National Archives Of Australia Research Articles

The relationship between archives and knowledge management: some evidence from Australia

This paper emerged from an earlier survey of developments in knowledge management within the Australian Public Service (APS). The earlier study pointed to future research possibilities in an emerging relationship between knowledge management and archives and records. The resultant case-based research reported here shows that this relationship operates most strongly in the context of key drivers of knowledge management within government agencies and departments, and in linkages between the work of the National Archives of Australia (NAA) and that of other Commonwealth organisations. Knowledge management also emerges as an important strategic issue for the National Archives of Australia. Eleven issues emerging as common in the previous study were discussed at the NAA: Perceptions, Approaches, Drivers, Links to core business, Obstacles, Enablers, Structures, Frameworks, Metrics, Champions and inter-agency networks. In overall terms the NAA emerged as an organisation that was at the development stage for knowledge management and one that was taking conscious strides in this direction.

Australian anthropologists and World War II

1 The exceptions are Kenneth Eyre Read and H. Ian Hogbin with particular reference to New Guinea (see Read 1947, Hogbin 1951). Work undertaken by Ronald and Catherine Berndt examining army compounds and the condition of Aboriginal labour was not published until 1987. 2 A.R. Radcliffe-Brown attended the BAAS meeting and remained in Australia for the duration of World War I; he was employed as a teacher at Sydney Church of England Grammar School (1915–17), and as Director of Education in Tonga (1918–19). See Maddock 1995. 3 See however Keesing 1945. 4 There is no comprehensive history of Australian anthropology; however, there is a considerable body of work on aspects of Australian anthropology and individual anthropologists in various journals. 5 Elkin was assisted by ‘twenty observers mostly graduates in anthropology’ (Anon. 1941). 6 Elkin to Cleland, 10 November 1943. Elkin Papers, University of Sydney: 157/4/1/23. 7 ANGAU was to put together a team of experts in Native administration: Francis Edgar Williams, government anthropologist in Papua (1922–1943), was seconded to the unit in March 1943. He was killed in a plane accident in May 1943, and thereafter the unit came under the control of ex-patrol officers of the New Guinea service. 8 The Directorate answered directly to the Commander-in-Chief of the Australian military forces, and also had direct access to the Prime Minister and the Minister for External Territories. 9 This booklet contained such racialized information as: ‘The Natives are used to us, as white men; they feel we belong, whereas the Japanese are in every respect strangers. Natives don't like strangers. Therefore their natural inclination is to side with us.’ Or, ‘The native has always looked up to the white man, he admires him because of the marvellous things that white men at large can do—make electric torches, fly in aeroplanes, etc. You may not be marvellous yourself, but he will think you are, merely because you are one of the white race.’ Quoted in Wolfers 1975; see also Powell 1996. 10 Security (Qld) to Director-General Security, 16 July 1942. National Archives of Australia (NAA): MP729/6.29/401/626. 11 Memo to the Minister for the North-West, 16 July 1942. State Records Office Western Australia: ACC993, 592/43. 12 Elkin to Prime Minister, 2 April 1942. NAA: A659, 1942/1/3043. 13 The Murngin are now called Yolgnu (word for person). Thanks to Nic Peterson for providing this information. 14 For the formation of the unit see Walker 1986. 15 Various in NAA: MP742/1, 145/1/136. Stanner was a fastidious man and conscious of his position in the military hierarchy. The young anthropologist K.E. Read, stationed at Katherine, on one occasion forget to salute him (he was in mufti) and was upbraided by Stanner (K.E. Read personal communication, 15 August 1993). A member of the NAOU recalled that Stanner was ‘very bookish. He had a very English accent, spoke meticulously, and dressed carefully. I remember sharing a cabin with Stanner […] on the train from Melbourne to Sydney. I was struck by the opulence and magnificence of his tailored wardrobe…. His uniform was immaculate and he always wore yellow socks.’ Quoted in Walker 1986: 16. 16 London: Christophers. It was slightly revised and republished in 1972 by Melbourne University Press. 17 The Anglican mission body also produced A new deal for Papua, by G.H. Cranswick and I.W. Shevill (Melbourne: FW Chesire, 1949), which recognized the ‘loyal and courageous assistance given by them [New Guineans] to Australian soldiers during the Japanese invasion’ (p. ix). 18 See Powell 2003. Powell argues that there could have been no New Guinea victory without the immense contribution of New Guineans. 19 See Gray 2001, as well as the contributions from Jane Goodale, Ruth Latukefu (Fink), L.R. Hiatt, Jeremy Beckett and J.A. Barnes in this volume.

A Performance Model and Process for Preserving Digital Records for Long-term Access

The National Archives of Australia, as the archives and records authority for the Government of Australia, has a requirement to ensure that high value digital records created through the business activity of Australian Government agencies are accessible indefinitely. However, indefinite preservation is extremely difficult when dealing with digital records encoded in proprietary data formats.The National Archives of Australia's digital preservation project, which has been underway since late 2000, aims to develop a methodology for preserving digital records so they will remain accessible over time. The National Archives approach is focussed on the centrality of data formats as the key to viable long-term preservation of digital records. To implement the approach the Archives is developing or adopting a range of open data formats in XML which will be used as schema to transform original digital objects into XML data formats, a process we refer to as ‘normalisation’.The first section of the paper provides the context for the NAA digital preservation project. It will discuss the policy approach developed by the National Archives and the performance model adopted. The second half of the paper will describe briefly the preservation process being trialled at the National Archives.

An Open Source Tool for Migrating Digital Records for Long-term Preservation

The National Archives of Australia, as the archives and records authority for the Government of Australia, has a requirement to ensure that high value digital records created through the business activity of Australian Government agencies are accessible indefinitely. However, indefinite preservation is extremely difficult when dealing with digital records encoded in proprietary data formats.Over the last three years the National Archives of Australia has been developing an in-house digital preservation program built around the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and open source software. This approach focuses on archival data formats as the key to ensuring long-term accessibility of ‘born digital’ records. To achieve its preservation objectives the National Archives is developing or adopting a range of open data formats in XML which will be used as schema to transform original digital objects into XML data formats. To support the transformation process the National Archives is developing a software application, known as ‘Xena’, which will carry out the transformation process, which we call ‘normalisation’, and will also be able to render the XML data format into a viewable ‘performance’ of the original digital object, when required by researchers.The paper will describe the software application being developed and tested by the National Archives.

From the Leaders of Our Nation: Prime Ministers' Records at the National Archives

ABSTRACTThe National Archives of Australia holds the papers of many of Australia's Prime Ministers, including Bruce, Lyons, Curtin, Chifley, Holt, Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard. From 2000 it undertook a four-year Prime Ministers' Papers Project to locate the records of all 25 men who have held the position of Prime Minister of Australia. The Australia's Prime Ministers portal website was launched in 2002 and the Archives is also producing a series of guides to the archives of Prime Ministers.

Pacific currents

In the mid‐1950s, interest rate differences between US and British banks, regulatory diversity between these two states and Soviet–US Cold War rivalry started to make third‐party countries and territories increasingly attractive locations for the depositing and trading of US dollars. As the post‐World War II Bretton Woods agreement started to unravel in the 1960s and 1970s, banks, fund managers and wealthy individuals searched for new homes for surplus cash, free from central government regulation. In doing so, a number of small countries and territories began to offer services to attract these funds. The rise of these Eurodollar foreign currency markets was crucial in the transition from fixed to floating exchange rates. This paper situates the emergence of the Vanuatu tax haven within the context of this transition. Drawing from the growing scholarship of ‘the offshore’ along with primary source records held in the National Archives of Australia and those of Westpac Historical Services, it argues that the formation of the New Hebrides tax haven was the result of the interplay between law (particularly English common law) and increasing liquidity in the world's Eurobond money markets. The British party to the condominium was able to script company and fiduciary law to attract tax free funds managed by trust companies, banks and accountants who established offices in the capital, Port Vila, between 1970 and 1973. The influx of these firms triggered transformations in the use of urban space, generating considerable economic growth in the New Hebrides. In doing so the local and the global became intertwined in the making of the Vanuatu tax haven. This paper maps these articulations between global markets and local places.

The Present State and Solutions for Archival Arrangement and Description of National Archives & Records Service of Korea

Archival description in archives has an important role in document control and reference service. Archives has made an effort to do archival description. But we have some differences and problems about a theory and practical processes comparing with advanced countries. The serious difference in a theory is that a function classification, maintenance of an original order, arrangement of multi-level description are not reflected in practical process. they are arranged in shelves after they are arranged by registration order in a unit of a volume like an arrangement of book. In addition, there are problems in history of agency change or control of index. So these can cause inconvenience for users. For improving, in this study we introduced the meaning and importance of arrangement of description, the situation and problem of arrangement of description in The National Archives, and a description guideline in other foreign countries. The next is an example for ISAD(G). This paper has chapter 8, the chapter 1 is introduction, the chapter 2 is the meaning and importance of arrangement of description, excluding the chapter 8 is conclusion we can say like this from the chapter 3 to the chapter 7. In the chapter 3, we explain GOVT we are using now and description element category in situation and problem of arrangement of description in Archives. In the chapter 4, this is about guideline from Archives in U.S.A, England and Australia. 1. Lifecycle Date Requirement Guide from NARA is introduced and of the description field, the way of the description about just one title element is introduced. 2. This is about the guideline of the description from Public Record Office. That name is National Archives Cataloguing Guidelines Introduction. We are saying PROCAT from this guideline and the seven procedure of description. 3. This is about Commomon Record Series from National Archives of Australia. we studied Registration & description procedures for CRS system. In the chapter 5, This is about the example which applied ISAD to. Archives introduce description of documents produced from Appeals Commission in the Ministry of Government Administration. In the chapter 6, 7. These are about the problems we pointed after using ISAD, naming for the document at procedure section in every institution, the lack of description fields category, the sort or classification of the kind or form, the reference or identified number, the absence description rule about the details, function classification, multi-level description, input format, arrangement of book shelf, authority control. The plan for improving are that problems. The best way for arrangement and description in Archives is to examine the standard, guideline, manual from archives in the advanced countries. So we suggested we need many research and study about this in the academic field.

‘I am nearly heartbroken about him’

In 1911, Frances Storey of Paddington wrote to the Prime Minister to plead for his assistance in bringing her son Charles back to Australia. Charles had been living in China for the previous two years with relatives of his father, and now her letters to him were being returned unopened. In 1913, Beatrice Denham of Carlton met with the Secretary of the Department of External Affairs to see whether he could provide help in securing the return of her two children, Alice and Eric. They were living with her late husband's first wife in a village inland from Hong Kong, but she wanted them to come back ‘home’ to Melbourne. Both Beatrice and Frances, suffering the pain of separation from their children, turned to government authorities for help. Using records from the National Archives of Australia, this paper will follow their attempts to be reunited with their children, as they struggled with the difficulties of their cross-cultural lives. Their stories, and others like them, demonstrate that Chinese-Australian intermarriage demanded a complex negotiation between two very different ideas of family.

Establishing a high standard for electronic records management within the Australian public sector

Using as its basis the Australian Records Management Standard (AS 4390 – now superseded by the International Records Management Standard, ISO 15489), the National Archives of Australia (NAA) has developed an extensive range of detailed and practical standards, guidelines, policies and manuals to assist Australian public sector organisations to implement strategies to make and keep full and accurate records. The NAA committed to this course of action in response to evidence of widespread poor record keeping in the Australian Government, the result of changes to work practices in the public sector including the spread of electronic business systems and the devolution of managerial responsibility. This article describes the major components of the “e‐permanence”’ suite of best practice record keeping guidance and discusses implementation strategies pursued by the Archives in support of these products.

Blood money: The duty of care to veterans of UK nuclear weapons tests

Fifty years after the first UK nuclear weapon test at Monte Bello off the north‐west coast of Australia in October 1952, this article documents the deliberate and repeated decisions not to provide adequate radiation protection to most of the 40,000 men who participated in the British programme in the 1950s in Australia and Christmas Island, precisely to avoid future liability claims. The evidence lies in the minutes and memoranda of the scientists, doctors and military leaders overseeing these tests. Archival material in the United Kingdom Public Records Office and the National Archives of Australia is, according to senior barristers, sufficient to sustain an allegation of negligence, even by the standards of 50 years ago, against the government of the day and an allegation of cover‐up by the current government, faced with potentially huge compensation bills and pension pay‐outs for long‐term radiation injury to former servicemen. Recent governments have tried to reassure the veterans with epidemiological studies, which are almost inevitably inconclusive. However, pilot studies have now begun on radiobiological tests that may be able to determine whether a particular individual was irradiated significantly 40 or 50 years ago and whether he has subsequently suffered cancers or other ill health because of this radiation burden. The first results from these studies should be available around the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the first UK test.

Making the Records Speak: Archival Appraisal, Memory, Preservation, and Collecting

Acquisition reappraisal approaches, and a host of other methods, worldviews, and theories have become the persistent topic of archival professional sessions, journal articles, and listserv discussions focused broadly on the nature and purpose of archival appraisal. When I sat down to write this review, the National Archives of Australia was embroiled in a public controversy about plans to reappraise and deaccession some of its holdings;1 the United Kingdom's archives list was discussing the public perception of archivists

Six degrees of separation: Australian metadata initiatives and their relationships with international standards

This paper describes initiatives being pursued by the national archives of Australia regarding the development of metadata standards for online resource discovery and for electronic recordkeeping. the genesis and objectives of these standards are discussed in the context of efforts being made by the Australian government to modernise and overhaul its record-keeping practices in the light of changes wrought through the adoption of desktop computer applications and online service delivery. the standards are also described in the context of broader international metadata and archival descriptive standards initiatives.

Documenting The Business of Government—Archival Issues in the Digital Age

ABSTRACTThis article outlines the state of recordkeeping across the Commonwealth government and the National Archives of Australia s response to it. It describes a range of initiatives developed by the Archives to help agencies improve their management of corporate information in the electronic era, including that subset that constitutes the official ‘federal record’. These initiatives have involved extensive collaboration with other information professionals in the public sector, industry and the academic world.

The Walter Burley Griffin Design Drawings of the City of Canberra. Conservation Work at the National Archives of Australia

Les dessins que Walter Burley Griffin et Marion Mahony Griffin ont deposes en 1912 pour participer au concours relatif a la structure et a l'agencement de la capitale federale australienne font partie aujourd'hui de l'inventaire des Archives Nationales d'Australie. Les croquis sont dessines sur toile de coton et etaient montes a l'origine sur des chevalets comme des tableaux peints a l'huile. Apres le concours ils n'ont pas ete suffisamment bien traites, ce qui a conduit a de graves deteriorations et souillures; a une epoque plus recente un traitement insuffisant de conservation a egalement contribue au mauvais etat actuel des pieces. La restauration qui vient d'etre realisee etait dans ce sens une entreprise extraordinaire du fait qu'elle englobait trois disciplines differentes de conservation: peinture sur toile, textile et papier. Il etait indispensable de proceder selon les regles applicables a ces trois domaines.

Sources on Radar in the National Archives of Australia.

Sources on Radar in the National Archives of Australia.