Secondly, librarians accept that they will acquire material relating to the past, but increasingly they are gathering material concerning the present. Thirdly, materials collected now comprise any format from archival manuscripts to electronic records and this requires different expertise, technological support and greater financial assistance. Little research has been conducted into who uses local history collections, and how they are used, and surveys are being undertaken in Australia to remedy this. What is known is that users come from industry, government, schools and universities, as well as the general public. Increasingly stress is being placed on local history collections by family historians and some services such as the Kew Public Library in Melbourne and the City of Playford in South Australia have accepted this and are committed to providing a wide range of family history resources for their community.
Collection management is another issue.
Currently in Australia there is a proliferation of systems in place. Most local history collections are catalogued onto the main library catalogue and this has benefits of access but there needs to be more discussion on appropriate levels of indexing, the classification of primary material, etc. Many local history services are promoting their services through the Internet. While a considerable number now have excellent websites with online catalogues and good photographic displays, there is still a need to design content-rich websites for researchers. Lack of finance is, of course a factor.