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| No: 52a |
June 2010
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| Special
issue Blog versions of special newsletters are also available: 
 National Archives Adelaide Office compromise The latest news on the negotiations to ensure the Adelaide Office of the NAA remains reveals that plans are well in hand to co-locate with State Records of SA. The solution will not please everyone although one cannot deny that the objective to retain a NAA presence in Adelaide has been successful. The plan is to reopen the mothballed Collinswood repository vacated by NAA for their current premises almost a decade ago. The owner of the Collinswood premises is delighted as he has not been able to secure a tenant since NAA departed. It must be stressed that it is only a plan at this stage because the responsible State Minister is not prepared to fall into line without seriously considering the decisions by bureaucrats. The material held by the NAA in the Angas Street repository will be returned to Collinswood and that facility will also accept material from State Records. Both groups will share the Leigh Street reading room as their CBD site. The reading room at Collinswood will be reopened but the reading room at Gepps Cross will be closed. The writer has two significant issues with these arrangements. Firstly the closure of the Gepps Cross reading room will be a major impediment to researchers using the material stored there. They will have to use another reading room and order the material in. This currently takes half a day. While this is not a problem for research when the material required is known, it becomes a major issue for ongoing research when the researcher is not aware of the material available to use or where using one series of records reveals the need to pursue another series. When this happens, the researcher will have to sit back and wait until the next delivery! The fact that archivists rightly refuse to allow fragile material to be transported may mean access denied as will the issues regarding oversized and heavy items. The irony is that in accommodating the NAA, whose records at Collinswood will remain readily accessible. the State's material held by State Records will become less accessible! There is of course a simple solution to the problem—keep the Gepps Cross reading room open. Even if we have to restrict the opening hours of both Gepps Cross and Collinswood, that would be a preferable, if not perfect, compromise. The second issue relates to the revived campaign to bring back the South Australian records, the 30 shelf km of material taken interstate when the Collinswood repository was closed. Obviously, under this plan that cannot happen! If the material was returned, then there would be no room at Collinswood for State Records material. The announcement that the arrangement will allow the two collections ten-years of growth before they have to address the need for more space, clearly indicates that the stolen SA records will never return in at least the next decade. For some, this is no big deal, but no other state has a significant part of their records stored beyond their borders and certainly none have a significant part of their colonial material beyond access in their capital city. Digitisation may be the answer but of course, despite promises, the program has only concentrated on so-called popular or heavily accessed records. While this is quite understandable, where does this leave researchers of South Australian material? Apart from the major shortcomings outlined in the previous special newsletter, digitisation of material is currently undertaken at a low resolution, and while this is fine for viewing on a monitor, it leaves a lot to be desired when printed out. |
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