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‘There’s no back-up copy’: Australian treasures are on the brink of destruction
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May 1, 2021 5.30am
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Do you remember taping programs off your television with a VCR? Back in the days before streaming, many of us amassed small libraries of movies this way, the tapes becoming scratchy and wobbly with age. Then along came the DVD: a much more stable, digital format. The VCR quickly became obsolescent, and all those VHS tapes, lovingly compiled, became unplayable, virtually overnight.
Simply put, this is the dilemma that faces the National Archives of Australia. It is stuck, metaphorically, in the VHS era, and without an urgent injection of funds, it will be trapped there. It has a vast collection of historical records: not just documents and files, but tape recordings, films, and television programs. And much of it is on the brink of destruction.
Imagine you are in a large building near Parliament House in Canberra filled with irreplaceable objects. Not jewels, medals or paintings, but a collection of letters, tapes and documents of Australian life.
The collection contains letters written to and from prime ministers, and recordings of their speeches. It has historic episodes of the ABC television programs Four Corners and Countdown. Audio recordings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Your grandmother’s migration records. Your uncle’s military service records. Covert ASIO surveillance footage of anti-Vietnam war demonstrations. Letters from women living under the shadow of domestic violence, written to the Royal Commission on Human Relationships.
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