Records Managers Online Forum 31 October 2023

good morning everyone and welcome to this records managers online Forum uh my

name is Martin Killian I'm the executive director of State records New South Wales and also the director of

collections at museums of History New South Wales and I'd like to take this

opportunity to welcome you all to our October Forum uh it's a bumper number of

people that we're expecting at today's Forum with uh around 250 registrations

uh for the Forum itself I'd like to start the Forum by acknowledging the

traditional owners of the lands on which we're uh all meeting today and pay

respects to Elders past present and emerging for me uh based in the Sydney

CBD that's the gatal people of the eor nation I'd also like to extend uh that

acknowledgement and pay a particular welcome to any First Nations people who are attending the Forum this morning in

particular uh I'd like to welcome uh my colleague ganyang Moran uh gulan yangang

has just joined us as our manager of the First Nations Community Access to

archives project um you'll be hearing more about that in the months and weeks to come uh but um welcome particularly

to you G and yang for this uh Records managers

Forum uh there's a few housekeeping matters uh just to run through before we

get underway uh first of all uh people's cameras and microphones have been uh

disabled uh by us as part of the session to save on bandwidth and to ensure our

presentations run smoothly um so if your camera is on at any stage if you could

please be aware that the Forum um is being recorded uh first of all um and if

you do leave your camera on and and you experience any connection issues um you might like to turn the camera off as uh

first start um to to resolve any issues that you might have um we've also turned

on live captioning uh for information accessibility purposes uh for this

morning's session and as I said the Forum will be recorded um and will be available on the

state records website um and anyone who has registered for the Forum this

morning will receive an email at notifying them that the recording has

been uploaded as with always with our records managers Forum there will be plenty of

time for questions uh throughout the Forum we are asking you uh wherever

possible to use the chat function uh to ask your questions or make any comments

um or provide any feedback we will come to that chat uh at the end of each

session um and we'll deal with any questions and comments at the end of each presenters part of today's records

managers Forum uh we'll also if you raise your hands if you prefer to ask a

question verbally if you raise your hand then we will um turn your camera on um

at that point uh we've got a fairly action-packed uh agenda for today's

Forum uh you can now see that on your screen uh the first is a short section

uh where I'm going to show you our good recordkeeping animation video uh that's

I'll go into more detail on that in a few minutes uh then we have uh a session

on the state of recordkeeping in New South Wales presented by uh my colleague Katherine Robinson uh and that is as a

result of this year's uh recordkeeping monitoring exercise so providing you with an overview of those results then

handing to Christy toiri from museums of History New South Wales to talk about uh

work that has been happening this year uh and that will uh continue next year

in terms of implementing the access and transfer requirements of the State records

act we then have a session uh by Elizabeth hadlo our head conservator um

on the preservation of records and providing you with both some practical tips in terms of preservation of Records

but also um some sort of expectations around uh records and particularly those

records being transferred into the state archives collection um I'll then be handing to

Laura Baldwin the manager of State records for some State records updates

uh and we'll then uh Follow That by a general question and answer session um

and we'll wrap up uh the event uh we will be uh finishing the event by 12:00

at the very latest uh depending on the discussion and the questions that

are asked uh we may finish a little earlier but uh the purpose of the Forum

of course is to have uh good discussion uh and for you to resolve any questions

that you might have so uh don't feel uh constrained in any way uh by any time

restrictions if you've got a question uh please do answer it all right so let's get underway uh

one of the first things that we want to do is to show you um a a new initiative uh from us at

State records New South Wales uh which is the production of an animation video

it's intended to be a short uh 2 to three minute video which provides an

overview of uh recordkeeping and recordkeeping obligations within public

offices uh everything from uh sort of CEO to operational

level and fundamentally it's aimed at uh

really conveying uh in simple uh concise

in a simple and concise way um the importance of good record keeping in public offices um and as I said it's

designed for a wide range of users um so for new staff coming into your public

offices this would be appropriate um for your chief executive uh to uh the um to

exall uh the the um benefits of good record comping this would be a great um

animation video to uh show at for example an all staff meeting um if as a

result of uh the showing you know in a minute or so of the video you'd like to

get a copy of the video for your own purposes please do contact us at State

records it is available on our website and available on YouTube um so you are

also able to stream it live from YouTube uh so without further Ado in a drum roll

uh I'll get us to play the animation video

please working to deliver better programs and services is the commitment

we make to the people of New South Wales every day the New South Wales government

is increasingly delivering Services digitally and therefore requires appropriate organization and storage of

information behind the scenes there is an essential element helping us achieve this good

recordkeeping having a record of all actions events and decisions is crucial for delivering quality services to the

people and communities of our state good recordkeeping is the backbone of good

information governance it empowers us to make data informed decisions to help

manage risk save money and protect citizens rights and entitlements but above all good

recordkeeping ensures transparency for all government policies and decisions

now and into the future once they leave business use records identified as having enduring

value become part of the state archives collection so what does good

recordkeeping look like for public office employees like Wanita it means

making and saving a record of all her work Rel ated activities records can be

in any format and from any Source if one isn't automatically made oneita does so

manually like after conversations or meetings to get better at recordkeeping

oneita can utilize local resources tailored to her organization or speak to

someone from her records management team like Simon who is a records and

information manager they support their organization's records systems to to

ensure that all information is captured accurately to learn more Simon can

subscribe to newsletters or attend forums from State records New South Wales to network with other experts in

their field as a chief executive good recordkeeping systems allow Sabrina to

deliver Better Business outcomes for her organization's customers and stakeholders Saina Works closely with

senior responsible officer Mark and the records and information manager AG M team to ensure all official business is

managed appropriately and that all records are safe Mark ensures records

are only disposed of or destroyed when authorized he completes an annual report

assessing the organization's recordkeeping performance which provides insights into where they can improve

Mark also oversees the transfer of records that have enduring value to the state archives collection to become

better record keepers Mark can access resources and guidance from State records New South Wales as well as draw

on support from his team while Sabrina can receive briefings from State records

New South Wales and attend executive forums to collaborate with other Chief

Executives no matter what our role is in a public office we are all record

Keepers who have a role to play State records New South Wales helps public

officers to develop the capability and expertise to implement and maintain

mature recordkeeping systems to learn more about how to improve your recordkeeping visit state records. newth

wales. goo. right thank you very much for that

um and thank you g for uh the um the comment on that

um I've we've had a question here from David around the useful training

resources on the old website whether they'll be brought over and made available on the new site um data there

is set their commitment on our part to um have training uh and resources and

guidance available to you um in public offices to make sure that you're able to

both do your jobs but also not only your jobs but also to um do your jobs in

terms of advocacy for record keep and recort management in your organization and that includes um potentially

training and um uh awareness of other people uh we're working away currently

uh at uh revising the content of our website um we also have um a strong

preference to update a lot of the training work and have some e-learning modules on our new website um and we've

sort of briefed uh We've scoped that out um and we'll look at uh doing that

resourcing uh you know dependent but we certainly a

commitment to do that so I hope that answers the your question there all right um I'd now like to

introduce Katherine Robinson who uh as many of you all know is uh one of our senior project officers at State records

and Katherine will be presenting on the state of recordkeeping in New South Wales with which is sort of the uh the

summing up of the results of our record keeping monitoring exercise uh which a

large number of you participated in um earlier this year so Katherine over to you thanks Martin um and good morning

everybody um the first slide in my slide deck um provides some background

information particularly for those who aren't familiar with the recordkeeping monitoring exercise so each year State

records New South Wales conducts a monitoring exercise The Authority for this is section 124 of the State records

act which requires each public office to report on its records Management program

to State records New South Wales now the monitoring exercise is your way of meeting this

obligation um as many of you will be aware um the public officers complete an assessment um of their records

Management program using the rmat and then submit this assessment to us um as

assessment outcomes are scored we can provide each public office with an overall score out of five for their

maturity and compliance with the state records act these scores are available now in your organization's assessment

response in the service portal and on behalf of State records New South Wales

I would like to say a big thank you to all the public officers for their cooperation and and participation in

this H's record keeping monitoring exercise so many thanks to the 27 78

public officers that participated well done guys thank you um so State records

New South Wales has pulled together all the results from the monitoring exercise and we've published a new report on the

website the state of recordkeeping in New South Wales it provides an overview

of the monitoring exercise and the aggregate summary results for each question the results can be used to

Benchmark against the rest of the the jurisdiction or the participating public offices um or by public office type and

I'll explain a little bit more about that in a minute um the results and comments from public offices will also

assist us in prioritizing our efforts for assistance and guidance during this upcoming year um and there's the URL if

you haven't already had a chance to have a look at the report okay this year's results provide us with the second year

of data and further understandings about how the jurisdiction of the State records Act is um performing so so that

jurisdiction is the agencies authorities departments local government councils

universities state owned corporations and local Health districts these are all

um public office types um so um the findings that we have

are on the slide here um one of my little green arrows seems to have gone for a little walk to the left um anyway

the findings identify overall that there have been improvements in records management um maturity across the

jurisdiction so we have an increased rate of participation so 278 public

offices up from 247 last year um which is a response rate of 74% up from 65%

last year and I'll note that the part the public offices that didn't participate in the monitoring exercise

have been identified for the first time um these public offices are listed at appendix a of the report the results

identify that 38% of participating public offices are mature in their

records management this means that they're scoring um level three or above

out of five um in their overall maturity score now this is up from 30% last year

so we're seeing the increase in maturity um and overall the maturity

score for the jurisdiction is 2.79 out of five which is up from 2.67 last year

we now have five assessment questions that are above the Baseline compliance of three or sitting at three and above

um and I've listed those questions on the slide for you and the three lowest assessment questions are question eight

on Outsourcing and contracts question n on performance monitoring and question 18 on transfer to the state archives

collection okay so the overall maturity score for each public office the overall

maturity score is 2.7 9 out of five now

this graph actually shows the overall scores by public office type so you'll

be able to see on here what um the rest of your um organiz similar organizations

are achieving so if you're an agency then this year um the agencies scored

2.77 overall so agencies councils and local Health districts have actually improved this year state owned

corporations and universities have had a bit of a correction and a slight decrease we believe that some of the

changes in the overall maturity score could be due to um some reassessment um

and re-evaluation of where an organization is actually sitting on the

levels of maturity and this might reflect this year might reflect a more accurate um result from um organizations

now I should also note that all the graphs that I'm using in this presentation are available in the report

online so so you have access to these graphs straight away um via the

website as you're aware the records management assessment tool can be divided up into three big sections or

topic categories so people in governance systems in business and information management so the 19 questions are

actually allocated into each of these categories so here is the results for this year as you'll see each of the

categories has also increased in its level of maturity um which is a great result to see um and just for those of

you who are dead Keen to see the results for the whole 19 questions there they

are um as you'll see there has been sort of subtle changes so this year is um

shown in dark blue and uh you'll see that there are improvements for most

questions or sort of almost at a similar level to last year so definitely things

are moving up now in the report we've provided information results for each

question of the records management assessment tool the rat on the slide I've included the two different types of

graphs that you'll see in the report so on the left hand side is the graph for

that we use for each question it shows the results of that question you'll see

the overall score right down the bottom for that question what the overall maturity score is um and for question

one this year it was 2.9 and then you'll see the results by

public office types so once again you can Benchmark against how your type of

public office has actually um uh answered this particular question so if

you're a council you can look at the council results if you're a state owned Corporation you can compare yourself with other state-owned corporations and

I'll just call out that the local Health districts um are doing very very well in

this particular area um they're they're the best performing public office type for this question

now um the graph on the right hand side shows how public offices actually

responded to this question so it's completely deidentified but it gives you an understanding of the spread of

results so it shows you how many public officers were scoring one how many were scoring a two how many were scoring

three Etc um you can use this graph also to do benchmarking so you can understand

where your organization is placed in responses and how many other organizations are scoring similar to you

um to your organization so is your organization in the group that's scoring

137 um are you amongst that 137 or are you sitting in one of the other the

other groups um so another process that you can do to Benchmark where you're

actually sitting overall okay from this year State records is also preparing a

scorecard um for each public office that participated in the rec recordkeeping monitoring exercise the scorecard will

provide a snapshot of the assessment results and and provide a comparison with the jurisdiction results the

scorecards will be sent out to the chief executive and the senior responsible officer for each public office and we

hope to start getting those out um before the end of this week okay so what's

next um the next monitoring exercise will be held during March and into early

April next year um so please put those dates in your Diaries um the submissions

like this year will be made via the surface portal um and we will be sending

out Communications to all public offices before the 2024 monitoring exercise

starts so don't worry we will be in contact with you probably at least twice before um it all sort of starts next

year so what can you do to prepare for next year um these are my to top tips

I'd be reviewing this year's assessment and doing some benchmarking against um

other public offices whether it's the same type of public office or the jurisdiction to understand how your

organization is actually performing in relation to others in the jurisdiction um have a look at what work

you've been doing over this year to improve performance um identify that

work and make sure you've got that listed so that you can incorporate that into your assess

for next year um because nothing's worse than not recognizing that you've actually done work this year but you

haven't actually increased your maturity level because you forgot to include something so remember to include this

year's Improvement Works into next year's assessment um you will also be

identifying work that needs to be done to improve gaps in Conformity and maturity um and these items need to be

included into your records management strategy because obviously some of them can't be completed in um one year they

may require additional resources Etc and take more than um 12 months to undertake

but make sure you've updated your records management strategy to include these items and lastly remember to

identify the evidence that supports the level of maturity you have chosen in your assessment this is really important

because that the assessment is an evidence-based assessment process um whilst you're doing it as a self-

assessment exercise there is always the possibility that we could ask you or others could ask you what's the evidence

that actually supports the maturity level that you've actually chosen um what's your basis or justification for

choosing level whatever um so um those are my top tips for getting ready for

next year um now if you have any questions about the recordkeeping

monitoring exercise either this year's or next year feel free to get in contact with us at the email address um and I'm

very happy happy to take any questions that might be out there right thanks very much Katherine

um and uh we've got a couple of comments in the questions um but I'm sure just

while people are warming up their fingers to on their keyboards to ask any questions um I just wanted to publicly

uh acknowledge your efforts and thank you for all of your work um in the repord keeping monitoring exercise um

this isn't an easy exercise for any single agency but um it's a much larger

exercise for a whole jurisdiction uh for us to do and you very much LED that work

um and I do want to publicly thank you for that and I can see a little applauses and um thumbs up uh thanks

everyone on my screen so well done you so thank you very much um couple of comments so shanon has

said uh if you don't identify all high-risk high value records it's very difficult to honestly score a bad or two

um in many of those following questions um and Joe has made a related comment

about um when there's highrisk high value uh Records you produce and enter

data into systems but then you're not responsible for the management of those systems and that falls in another

department and so who's ultimately responsible for the records did you want to comment on both of those um it comes

back to in terms of Joe's question it you'll come back to the business owners so the business owner of the system is

ultimately responsible for the records in the system um because they own the system and that needs to be made clear

through policy and business rules um obviously recordkeeping professionals

need to have an input into that policy and business rule to ensure that obviously everything's covered off as

part of the um formal requirements there but yes part of setting up

responsibility is also um covering off on transparency and visibility of what's

actually happening in those systems so I think it's something that needs to be worked through within each organization

that yes you are responsible for these this is yours um you are the system owner but I need visibility of this in

order to um do this um particular assessment exercise each year I think

that's the straightforward way um in terms of the first question could you

just repeat that for me again in terms of sure so Shannon's as really commenting that if you haven't

identified all your highrisk high value correct um it's very difficult to honestly score over over two um in in

the questions that we like to know yeah and and this relates to the fact that we

have prioritized high-risk high value and the importance of these particular critical records to your organization

but also to the state and um if they haven't been identified then it makes it

very difficult to obviously um put the controls and other management regimes

around those records further down which is why yes the um questionnaire actually

is Prejudice toward or biased I should say um towards having identified all the

highrisk high value right up front so then you can actually do the good things with

it or do the good things to it I should say um as you go along yeah and I guess

it's um I'm sure uh everyone here uh in

this session would be wanting to identify their highrisk high value records um I think Joe's similar to

Joe's comment it's the difficulty of um sort of getting awareness getting uh

being part of the conversation around those high-risk high value records for a number of our colleagues in public

offices and I'd also just po two sents in there about a lot of your highrisk

high value will also have been identified as part of your um cyber security attestation processes

um so um you need to obviously have conversations with your cyber security

team um because you're both working towards a similar goal um obviously they're wanting to protect the

particular assets you need to know what those assets are so that they can obviously be managed from a recordkeeping perspective so um looking

at don't reinvent the wheel keep working together with um a number of groups in your own organizations who are

identifying the same kinds of things yeah the crown Jews y yeah indeed great

any other questions or comments from anyone before we move

on no all right well thanks again so Tony has commented about some

additional guidance from us uh could assist in promoting importance of managing Business Systems data as

records um so yeah absolutely Tony we will take that on board um when we sort

of are continuing to look at uh the guidance um that we are providing uh to

to the jurisdiction for sure and thank you for that suggestion uh for the techies yes indeed all right thanks

again Katherine uh let's move on to our next session uh which is been presented by Christi toiri uh Christie as many of

you already know is our senior advisor in ag services at museums of History New

South Wales Christie has a long history uh with the former State archives and Records Authority having worked with the

state archives collection and uh many of you will know her through her ears in the government records repository uh

chrisy has been uh instrumental in leading uh the implementation of the

access and transfer Provisions uh that will both come into play on the 1st of

January next year um and in particular with the

focus this last uh 12 months during 2023 on the access provisions and

ensuring that there's appropriate arrangements made uh for access to State

records and then we'll move into uh the transfer transfer provision uh

requirements next calendar year so Christie over to you please thank you Martin hello everyone

um okay so we're sort of splitting this part of the presentation just um looking

back at what we've done um in terms of the um changes the transition period

we've had for the changes to the state records act um our Focus this year has

obviously been on the changes to public access to State records because that has been a risk and Records due default to

open on the 1st of January 2024 but there is also the additional

requirement for Trans transfer plans to be submitted so um the majority of our communication this year has been focused

around the changes to Public Access um as you can just see in this timeline here it sort of just lays out um our

approach to this over this calendar year um so the state records Act was amended

on the 31st December 2022 and state Records New South Wales and museums of History New South Wales um both

commenced as separate entities um but the changes talking about don't actually commence until the 1st of January 2024

they did have a deferral period so obviously we spent most of the first half of this year um hosting information

sessions sessions with different public office clusters groups of universities groups of local government networks um

we tried to work our way around to everyone um I think at last count there was 391 public offices across the

jurisdiction so um trying to reach out to everyone um we did have the

presentation of the access Direction tool at the in-person records managers

Forum in March 2023 which I know a lot of you weren't able to attend because it was onsite at Kingswood um there was

email Communications from the Chief Operating Officer out to our senior responsible officers in April reminding

them that the changes were coming and action needed to be taken I did host a couple of live webinars um demonstrating

the access Direction tool that's available on the portal um in May and June and we have got a recorded version

on the website for people to refer to if they're unsure um and then this you know

from the start of this financial year so from July through to September we really have been doing targeted engagement with

outstanding public officers and those with um records where we consider

there's a risk to those records defaulting to open um many of you would have received an email on the 19th of o

October from our director of collections just sort of um reminding you that action needed to be taken um so at the

moment we've actually got a flurry of responses from people and um people

going into the portal and actually renewing and registering new access directions which is fantastic we really

appreciate that so thanks all um for those who have not responded to that email there will be another escalation

email going out mid November so this is just a heads up um and then we have got

the deadline to register access directions on the 8th of December 2023 so that will give us time before

Christmas shutdown to make sure that everything's up to date all the systems have been updated and um nothing

hopefully will inadvertently default to open on the 1st of January 2024 so that's our process so far um but

I know a lot of you have been asking about the new requirement for transfer plans so this second part of this presentation if you could go to the next

slide please Irene okay so I'm actually going to do a demonstration of the

Prototype transfer plan um that we've built in the service portal for you so

I'm just going to share my screen um this is a prototype at the moment because it we are still waiting

for the regulations to commence for the State records act um but this prototype

is available in the portal for people to have a look at have a play with um like I said our Focus for 2023 has

been managing the risk to the changes to public access to State records

um but the this new requirement is going to be our Focus for 2024 so if you're

sort of sitting there worried that you haven't heard much about it and there's this there's this new requirement that you don't really know a lot about um

this is my chance to sort of show you what our thinking is um what we're

asking public offices to do and just show you how to to do that um so I'm in the portal now you should

all be able to see that um I'm logged in as myself as a member of museums of History New South Wales so you can see

here if we go into the transfer plan tab we have got this advisory up here when it went live we were sort of asking for

feedback on the 30 before the 31st of July and thank you for those of you who did some people did provide some useful

feedback um and that submissions won't be required um until 2024 and you don't

need to worry that you need to have it ready on the 1st of January 2024 when um that new requirement does commence um we

actually have the whole calendar year of 2024 for people to submit their transfer plans so the first thing you'll do is go

into create a transfer plan and you'll create a new

one so our first step is um to give it a name we've got these little information

hovers that will sort of indicate what we suggest you call it um it needs to be something something meaningful for

yourselves obviously um in order to avoid my usual spelling disasters I have

copy and pasted one this time which those of you who um have seen

me do presentations know that my typ in on live is not great um start date and

end date um we're just suggesting that you put in the 1 of the 1

2024 through to the 31st of the 12th 2028 um obviously this will change the

transfer plan are expected to be on a 5early cycle so it's not going to be an annual exercise like the records

monitoring exercise is run by State records this is more of a 5year check-in

with us um in line with the regulations being issued for the State records

act description is not mandatory you can put something in if you like um I have

got some text here just to show you what you can put in

so you can sort of just say to us you know this is a point in time and we're going to keep adding to it if you'd like to um or you could make it a description

for yourselves if it's meaningful you hit next um it does ask you who the

authorizing officer is so as usual with everything in the portal you can click and it will bring up all the

contacts so I might select Mr Killian for this one um if that person doesn't

appear as a contact who's already been given access or been used to authoriz something in the portal you can click

this box and put their details in I will just go with Martin for the

moment okay and so then what we're asking is to tell us what records you know that you have that are required to

State archives um I will emphasize this is just for the material that is um

required of State archives and Disposal authorities we have had some people a bit worried that we're asking you to

report on all of your records and what you're planning on doing with them this is just planning for the transfer of

those records that have been um identified as required to State archives in your current disposal

authorities so first up I'm going to do a physical

transfer and it asks you what sort of format the records are so I might say

that this is volumes um an estimated date of transfer

so please indicate an estimated date that they'll be transferred into the state archives collection obviously it can't be in the past we're not asking

your report on activities you've already done um it doesn't have to be an exact date

I've been suggesting to people when they've asked about it maybe an end of financial year or an end of a calendar

year as your target so I might say I want to submit this by 2020

2025 um and that will just give you a Target to aim for and it will give us an idea of um you're thinking of

transferring at that point in time um the current location so you've got a few options third party is

um zero data um brace records management government records repository that sort

of storage facility offsite is if you have a um another storage facility that

you manage yourself or if you've got um an external site for your agency if

you're a local Council and you have records stored in the Depo for example onsite is if it's in your office or a

regional archive Center such as um CSU at wager or um un at armadel I'm going

to say that this is offsite um and the condition so we are

trying to use this tool to get an an idea of what's actually out there at the moment we're very reactive to transfers

into the collection we don't actually have an overview of everything that's required as a state archive and what's in jedan what's with public offices this

is a way for us to actually start to get some of that information and as a result we're also asking for the condition of

the records so we'd rather be given a heads up um if they've been water damaged or moldy if they've been um

infected by silverfish or eaten by mice during mice plagues um if the conditions overall

good vinegar syndrome applies to AV record sets um I'm going to say that um

this one is just other damage and then the physical meter quantity the

physical quantity is just in meterage um we toyed with the idea of asking for tell us how many boxes you got um but we

realized that everybody has different boxes that they use so we just decided to land on a estimate of shelves and

none of this is set in stone this is just an estimate for us so um so an

estimate for that is fine so I might just say that I've got

um two shelves worth of this and then a description it's a broad description of

the records the information little hover here um tell us the Disposal Authority

in class if you know them but we acknowledge that not everybody has um the same level of Records maturity or

knowledge as others so um if you've got records but you don't actually know what the disposal class is that's fine

um but if you do know it please include it um so I have a example I prepared

earlier okay so I'm going to say that I'm planning on transferring the accession registers um for material

coming to the state archives collection that ran from the the set that comes from 1976 to 1989 and the disposal class

there okay if you hit submit it's going to start your plan but you can actually

hit the add button and continue to add more lines so I'm going to add another line and you can see it it's appeared

down here in this instance I'm going to select a digital record set um and it

gives you a bit of a description about the different digital formats I'm going to select that I've

got um records in an electronic records management system um you'll notice here and I

didn't call that out before but there is a little box we've got here saying no intention to transfer now you might have

material that's required as state archives that you're still actively referring to you might have material

where you maintain your own collection and you are not um planning on

transferring it into the state archives collection proper um or you might actually know you've got State

archives you want to transfer them one day but you actually are not planning on doing it in this 5year cycle we have got

this box here so you can click no intention to transfer and you'll see that that date box disappears for

you um current location we still would be interested in knowing what records you

do have at State archives even if if you have no intention to transfer so this is part of that information gathering that

we're keen to do in this first round of the transfer plans

um so it asks you for the different locations or where that digital record material is currently stored have you

got it saved on hard dri Hardware such as on a USB or a um hard drive or on CD

ROMs um is it on your local network drive somewhere is it stored with New South Wales gov DC and we've been asked

about that so some people aren't aware the gov DC is the New South Wales government data center that does provide

storage for government in New South Wales or have you got it stored um offsite or in cloud storage with AWS or

something like that um I'm going to say that the location of this is currently with Gob

DC the condition of these records is I'm going to say that these are currently in use hence the reason I have no intention

to transfer them at the moment um but we do know the other option is Legacy systems so a lot of you are holding on

to Old Legacy systems um digital quantity in gigabytes again we've just got the information just an

estimate of the size of the gigabytes so I might say 6

gab and then a description of the records again so let me just get the example I

prepared earlier with no typos in

it okay so this is our CM files relating to the approval to transfer material

into the state archives collection from 2000 to 2010 and I've got the disposal class there so you can keep going in and

adding lines as you go I'm going to submit this plan now just to show you what

happens okay so the transfer plan been submitted now if I go back to home and

if I go back into transfer plans you'll see that it appears

here as this is the transfer plan when you open it up you have got a

couple more things that you can do um it gives you a summary of you're planning on transferring zero gigabytes of

material at the moment and you're planning on transferring two um meters of physical records at the

moment by you I mean us at museums of History um Martin's the authorizing

officer on the contact who's gone in to put them information in you can click and drag or upload a file if you've had

a um conservation report done or if you've done conservation work on some of your records in your oh they look a bit

they look a bit dirty but we know that they they've been remediated you can upload that for us um you can provide us

a list if you'd like to if you've had a consultant come in and do an assessment of your records Holdings and identified

the archives you could also applied that as well I would just hesitate to say that that doesn't automatically create the line items in the system but feel

free to provide whatever information you would like to us um and you can see down

here that these lines have appeared um so we've got the physical digital you

can click on them and you can actually go and edit

them so you might say for example I'm planning on transferring um the volumes

but I actually found there's another shelf so I'm just going to change that to three

mes that will update the system um and unlike the monitoring exercise this is

actually a system you can log in and out of and update as you go so it's actually

in your control the other thing you can do is you could go in and you could actually say actually I had planned to

transfer this in 20125 you could change the date or you could say actually I've

canceled it it's I've got I'm not going to transfer it now my budget fell through the floor and the great things I

had planned to do with these archives for this Financial year are not going to happen now so you can also do that I

won't save that one um but yeah so that's the sort of thing you can do with that click here and it

will take you back to the transfer plan and then you can also add new items

so you can either do it from this button here which will open up the form or you

can go back into here and you can add a line to it so you

just have to search up your transfer plan

and again it opened up the lines items for you so you can continue to add to it as you discover material I've been at

pains to say to people don't please don't see this as something to panic about um I don't know what we've got and

I need to pull our resources off to actually go and investigate all of my Holdings we just would appreciate for

you to tell us what you know in this first round um obviously it will evolve as we go um but any information you can

share with us about um the state archives that you hold and your plans for transferring them to the collection

obviously the our the monitoring exercise question 18 is about the transfer of State archives into the

state archives collection um this will just hopefully support that

um in terms of bringing it more to people's front of mind I know we all

know that archives are important but sometimes they do get lost in the business of day-to-day um so hopefully

having this new requirement as a once a 5e exercise will sort of help you to

assess what you've got and sort of start to plan for the transfer of material into the state archives collection where

we are equipped to provide access to the material we're equipped to preserve the material as well for the citizens of New

South Wales into the future so I will stop sharing my screen and I suppose

it's time for question answers or comments now Martin sure all right thank you Christie and again while uh I just

review the various questions and comments that we've and uh it would be remiss of me not to also thank you for

all of your efforts over the last year in terms of introducing um and uh

gaining compliance with the new access Provisions particularly uh that come into place on the 1st of January this

year it's been a a massive effort um from you and your team so thank you uh

on behalf of us all uh for all of that work uh which will obviously continue

into next year as well so more you half there more you do the more you get to do

exactly um I just want to reflect uh first of all before we come to uh your

section there are a couple of questions about uh contact offices that we have um

on our records and a couple of agencies who in relation to uh the record keeping

monitoring exercise but also around the escalation here that uh people here

didn't um have their contact we didn't appear to have our contact details and

that there's been changes of staff and so on yeah um certainly from the STA records perspective um if you can update

us with any details of change staff or Senor responsible officers there's an email address that's been put into the

chat the go record State records um email address for you to record any changes there um similarly a comment

that uh our communication may have gone to senior people within an agency but not necessarily

um to the records manager who is online here today um if you need uh more people

added to the contacts that we have for your agency also please contact us yeah

so just to clear that up before we we go to you so uh chrisy couple of things so

is there a user guide uh in terms of a transfer plan that uh people can access

yet on creating and submitting a transfer plan so sort of that no not yet so so yeah like I said our Focus we're a

very small team um there's three of us um and our Focus this year has been on the access Direction requirements so

that is on the schedule for in the new year but at the moment yeah until until

we roll around to the Christmas shutdown our Focus has still been very much on um

the access Direction piece and as well we are still waiting for those regulations to actually commence as well

so yeah yeah so in terms of the timing of that the provisions of the commence

on the 1st of January um the regulation is currently uh being drafted um and

we're certainly hoping for as early as possible in the new calendar year that that regulation will come into Force um

that is a matter for us to advocate for that but also ultimately and that if the government as to when that regulation

commences so we'll keep people updated on this um just before you came to that

part of the presentation Cari had asked about uh whether the transfer plan includes digital transfers and just to

reinforce with people yes it does Absolut as you as you subsequently demonstrated so yeah that is good um and

while on that vein couple of questions Cy has asked about uh in respect of um

for digital records that are that are accumulating on an ongoing basis with no end date uh what's our position in terms

of big frequency for people to spend the information at a point in time um so I

suppose it depends on if the records are just constantly being created if you're

talking about something like Council minutes that are being created digitally and you know it happens you know

frequently um it would be same as a physical Consignment it would be when you're already when you have enough to

actually decide actually we want to we want to get these transferred across we know that they're going to be preserved in the collection um it doesn't need to

be all of them it could be part of them um we don't dictate frequency in that

respect um but we have had some councils who have done it once a quarter for example transferred their digital um

minute books to us um and we do also have some um public officers who have

transferred um some of their administrative correspondence files to us on a annual basis as well that's not

as common um but yeah I suppose it depends on whatever would work from your

individual officers end um we're happy to accommodate that and work with you yeah okay great um Maran has asked about

records that are currently stored at the regional archive centers um and whether they can stay where they are so if

they're in the state archives collection already and they're at the regional archives Center yes they stay where they are um we have had some um people sort

of so there's a difference between the regional archive Centers do actually maintain their own collections as well so often the University ities has um a

collection of their own archives and Archives of the local community um and

some of the collection is also records that have been transferred into the state archives collection and they are

sort of holding um storing and providing access to that part of the collection um

there is no plan to move that up to Sydney so that's not an that's not an issue great all right I'll try and get

around as many people's questions as possible um Katherine's asked about um if an agency holds both hard copy

records and a digital copy of them do we do museums of History want both and do they list them twice in the transfer

plan so if it's a if you've digitized the records if you've got a physical record set and you've got a digital copy

of them um then no you only need to list them once um we would take an access copy um to promote access and to

preserve the original if you're willing to give it to us you don't have to um but we have taken some digital digiti

versions of physical record sets at the same time as the physical record set so yes you can definitely approach us about

that yeah okay great um Alex has asked about if people have digital files to

transfer to Big archives uh which are not State archives just long-term and no longer being access should we fill out a

transfer plan so Alex the transfer plan is only relates to those records that

have been identified as being required as state archives yeah long ter uh

Records um that eventually will be disposed of um are not um required to be

a part of the transfer plan it is only from matal that's required as state archives and we do also find in the

digital space sometimes the terminology is confusing because you do your archiving so which is putting into deep

storage at times where you don't look at it anymore and it's just been stored that doesn't necessarily mean it's required as a state archive and needs to

be transferred to us so yeah Martin's correct we're only interested in you telling about the material that you know is required as a state archive yeah um

there's also a question about whether the use of open guard data nssw is sufficient in terms of

transfer so open goov is actually going to be decommissioned it's going to I

believe go to um data New South Wales just as a stored no longer active system

um if you've got material that is required as a state archive such as your annual reports um you can contact our

team to organize for the transfer of that digital item to us so yeah gov D um

not go DC open go um is no longer active it's sort of run its course and it's

sort of almost at the verge of falling over so yeah great all right um Robert

has asked about a list of Consultants who might help with identifying state iives or a list of contractors yeah we

usually refer people to State records for that sort of advice we don't recommend people State records don't recommend people either um but I'm not

sure Martin to State records maintain a list of you know agencies who could provide those sort of services I mean

there's obviously the government records repository inous with museums of History which a lot of you know about but there are other external recordkeeping um yeah

Consultants so State records does not um you know we don't want to be getting into the business of you know

recommending individual Consultants um which of course change over time so we don't um have a list of or recommend

particular Consultants yeah um for that work um Robin I I think that's probably

a question um to ask sort of colleagues um uh who may have used Consultants um

in other agencies um in terms of you know their satisfaction or otherwise with that work um and possibly in that

way you can get uh get to uh that someone who may be able to assist with you um there's also of course the

organizations um such as rper um or the Australian Society of archists who hold

um lists of Consultants um from time to time so you should be able to do that um

chrisy we're going to try and get through a few more questions are quite a few um so's asked about whether if uh

they enter transfer plans in the Prototype MH uh will they the copied across when the Prototype goes live so

re first of all 10 points or starting already that's a great that's yes I have

actually had to tell some people you don't need to do it yet I've had some I've had some people raring to go um

listen if you've already done one in the Prototype and you don't think it's going to change obviously we're still waiting

for the regulations to be issued so we're not it's not 100% guarantee that the Prototype is going to remain the

same we're pretty confident is we don't think it's going to change um but but I have been saying to people just in case

just hold off until the regulations have been issued but if the regulations get issued if you have submitted and you're

happy with what you've submitted then yes we could just convert that across so we're not going to make you do it twice

um yeah I know some people have been in there and already started so there are

some eager beavers out there yeah which is great

um okay let's keep a couple of more questions and we're not going to be able to get to all of these questions or

comments my apologies um to people um can you add sensitivity markers to the

records um you know if the material is protected or official um given that

protected records might require sort of more specific protection or storage so for the transfer plans we

don't need to know that information that would be managed by your access Direction once you actually at the point of transfer into the state AR IES

collection if you're worried about us having information about a sensitive record set um by all means you could put

that in the description and just sort of say you know this is a sensitive record set we don't want information about it

shared widely that we hold this information but in terms of the transfer plan you don't need to do that in terms

of the transfer that would be managed by you registering and closed to Public Access direction for the material if it

wasn't available to members of the public if it needed to be closed and that's at the point of actual transfer

that's when you're actually doing the transfer and I would also I also want to add I meant to say

it before but I forgot I didn't write the note so went out of my head um please don't think that you can't

transfer because you need to put something on your transfer plan transfer is continuing as usual um and just

because you put it on your transfer plan and say I'm going to transfer this in you know the 25 26 Financial year but if

something changes by all means transfer to us the transfer plan doesn't actually dictate um your ability to transfer to

us so you can still continue to transfer um yeah yeah I don't know what else add

to that but yes yeah okay um I might just do one last question and what I

would ask is that if our colleagues um either State records or museums of History could go in and look at the chat

yeah um and respond to other people's questions um in the in the interest of time so if you wouldn't mind doing that

as well um so Monica final question is Monica was asked are there costs

associated with transferring and storage no there's not so if you're transferring material into the state archives

collection um the only cost you will bear is we might specify um and this

probably nicely Segways into Elizabeth segment actually we might specify that um certain packaging is required for the

material to stabilize it um obviously you internally in your office will need

to do um the listing and if you're in a regional office you'll need to organize the transportation of the records to

either a regional archive Center or to Sydney um but in terms of inest taking

them into the collection no there are no storage costs I know in the past people have been confused by the idea of

sending them to Kingswood because the government records repository and the state archives collection are collocated

on the same site um if you're sending records if you if you're archiving your records and sending them to kingsw into

the grr then yes you do pay for storage because you still control those records if you're transferring them into the

state archives collection you still maintain control over the access but we actually take responsibility for their

preservation and the provision of public access to those records when appropriate so there are no costs for that so all

right thank you um so we will um leave it there for that session but as I said

uh for both museums of History us bi and state record staff who are online if you

could go into the chat um and respond to the various other questions and comments um that people have made through that so

thank you very much uh Christy um that's been a very thought-provoking and chat

provoking uh session of course um I'd now like to introduce Elizabeth cadow uh

who's our senior advisor conservation at museums of History New South Wales um

Elizabeth Lee's a team that provides support and guidance um to public

officers to preserve iives still in their custody um but uh the vast majority of that team's um fine is

devoted to assessing and mitigating risks um and doing physical repair and

restoration of material in the state archives um collection so Elizabeth over

to you uh for preservation of Records thank you Martin uh wary uh

hello I'm presenting from darland today and I'd like to to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land uh Irene

can you move to my first slide please okay so uh I guess I am segueing

uh from the first couple of presentations today um I'll be talking

pretty much entirely about the preservation of physical formats So

Physical records not digital records so I just wanted to make that clear right from the get because um recognized that

there has been some questions about um digital records already

so for us um essentially the control and the understanding of your records and

what might subsequently become State archives is absolutely Paramount um it

underpins everything else as far as preservation is concerned so preservation requires that we understand

the physical materiality if you like of the records and the archives that we

care for and what those materials need uh for their long-term preservation to

remain stable and safe as part of that obviously we then need to know what we

have what materials do we hold um where are those materials stored those types

of things the most common material obviously that your records may be made

from uh historically is paper um but that's in fact one of the easiest uh

record formats to care for on the whole but there are some uh caveats to say

about that um some of the other records that you might hold and are referring to

the the high-risk records that have already been mentioned in previous presentations a high-risk record um from

my point of view would be audio visual formats such as acetate film um magnetic

um audio visual um video um audio cassettes those sorts of things

obviously books that contain leather and cloth um parchment and glass you might

have all of those things you might only have paper records but understanding exactly what you do have is going to be

Paramount in the way that you respond to their uh

care obviously um from my point of view as far as the transfer of archives is

concerned I'm dealing with the uh preservation of um those things that

we're keeping in perpetuity but you should consider

um records required for long-term retention um what in in relation to some

you know a lot of what I'm going to be saying today so where you keep things is very

very important storage um is the as alongside of the material that you're

keeping is very very important um as to how long something is going to last um

and I'll be talking about that in a little bit more detail in a moment so good quality paper stored well will

last Almost indefinitely I wouldn't say permanent you know indefinitely but almost

indefinitely um there are obviously some instances where paper uh formats are

more vulnerable so thermal papers is a good example of this and if you've got mixed records you have to you know you

have to think about those sorts of things and um make Provisions for perhaps copying the thermal papers onto

a better quality um photoc copy for example that would be one way of dealing with

that the interaction between materials needs to be considered so if you have

maps and plans that are printed on um highly acidic papers you would identify

those perhaps by the fact that they become discolored uh they might um be

causing discoloration of the maps or plans or records that are adjacent to them um those sorts of identifiers will

help you determine you know whether or not something is a more high-risk format um than something that's more

stable in terms of the audio visual records um where actually probably just

to give you a heads up we're going to be um trying to get more information from public offices about audiovisual records

that might still be out there um and not already transferred to us in terms of

risk um and levels of deterioration the sorts of things that you might find in your record sets would be uh the smell

of acetic acid sometimes referred to as vinegar syndrome um video and audio

cassettes and so forth might be delaminating magnetic tapes um are becoming either

inaccessible due to their own inherent um instability or also because of obsolescence so these sorts of high-

risk records we're very interested to know if you have them um and um and we

would like to assist as best we can in their long-term preservation if they're considered um permanent State archives

you might also have some other unusual formats um from older record sets like

parch and Architectural plans drafting linen and those sorts of things if they're stored well they will remain in good

condition so what do we consider the most

problematic things in terms of um record um permanence or the storage essentially

we want to keep them out of environments where there's high temperatures because that increases uh chemical interaction

uh chemical deg degradation high humidity does the same but also has the added problem of possibly inducing mold

growth so please you know consider um keeping your records in a dry

environment light is problematic from the point of view of fading but also it

does promote uh chemical degradation it's a bit similar to us

going out in the sun if you like so we don't like UV light and neither do any of the r that we keep pollutants and the

sorts of pollutants that I'd be thinking about here might come from your storage um Furniture so try and avoid wood try

and store on metal those sorts of things um mold is obviously a a problematic um

thing for paper but it also eats away at nearly every other

organic material so you need to be aware of um the risks around mold obviously

after disasters mold will grow very quickly so if you do know that you've you know if there's been high rain

incidents in your area um that you might have had a leak or you know you get

notified of any kind of problem about water in your storage areas please look at them as soon as you possibly can

because fast response is usually going to be your best bet in terms of preventing further damage and certainly

the growth of mold uh pests like you know cockroaches rodents insects and so

forth are also um highly problematic in terms of um how you best keep all of

those things away from your records so what do I consider to be a good

environment so it should be cool it should be stable uh clean dark and dry so the

temperature for paper um is Best Kept around 20° and about uh 45 to 50%

relative humidity when you're thinking about storage areas for either long-term

records retention or anything that's considered a state archive you really should be thinking about those

conditions and incorporating those into for example any

um contracts that you have with external service providers you find out what you know how they're going to be storing

your records and Ensure as much as you possibly can that they're going to be

keeping them in the you know the the best environment um some people I know need

to keep their records close to them and that might be in um office spaces obviously if you can run your air

conditioning uh 247 that's the best possible outcome if you can't just be

mindful of trying to even out um variations in the temperature and

relative humidity and keeping the light away from your record sets as as well so if you have to keep lights on in the

areas that you store records then consider boxing um the sorts of shelves or plan cabinets Etc that might reduce

the amount of light that's hitting the um the archives uh while they're being stored

cleanliness as they say is close to Godliness and that is definitely something that um I would promote very

well in terms of uh good record management and um archive management

practice is reduces risks in terms of pests mold um handling wear and tear you

know really a high range of um of of

problems if you can as well as um monitoring for pests yourself within any

uh storage areas that you have control over if you do send things out into um

an external provider please try and include you know those sorts of monitoring systems Within

um your contracts and think about ways that water can get into your storage

areas um we want to try and reduce that as much as possible so obviously buildings with good roofs Etc

but also you know are there any pipes and that type of thing going through your storage

area so one of the biggest problems I would say for

many public offices is when they experience a mold outbreak um in the

first instance I would say that um you

are very welcome to contact uh us at in the preservation Services area at

museums of History New South Wales we would um like to give you advice where we

can in the first instance in terms of response isolate your records where you

can that might mean closing the storage area or or it might mean wrapping records or Andor boxes you in plastic

and setting them aside until they can be dealt with my advice is to have the

items tested by um a professional that could be um a

disaster remediation company associated with environmental hygienists or it could just be an environmental hygienist

or myologist so that you understand exactly what you're dealing with how contaminated are the records what's

level of risk what type of mold do you have you know how does that affect people and then you can make better uh

plans as far as cleaning remediation it might not just be the records either you

might need if you've got unfortunately a large outbreak it might mean the storage area and the HVAC system also need to be

tested and remediated so um as I said we have had

need to um advise public officers on the response to mold so uh if you do have

that sort of problem please do get in contact with us we're very happy to assist where you know where we

can with advice I hasten to add we won't come and clean them for [Laughter]

you um so as uh the theme of the day I think is

that um control leading to sentencing and the transfer of

um records considered as state archives really does solve a lot of the the

issues the challenges that you might face um as far as your you know your older record sets or those that are out

of um current use so going back to the first slide and all the questions that I

asked about control there and the sorts of environment that we desire to keep uh

permanent archives in it really does solve all of those problems there is as

christe said no ongoing cost to you there may be a small cost involved in the trans you know in preparing records

for transfer but on the whole we really do try and minimize those costs to

agencies and um Our advice is targeted around that

outcome that the you know the lowest cost um and the most efficient and

effective trans for processes we can possibly

manage before you transfer though there are a few things that I would um mention

and Christie has already um mentioned a little bit about what is acceptable for

transfer and what is not so obviously um we can't take on Legacy problems that

may have been generated um with at the public office um during the use of of

the arch of the record and archive um and that's one of the reasons why the transfer tool has been um that

planning tool has been set up with the question what condition is your are your Rec or your archives in we though really

Target um or or Orient our um

preparation of archives to what is necessary for Safe Handling and access

and so as you can see on this slide um for a book the top um

right picture for a book that has quite you know a high level of physical damage

around the structure The Sewing and that sort of thing we wouldn't require you to reso that and we wouldn't necessarily

require a high level of physical repair either on the pages wrapping it in and

then um putting protective boards particularly if the covers are heavily damaged or they might be completely

removed is what we would um require prior to transfer so it's essentially

making it um easy for us to store it and safe for us to store it and then provide

um any access through the reading room we wouldn't require you to yeah to go to

a high level of uh Remediation in that instance mold is one thing that we would

absolutely require remediation of prior to transfer and if you think that you

have any mold issues on your records please get in contact with us so that we can work through how we can um best

solve that problem um and I'll just I did jot down

some notes as the other people were speaking in case there was some Segways um ah so just going to some

recent transfers that we have had um where I know we all experience uh

changes in Staffing and email addresses and and so forth have um been mentioned as part of that discussion today so

sometimes you might be the receiver or dealing with the transfer of uh Records that you didn't deal with directly in

your um you know Daily Business role if you are transferring them and

they're wrapped or that you know you can't actually see the the physical record itself please do unwrap to have a

look at what's inside the wrapper before you tick the box it's um a lot can be hidden by rappers and um we would really

ask people to be diligent around um yeah around ticking the box after they've

really thoroughly checked the condition of the records prior to transfer uh and that's it from me though

I am very happy to answer uh questions Elizabeth thank you very much

for that session um and for your as always um highly professional highly

expert advice and yet L with a level of pragmatism that I know this audience

will very much of appreciated so thank you so much for that that presentation

um David David has asked a question um and thank you David I can see that

you've been actively asking questions I think this is the first time that I've been able to get to one of yours um and

it's about our all favourite Elizabeth acetate films uh and whether deterioration can

be arrested if acetate films are moved to more optimal storage

conditions yes so David thanks for that question uh the short answer is yes but

the optimal storing storage conditions that are required

for the yeah the arresting of deterioration is really Subzero so um

lower than zero storage and very low humidity as well so the next step up

from that would be uh storing it around 6° um and that is used

by a number of public officers and um we use that temperature as well because if

you haven't been able to separate your formats out um so a lot of officers

might have taken cinematic film they might have acetate still negatives they might have uh video and audio and quite

often those collections do get intermingled and if you can't separate them um accurate you know with certainty

then um you shouldn't store them at um Sub-Zero because the video and other

magnetic formats really don't like it so um but to arrest completely acetate or

vinegar syndrome yes you need to go Sub-Zero and that will keep it almost in stasis if you like uh but I would also

say that copying digitization is probably um the other very important

aspect of um audiovisual preservation overall

because um ultimately it is a very unstable format and um it will need to

be moved across onto yeah a more stable and at the moment that's a digital

format great I hope that was a yeah yeah yeah that's great um couple of questions

kind of around suppliers and sort of um outside conservators um and noting that

we've uh previously answered a question around whether we recommend particular record management consultants and so on

um so the two questions around whether we have a specific supplier of paper um

and whether we have a published or official list of outside conservatives um we don't have a

published official list of outside conservators but I um refer people to

the aicm I can put that in the chat in a moment but it's the Australian y

Australian Institute for the conservation of cultural materials so essentially the professional body for

conservatives within Australia and um they have uh finded a conservator um tab

on their website and you can put in the type of you know materials that you need

conserved and they will provide a list of those working in all the various

parts of Australia as far as a suppliers list again we don't particularly like to

recommend there are a number of suppliers in um that do archival quality materials

um one's BAS Bas in Melbourne I might what I might do is put a couple of options into the chat um again so that

it gives you a few different um options but admittedly it's a small commercial

sector so there's not too many of them to choose from yeah yeah indeed and do

the aiccm website have that detail on it as well of sort of suppliers of specific

material or just the Consultants just the Consultants yeah

yeah but if yeah if you have if anybody does have par you know a particular conundrum

that they or you know seeking um a certain type of material do get in touch

with us because um we're more than happy to kind of um point you in the right direction um and again I'll put um our

general email into the chat yeah okay great um I think uh We've answered all

of the questions or comments um in relation to to your section so thank you so much uh for that presentation as I

said um given given the uh workload that you have it's a never ending piece of stream

uh that your area has to deal with um so to devote your time to this session but

also provide us with that practical guidance is much appreciated so thank you Elizabeth no

worries all right and we're ready for our next session uh which is to be presented by Laura Baldwin uh Laura is

uh the manager of State records New South Wales and Laura will provide us with some updates from State records

over to you Laura thank you Martin um okay so the first update that I wanted to share with

you is around the building the archives policy so building the archives is a

current policy of State records New South Wales for records appraisal and the identification of State archives the

the policy provides transparency in how State records are identified as being of enduring value and therefore required as

part of the state archives collection the policy was first published in 2001 so it's over 20 years

old now and hasn't been reviewed in detail since that time given the age of the policy and the fairly recent

separation between State records New South Wales and the state archives collection which of course is managed by

museums of History we decided that it was timely to do a review

so hopefully a lot of this is already familiar to most of you because earlier this year we actually sought feedback on

the existing policy from public offices related professional associations other

jurisdictions community groups with special interest in the policy and the state archives collection users of the

collection historians academics museums of history and state Records New South Wales employees so a lot of different

people we received 185 submissions from across these groups and I'd really like

to sincerely thank everyone who did take the time to provide feedback it's been really helpful with the high number of

submissions and the diversity of the respondents We've Got Confidence that the feedback we received is

representative of our key stakeholders we've collated the feedback received and that's now reflected in a

report which is available on our website we also took the comments received and the findings from that report combined

with a review of policy of other jurisdictions to develop a draft policy and this draft policy has been out for

consultation since the 4th of October with today actually being the last day to provide feedback so please send

through any comments if you haven't already I would just like to briefly talk through some of the feedback we

received though on the first round of consultation so overall the feedback we

received on the current policy was actually really positive most respondents reported that they found the

ex existing objectives that guide the identification of State archives to still be sound and there's a list of the common

comments we received on the screen now which I'm just going to work through and provide a little bit of extra

detail so we received comments that some types of public offices didn't feel represented in the language and the

examples used and that especially came from universities and local government um so obviously that was an opportunity

for us to just refine the language and we noticed that it was was a little bit more representative of agencies and

departments so we've been able to tweak that there were actually multiple calls for First Nations peoples to be

explicitly recognized in the policy either through a specific objective or just through clearer inclusion in the

existing objective so explicit mention in examples and that sort of thing um and whilst first nation's peoples were

definitely the most commonly um drawn out in the feedback there were similar

comments also around some other groups as well we received feedback that

objectives one and two in the current policy which are about Government powers and the use of those powers in

developing whole of government policy and decisions were too similar and so should probably be

combined some comments also just found the language of the policy to be too technical or government speak so members

of the public so members of the public in particular were unable to fully understand what the policy was actually

saying some respondents wanted the relationship between records and people to be made

clearer being more personalized in the language that we used and just emphasizing that the records in the

collection are about real people and that's such a valid point that people brought out there were also multiple comments

about the subjective nature of some of the language used in the policy one of the key words that was criticized was

the use the word significant so we've worked to incorporate this feedback received to to

develop a draft policy for further consultation which is the policy that's out now one of the key changes that

we've made is actually limiting the scope of the policy to be singularly about the identification of State

archives so if you remember the current policy is about both the identification of State archives and about records

appraisal so if carried through the intention would be to later develop a separate policy on appraisal and

disposal in the draft policy we've also combined current objectives one and two

which I mentioned previously had been um considered very similar and then subsequently renumbered the rest of the

document and we've also added a new objective three again with subsequent uh

consequential ruming which more explicitly calls out records showing an impact on an

individual another significant change that we've made is explicitly acknowledging the records of First

Nations peoples both in a state statement in the policy and also uh

creating uh referencing specific examples of Records related to First Nations people as well at this stage

we've chosen not to create an additional objective in the draft policy to avoid duplication but really happy to hear any

feedback on that decision as well again this is a consultation draft so feedback is really what we're

after so again I'll encourage anyone with feedback on the draft policy please

it through ideally today um to governance at state records.

nw. or any other state records email address that's fine it will still come through to me um and that's all I wanted

to say on building the archives so now I'm just going to move on to a quick update on our work around the disposal

regulation program so another significant piece of

work that State records New South Wales does um is authorizing the destruction of of State records through retention

and Disposal authorities and I'm sure that that's an aspect of our work that you're all very familiar with we're

currently working towards revising all retention and Disposal authorities that are more than 10 years old in

collaboration with public officers to ensure that all authorities remain relevant and we also develop new

authorities as required to cover new agencies or functions so everyone should have

received a notification on the draft retention and Disposal Authority for identification verification records

which went out a few weeks back the new proposed draft Authority which reflects

um actually reflects advice that we've previously provided on our website and is still available on our website about

not being required to hold on to either Originals or copies of documents provided specifically for identification

identity verification in most instances um consultation for this draft Authority

is actually now finished finished uh and we're working through the feedback provided so I just wanted to again thank

people who've taken a time to submit a response to that request for feedback another draft Authority that's

currently out for consultation is that for the records of local government and I'm going to talk more to that on the

next slide we've also recently had three authorities approved by our board which

are um relating to the management of crown lands the Supreme Court of New South Wales and major infrastructure

projects for infrastructure New South Wales and they're going to be published on our website shortly if you're ever

not sure whether your agency has disposal coverage please check the retention and Disposal authorities page

of the state Records New South Wales website which has a link to a spreadsheet that lists public offices

and their current coverage and you can also of course email us at G um at State

records uh and we'll be able to point you in the right direction for that as well so as I mentioned we currently have

an exposure draft retention and Disposal Authority for government sorry for local government records available on our

website for comment and the reason I want to draw your attention to this Authority specifically is that it uh

directly impacts a large proportion of public offices and it's also quite a significant change to the current

g39 so I would really encourage anyone here who currently Works in a council uh

to review the draft and please send through any feedback whether you're in favor of the changes or not it can be as

simple as that looks good or no that looks too difficult or you're obviously welcome to give more specific um

feedback on the changes as well but I just wanted to flag a couple of the key changes that we've

made so the first thing you'll notice if you look at the document is a significant reduction in the number of

entries we've gone from 928 to 118 entries largely as a result

of removing the entries relating to Common administrative functions because they're already included in g28 which

councils are already authorized to use the authorities also been reduced to a two-level structure instead of its

current three-level structure and there'll also be no requirement to retain all pre 1920s

records of State archives some of them may still need to be retained but you can now um assess them in accordance

with the Disposal Authority rather than a blanket everything pre-1920 is being required as a state

archive and given the really significant proposed changes consultation for this Authority is going to be open until the

15th of December so again if this is relevant to you please do read through

it and provide any feedback that you have to us now this isn't on the screen but just

a separate reminder that I wanted to provide to people um is just that State records New South Wales has a new

website so this is the same website ite that's been live since November 2022 so almost a year oh my goodness um but

we're just aware that some people still have't updated bookmarks and are not able to find our pages so just a

reminder that if you do have any old bookmarks or references in old documents just to update it to State records. nw.

go.go that's all from me Martin but I'm happy to take any questions great thanks very much Laura um there's been a couple

of questions comments uh asking about the link to feedback um people have been

provided with the link to feedback about the retention Disposal Authority for local government but by the nature of

the agencies I think uh they probably mean the building the archives policy so

uh we could get the link to uh a request for feedback on building the archives

into the chat that would be great um so that feels good um and I I don't think

there's any other questions um at this stage for you e thank you very much um

I'm conscious of the fact that by the time our next records managers foren rolls around you may not be here given

that you'll be on Parental leave uh but thank you and I'm sure that everyone will welcome you back uh on your return

from that leave so thank you very much uh for that um and along uh a similar I'm uh

one of the people who's been in the background of today's session but um who certainly hasn't been in the background

of State records for the last seven years is Irene shiman um Irene is

leaving us to go to data. nsw uh this week um and I just wanted to

also place on record uh my thanks the thanks of our organizations and I'm sure

the thanks of uh everyone who has had dealings with you over the years Irene um all the very best and thank you for

all your work um over that period of time with us so thank you there she is

great thank you AR um all right are there any other last questions or

comments from everyone or anyone I should say given that we've I think we've

peaked our numbers at 270 uh today for the records managers for comments from everyone could be a

bit of an impossible ask uh for us but any other last minute

questions all right there appears to being known um so look aside from that

thank you to all of our speakers um today thank you for to everyone who has

attended today um you will see that there are uh there's a slide up at the

moment with contact details uh for both state Records New South Wales and

museums of History New South Wales but I would hope um that through all of the

sessions today you've got uh the idea that uh we are here to help um whether

that is relating to transfer plans access directions um material that uh

physically isn't isn't in great shape um anything about records uh record keeping

compliance um or the variety of tasks um that we are currently undertaking so

please do contact us um if we can be of assistance uh I say that on both behalf

of State records new Wes and also museums of History New South

wers all right um thank you for today I dare not uh offer anyone uh my Christmas

wishes uh it feels a little bit early to do that um I dare say we'll be in contact with a number of you U prior to

the end of the year and we will certainly be in contact with you in the beginning of

2024 with a new records managers Forum but for now thank you all for your

attendance uh Take Care thank you byebye