State Records Authority

The Hon. PENNY SHARPE: My question is directed to the Minister for Commerce. Can he update the House on the work of the State Records Authority?

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: The State Records Authority is the New South Wales Government archives and records management authority. It manages and preserves the New South Wales State archives collection and makes them accessible to the community. Archives play a vital role as the raw material of history—the primary source for historical inquiry. They are also used for social, medical, environmental and many other kinds of research. In New South Wales we have a rich collection of official archives dating back to 1787, when the first fleet left England carrying records as well as convicts.

I have been informed that the significance of this collection was highlighted earlier this year when New South Wales convict records, along with those of Tasmania and Western Australia, were inscribed in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Memory of the World Register. That register is the documentary equivalent of the World Heritage Register. This means that our convict records join such treasures as the Bayeux Tapestry, the manuscript of Beethoven's ninth symphony and Cook's Endeavour journal. The State Records Authority has a rich history that is worth exploring in detail.

In 1821 the first Colonial Secretary and Registrar of the Records was appointed, as our young colony recognised the importance of documenting history for the purpose of good governance and the benefit of future generations. In 1887 an archivist was appointed to transcribe a history of New South Wales from the records. The 1950s saw further advances in the development of records archiving, and in 1999 the State Records Authority was established, bringing the management of records and archives into the modern era. In November last year State Records became part of the Department of Commerce to strengthen its important function of continuing to set new standards in Government records management, particularly the digital records of today and tomorrow.

I am advised that if boxes of documents in the State archives were placed side by side, they would stretch for 58 kilometres. They are housed in secure, climate-controlled facilities at the Western Sydney Records Centre, Kingswood, which also has a state-of-the-art conservation lab and public reading room. There is also a reading room and an exhibition space at the State Records' site, situated in the historic The Rocks district. Over 60,000 people visit the reading rooms each year. In line with the Government's online service delivery objectives, the website of State Records is now a major channel for providing archival services to the community. In 2006-07, there were almost one million visits to the website. One of the main attractions, particularly for family and local historians, is a set of indexes containing some 800,000 entries.

The main catalogue to the State archives collection, "Archives Investigator", has been online since 2000. I am advised that in October this year State Records released a new version of this system with a range of enhancements. Archives Investigator is a world-leading search and retrieval tool, providing a web of navigable links between information about the archives themselves the Government bodies that created them, and the functions and activities these bodies performed. A small but growing portion of the archives have been digitised and are available online. The main focus of State Records so far has been on archival photographs: some 5,500 photographs can be searched and viewed online. I commend the work of State Records, and look forward to updating the House on the activities of this important project in the future.