On 1 July 2021 the Australian Government announced an additional $67.7 million over 4 years for the National Archives to boost its critical functions of securing, preserving and making accessible the national archival collection.

This funding is an initial response to the findings of the Functional and efficiency review of the National Archives of Australia (the Tune Review).

The Defend the Past, Protect the Future Program will enable digital preservation of critical at-risk collection material before Deadline 2025; accelerated digitisation, preservation and online access to more of the national archival collection; and strengthened capacity to engage with Australian Government agencies on information management and declassification of records referred to them for public access.

The program is a significant investment in the National Archives’ future. It will enable the important next steps to realise the National Archives’ vision set out in Strategy 2030: a transformed and trusted National Archives – a world-leading archive empowered and resourced to ensure that authentic government information is created, secured, preserved and accessible to government and the community.

As the needs and expectations of government and the community rapidly evolve in the digital age, the program, alongside the vision set out in Strategy 2030, will firmly position the National Archives to implement digital-first service delivery.

The program also furthers the Australian Government’s Digital transformation strategy to improve government service delivery, and its commitment to a reformed Australian Public Service, Delivering for Australians.

Deadline 2025

The National Archives currently has many collection items facing genuine risk of loss due to deterioration, degradation and technical obsolescence of playback equipment. Formats include magnetic tape, nitrate and acetate film, negatives and photos. The year 2025 is regarded as the date when it will become significantly harder to digitise material held on magnetic media because equipment and skilled staff will no longer be available (Deadline 2025).

Under the Defend the Past, Protect the Future Program, 270,000 critical at-risk collection items, including those stored on magnetic media, will be digitally preserved before the 2025 deadline.

Digital preservation and access

With only a small percentage of the national archival collection digitised and user expectations of immediate online access to information, the National Archives will be significantly upscaling its proactive digitisation capacity. This will mean more of the collection is securely preserved and available online for use by government and the community.

Under the program, an expanded digitisation team will focus on proactively digitising at-risk collection items. This team will also increase the National Archives’ capacity to respond to requests from government or the community to digitise records (on-demand digitisation).

This accelerated digitisation program will be enhanced by a specialised fit-for-purpose digitisation facility. Located within an existing storage facility in the Australian Capital Territory, the digitisation hub will accommodate a commercial digitisation provider. Use of commercial providers, in conjunction with the in-house digitisation team, is a cost-effective and time-efficient way of digitising large amounts of the national archival collection.

The national archival collection is currently stored in facilities in capital cities around Australia. As leases for existing storage facilities expire, the National Archives will consolidate collection material into centralised storage hubs with better preservation and digitisation capability. Under this model, more of the national archival collection will be digitised, either proactively or on-demand.

This redefined physical presence will herald a new era of access, public engagement and research, with staff in state and territory offices focusing on new and improved ways of working with researchers and delivering innovative public programs. This integrated delivery approach will enable access to the national archival collection regardless of where users are located – cities, regional towns or remote communities.

An upscaled cyber-secure digital archive will allow for the safe storage and preservation of the expanded digitised collection. Improved public search functionality and technology will make it easier for users to access records held in the digital archive.

Information-management leadership

Under the program, the National Archives will work with Australian Government agencies to improve their information-management processes and policy obligations. This includes identifying and managing archival-value records to be transferred into the national archival collection.

It will also work with agencies to access examine records that have been referred to them prior to their public release under the Archives Act 1983. In conjunction with an expanded in-house team of ‘access examiners’ this will resolve the large queues (backlog) of access examination requests by the end of the 4-year program.

Cybersecurity

The National Archives safeguards against cyber-attack, compromise or permanent loss of high-value government information in its digital archive. As more and more of the national archival collection is digitised, strengthened cybersecurity around the digital archive is critical.

Under the program, technology and cybersecurity measures for the National Archives’ ICT infrastructure, including the next generation digital archive, will be implemented. Cyber-resilience measures around the digital archive include enhanced incident and event monitoring, data-loss prevention and file transfer capability.