archive copies of theOzculture Newsletter and News pages will be available as a permanent static resource through PANDORA, Australia's Web Archive, at http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/21007

    A news and events service utilising these resources is now hosted by Museums Australia.

  • OzIndigenous OpenSearch capacity - The Northern Territory Library will support the OzIndigenous OpenSearch. The existing .gov domain name for the OzIndigenous OpenSearch will remain functional for a period of two years at www.culture.gov.au/search/indigenous/.

  • Grants and Training databases - The arts and culture Grants and Training databases will not be transferred. Options for public access to the raw data list will be explored.

  • Evaluated resources for culture sector professionals - The employment, collection management, policy development and networking information resources pages will not be transferred. The static pages will be available for public access through PANDORA, Australia's Web Archive at http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/21007.

Enquiries by stakeholders regarding this closure process should be addressed to: