Office co-locations

As announced in 2010 by former Cabinet Secretary and Special Minister of State, Senator the Hon Joe Ludwig, the National Archives will maintain face-to-face services in each state and territory.  By co-locating with relevant state and territory agencies the Archives can fulfill this commitment in a way that improves operational efficiencies and ensures long term sustainability. Co-location also delivers a significant benefit to researchers by providing access to both state and Commonwealth records in the one location.

In making decisions on co-location the Archives considers a number of factors, including how any agreements can best advantage the users of the Archives' services, budgetary considerations, and the growing preference of researchers for accessing records online. Through the Archives' Consultative Forums stakeholder organisations are also involved in this process, including identifying the key records to be retained in co-located offices.

The effectiveness of co-location has already been demonstrated in Melbourne, where the Archives has been operating a shared reading room with the Public Records Office of Victoria since 1997. More recently, the Archives' Adelaide office co-located with the State Records of South Australia in April this year and our Hobart office co-located with the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office in October. Researchers are now able to access both State and Commonwealth records in shared reading rooms in these cities.

In Darwin, agreement to co-location has been reached - the Archives is working with the Northern Territory Archives Service towards achieving co-location around the middle of 2012.

The Archives will progressively explore further opportunities for co-location in other states.

To assist researchers, a guide to Commonwealth records relating to the state or territory of each co-located office will be prepared.  Commonwealth Government Records about the Northern Territory was launched on 1 July 2011. A guide to Commonwealth records relating to South Australia is currently in preparation and work is about to commence on a guide to Tasmanian records.