National Archives Director-General, David Fricker
and ANU Chief Librarian, Roxanne Missingham at
the launch of the ANU Archives database.
The Australian National University (ANU) has launched a new archive database that places the national treasures of business, unions and the University online for the first time.
According to Director-General of National Archives of Australia, David Fricker, ANU Archives has almost 20 kilometres of records.
These are now searchable via major search engines such as Google and accessible right from the homepage of the ANU Archives website.
"This is a very exciting day for the ANU Archives," he said.
Among the treasures are copies of letters from New South Wales to the London Office of the Australian Agricultural Company, and copies of letters by Company staff from 1824.
The archives also contain records of the establishment of the first Australian branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers Union, when a group of 26 members held a meeting on board the Frances Walker en route to Sydney on 8 October 1852.
University Archivist, Maggie Shapley said the database provided researchers with a "self-service framework" for accessing the information they were interested in, in a much simpler way.
"Links have been created between the database and the University's repository for digital material, the ANU Digital Collections, so researchers can access archival material online and as they need it," she said.
More than 40 per cent of item lists, or 60,000 items, have so far been entered on the database.
A number of significant items held in the ANU Archives are currently on display in the Treasures of the ANU Archives exhibition in the Menzies Library foyer and Archives Reading Room until 30 September 2014.
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