Quoting from PS News, Edition Number 528. Updated Tuesday 1st November 2016. http://www.psnews.com.au/aps/528/news/plan-to-stop-history-becoming-history
Plan to stop history becoming history
The National Archives of Australia has announced a new project to digitise an extensive collection of Australia’s history — the initiative coinciding with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Day for Audio-visual Heritage.
Launching the project, Attorney-General Senator George Brandis (pictured) said it would cover Indigenous customs and language, military actions, speeches from former Prime Ministers and historical television and radio programs, among other things.
Archives to digitise collection
“This project will preserve a significant part of Australia’s twentieth-century history and cultural heritage,” Senator Brandis said.
He said the National Archives contained Australia’s largest collection of audiovisual records on magnetic tape, but with equipment on which to play these tapes becoming increasingly obsolete, the Archives was seeking to digitise the records quickly.
“While the National Archives’ most fragile tapes will be digitised in-house, this $3 million in funding will allow around 20,000 hours of magnetic tape records to be outsourced so that they can be digitised in the quickest and most efficient way,” Senator Brandis said.
“Under this project, and along with its ongoing in-house efforts, the National Archives aims to digitise up to 70 per cent of its collection by 2025.”
He said the Archives was embarking on an important journey to ensure future generations could see and hear for themselves the critical moments that made Australia what it is today.
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