There’s not much fun at the National Archives but digital delights at ANU and the National Library

Former Finance Department secretary David Tune is reviewing the Archives and is accepting submissions to month end.

Things are bad: The issues are already obvious to NA management, as the website makes clear, “budget and staffing reductions are affecting our capacity to perform our fundamental role of securing, preserving, maintaining and making accessible the authentic and essential records of the decisions and actions of government, while providing high standards of service delivery that all Australians should expect from their National Archives.”

Unless they are worse: The NA Advisory Council agrees, with chair Denver Beanland warning users, “the serious deterioration” in the archives’ funding position means it faces, the prospect of being unable to meet its legislated requirements.”

“Savings measures such as successive efficiency dividends … have substantially diminished capacity perform its functions.”
Dr Beanland warns parts of the collection are “at risk” including AV records on magnetic tape, “which require immediate digitisation to avoid loss through obsolescence.”

“The perilous budget position” has also led to “inadequate digital capability and cyber vulnerabilities.”.

Dr Beanland states the advisory council will make a submission to the Tune review. Looks like it already has

But there’s good news at the NLA: Things aren’t awful at all at the National Library of Australia, which announces a major project to digitise a vast archive of public and private papers now held on microfilm. Some 7.5 records relating to ANZ and the Pacific dated 1560-1984 will be converted, “delivering them on-line free of charge to all.”

And they are positively perky at ANU, which reports all of the university’s 13 000 plus PhD and other higher research degree theses are now available to all on-line.