Information Awareness Month 2018 off to a Bad Start by NAA

May's Information Awareness Month 2018 got off to a bad start with the National Archives of Australia (NAA) emailing out an invitation to the launch in the form of an image. Those who have difficulties seeing images could click on the included link, but NAA should have included the details of the event as text. This is a matter of common courtesy and also helps comply with Australian anti-discrimination law. Ironically, David Fricker, Director-General of the National Archives of Australia, will be presenting the National Archives Awards for Digital Excellence at the event.

Minister for Communications on the Right to be Forgotten

Greetings from the opening of "Information: the Currency of the Digital Economy" conference in Canberra, by Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Communications. The Minister is asking if you have the right to be forgotten online. The conference is run by the National Archives of Australia. The program is available and the opening session is being webcast live:

• opening address by The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP, Minister for Communications
• video conference presentation by Dave Adamson, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, on 'Exploring the Canadian experience'
• an address by David Fricker, Director-General, National Archives of Australia, titled 'Digital continuity and the digital economy – towards 2020'

Questions can be tweeted: @naa_digital and use the hashtag #IAM_2014.

The minister spent part of his speech discussing open data initiatives in government. This brings up a problem for the National Archives of Australia (NAA), as its charter covers only "dead" data after agencies are finished with it. Much of the useful data is still live in agencies of the government. I suggest NAA needs to assist with how to provide this live data, even if that is not in their mandate.

Canberra Not a Finnish Vision

Greetings from the National Archives of Australia in Canberra where Dr Robert Bell AM, Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, National Gallery of Australia is speaking on "A capital through Finnish eyes". He is discussing the entry in the 1912 competition for the design for the City of Canberra by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, who lost to the design by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony.

Saarinen placed a railway station at the heart of his design for Canberra. This would have been handy for recent proposals for high speed rail. The text of Saarinen's submission is available from Cornell University (from Australian Archives, ACT, Series A762):

To facilitate an undisturbed growth we must first place the different parts of the town in groups, so that each can grow without encumbering the other. We must moreover set down the plan for the nearest surroundings of the town and choose suitable places for its future suburbs, each with a character of its own.
We have, -
(a) the official town with the Houses of Parliament, the Ministerial Buildings, and all houses which are to surround them.
(b) the university quarter;
(c) the military quarter;
(d) the commercial quarter;
(e) the industrial quarter with its population of workmen;
(f) the quarter for hospitals etc....

Finnish Design for Canberra

Dr Robert Bell AM, Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, National Gallery of Australia will speak on "A capital through Finnisheyes", at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra, 5:30pm, 7 August 2013. He will discuss the entry in the 1912 competition for the design for the City of Canberra by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, who lost to the design by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony.

Canberra Free Centenary Loop Bus

Route 100 - Centenary Loop is a free bus around Canberra's major cultural institutions. It leaves from platform 10 in the city at the Sydney Building every 30 minutes and goes to the Australian War Memorial, National Gallery of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, Questacon, National Library of Australia, Museum of Australian Democracy, National Archives of Australia, Parliament House, National Museum of Australia, and the National Film and Sound Archive. This is a pleasant trip around the lake. The service is provided for all of 2013 for the Canberra Centenary.

Australian Government Digital Transition Policy

Greetings from Canberra, where the National Archives of Australia (NAA) are explaining the new "Australian Government Digital Transition Policy". This requires records to be archived electronically from 2016. NAA are running  "Digital Edge workshops" to help agencies implement the new policy. It should be noted that it is not just government departments subject to archives policy, for example the Australian National University (ANU) is subject to the Archives Act.

The NAA presenter mentioned there is a gap between short in-service training courses and the formal studies offered by universities. In response I am looking at revamping my online course "Electronic Document and Records Management" (COMP7420) at the Australian National University. This will be available to students doing traditional degrees in business and computing.

Also ANU  students can make up their own program using ANU Graduate Studies Select. As part of this I am looking at how to satisfy the formal requirements of professional bodies such as Records and Information Management Professionals Australasia (RIMPA), while remaining flexible.

Managing national digital archives

Next at the Australian Computer Society Canberra Branch conference I attended Christine Johnston's presentation on how the National Archives of Australia helps keep the nation's records in electronic format. This involves advising agencies on how to keep e-records and decide which should be transferred to the archive for preservation and for how long.

The process which was developed for paper records doesn't work for electronic ones. A new approach is needed for the flood of electronic records, the government information held on non-government systems and the push for e-government and open access.

I teach some of this in the ANU in the course COMP7420: Electronic Document and Records Management.