September 2005 The Challenges of Archiving Paper prepared by Margaret Miller Roads & Traffic Authority NSW for the 2 nd International & 13 th National Engineering Heritage Conference Sustaining Heritage
Engineering Documents Most of us like to watch TV life style channels The most popular show on National Geographic is Tuna Cowboys 2
Other high rating shows include those concerned with the construction of significant heritage structures 3
Whilst we may marvel at the engineering feats of previous generations how many of us think about what may have happened to the drawings that were the basis for their construction? 4
Most of us think of engineering drawings as large rolls of paper 5
But in some instances engineering drawings can be works of art 6
Most individuals fall into two camps: Those who want to keep everything Those who want to throw everything away 7
The records of government agencies are subject to numerous legislative requirements. Perhaps the most important are the State Records Act of NSW 1998 and the Australian/ISO Standards on Records Management AS ISO 15489-2002 8
We schedule our records by classifying them into identifiable groups using a standard classification scheme Some examples are: Bridge files Road construction and maintenance files Work as Executed drawings and plans Personnel records Property records Photographs and film 9
Using this as a guide we can apply certain criteria to determine the value of the records to the organisation. The criteria may be legal requirements, internal business needs or requirements of State Records. (The decisions as to why we need to retain or destroy records are documented in approved Disposal Authorities). We can also group together those records are regarded as having long-term historical value 10
For bridges of historical significance in NSW the engineering records are required as State Archives 11
Archival institutions the world over have set standards for the physical preservation of paper plans, documents and photographs This is not a good example!! 12
The greatest challenge is the intellectual control over records so that future researchers can search and retrieve them in a meaningful way 13
Uniform naming conventions are essential to the long term retrieval of records. For example the Anzac Bridge was originally known as the Glebe Island Bridge or the bridge over Johnston s Bay Glebe Island. Key word searching for documents in the future will be difficult if there is 14
In previous years construction projects may have been managed in-house. Files and plans were managed centrally. Today the use of outside contractors is more the norm and records created digitally are not centralised 15
The long term preservation of records in electronic format poses a number of challenges 16
As early as 1996 the Australian Council of Archives sponsored a meeting of key stakeholders to discuss Corporate Memory in the Electronic Age 17
State and Federal legislation and International Standards require agencies to: maintain accessibility to equipment technology dependent records 18
Government agencies are developing an holistic approach to the management of records irrespective of format. Electronic document management systems and electronic recordkeeping systems can manage both paper and electronic documents 19
The long term accessibility of records is partly dependant upon the storage media used. The National Archives of Australia is just one of a number of institutions that has issued guidelines for protecting and handling electronic storage media of certain types and has issued recommendations on which media to use to ensure the longevity of 20
Despite the availability of sophisticated recordkeeping systems and schemes for the long term preservation of records perhaps the most important elements in ensuring records are created and captured for posterity is the development and promulgation of good recordkeeping policies and procedures 21
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