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| No: 51a |
May 2010
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| Special
issue Blog versions of special newsletters are also available: 
 National Archives of Australia Adelaide Office update The point of this special newsletter to all subscribers is to bring you up to date on the campaign to stop the plans by the National Archives of Australia to close the Adelaide office in particular but also alert those concerned about the Hobart and Darwin closures. Many seem to have been misled into thinking that the decision taken earlier this year was a victory for the campaign. Well a victory of sorts it was but we know that the management of the National Archives is still keen to reduce the collection held in South Australia. At the last meeting of the Adelaide Consultative Forum early in April NAA Director-General Ross Gibbs was keen to get the forum members to identify particular records to remain in Adelaide. This would suggest that the reduction of record holdings and thus storage and staff costs is still on the agenda. While the current campaign's goal was to retain the collection in Adelaide there were some other considerations, not least the retention of our very knowledgeable staff. We all know that the staff and their experiential knowledge of the collection is paramount in accessing any archival collection. Very few researchers can depend on the scope of the series descriptions to locate material. To date there has been no formal announcement on where the collection will be located and until this happens we need to continue the pressure. The current facility is due to close in a short 10 months. The current suggested plan is for the NAA and State Records [SRSA} to reopen the former NAA repository at Collinswood. The facility has remained empty since previously vacated by the NAA. Of course while this is welcomed, we have to understand that the main reason for the involvement of SRSA is that they need the storage space for their collection. They probably see sharing the facility with NAA as a cost savings exercise too. The problem the writer has with this arrangement is that this compromise will mean that the stolen records of 2001 will not come home and the SA collection of NAA records will remain incomplete! We know that in spite of what he might say (and he is a politician after all), the Minister does not attach much importance to this matter. He was due to attend the April Adelaide Consultative Forum but failed to appear. Moreover, we know he is still advocating that the future is the digitisation of the collection. He clearly is not listening to researchers and archivists on the impact this will have on serious research and academic pursuits. He continues to cite usage statistics without much consideration of their validity in his point of view. The Ministers continues to wrongly quote that 1.9 million records were accessed online in 2008/09 but only 57,000 were accessed in NAA reading rooms (see Newsletter 49a). Any IT person can tell you that 1.9 million refers to the number of hits on the web site (for one second or more) by anyone using the NAA’s RecordSearch database in any location for any reason. Clicking quickly in and out of a record on a monitor can never be equated with the use made of records in NAA reading rooms. Further we all know that the collection holds material difficult to digitise not to mention a multitude of records whose current usage is low and unlikely to be digitised any time soon. Requesting digital copies of NAA records is not as straightforward as it might sound: • only records that are listed at item/file level on RecordSearch can be requested (currently about only 10% of the total NAA collection);Management continues to use access figures to the Adelaide Office to justify their thinking. When these are considered in context with other offices they are in fact quite healthy. The frequently cited statistic that of the 22,290 visits nationally only 720 researchers visited Adelaide ignores reality. For example: • 60% of all visitor numbers are recorded for Canberra simply because they have significant exhibitions and are located in a heritage building.What can you do? Write a letter or visit your local Federal Member and make sure they are aware of the issues and your opinions. It is an election year and politicians are more receptive at this time. |
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