National Archives of Australia preparing to move 15 million items into new storage facility in Canberra
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Construction of the gigantic $64 million facility is already well underway, and the archives will collect the keys in November with the move to be completed by June next year.
The purpose-built warehouse has been designed to house more than a century of Australian history, including the early documents of Federation and sensitive classified material.
Eight months has been set aside to complete the move, a complex logistical operation.
The new building will house more than 100 kilometres of shelving, along with cold storage facilities - offering cool, cold and sub-zero storage options.
Gavin Edgar from DOMA Group, who will build, operate and own the building, said surprisingly shelving was their biggest cost.
"Overall the project design and construction is about $63-64 million," he said.
"The majority of that is made up of shelves, rather than the normal fit-out you'd have in an office building."
Hundreds of giant concrete slabs have also been trucked up from Adelaide, making up the walls of the building.
Mr Edgar said they will hopefully do most of the work in keeping the documents cool.
"The key thing with the building is that the fabric itself is doing most of the work - rather than just air conditioning running 24/7," he said.
Documents, paintings, parchment among items being stored
Among the items being preserved at the National Archives is a purple jacket and skirt worn by former governor-general Quentin Bryce in her official portrait.
"As well as taking agency records, we do take personal records from significant Australians," senior conservator Clair Murray said.
"Quentin was gracious enough to give this to us, and it's part of our history."
But other items in the archive's collection tell a far darker story, such as records of births, deaths and marriages from Pitcairn Island in the southern Pacific Ocean in the late 19th century - detailing what became of the Bounty mutineers.
Ms Murray said the paper and ink is a direct link with an extraordinary chapter of Australian history and it is not easily preserved.
"It's painstaking," she said.
"We're having to take off old repairs that have been done in the past - perhaps not as sympathetically as we would wish."
But National Archives director-general David Fricker said the move was primarily about helping the institution keep up with the times and digitise their collection.
"We're just running out of space, and also we're getting a bit old here," Mr Fricker said.
"The original building was state-of-the-art when it was first constructed, but that was many decades ago.
"We are in the information business, and the information business is changing radically.
"We need new facilities to enable us to digitise these records, to make that information available and usable to the Australian public.
"These records deserve a state-of-the-art and modern facility."
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