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State Archivist Retires

David Bartlett, MP

Premier

Thursday, 3 September 2009

State Archivist to Retire

The Premier David Bartlett paid tribute today to the retiring State Archivist Ian Pearce who leaves his position on 30 September 2009.

“Mr Pearce has spent 41 years working for the State Service initially as an archivist in the 1960’s and later returning as the Deputy State Archivist from1973 to 1984 and as the State Archivist for the past 25 years.

“Ian was chair of the Council of Australasian Archives and records Authorities for over a decade in the 1990s and 2000s - the peak body for the heads of archival institutions in the States and territories and New Zealand.

“Among Ian’s achievements is the addition of Tasmania's convict records to the International Memory of the World register - at the time it had only two entries from Australia on it,” he said.

Mr Bartlett said that Ian played a major part in the development of the 1983 Archives Act which was considered the leading piece of archival legislation in Australia at the time.

“The development of the use of computer based systems for archival management and access provision - later using internet based resources for public access to the holdings of the Archives Office and their contents was another of Ian's achievements.

“The growth of Archives Office staff and storage resources (the State archives now take up about 18 kilometres of records) has grown considerably during Ian’s leadership.

“The preservation of the State’s archives is an important part of Ian’s role as well as the management of making these records known and accessible to members of the public through the Archives Office.

“I would like to thank Ian for his dedication to the position and untiring commitment – I am sure he will be missed,” he said.

New Recordkeeping Guidelines for Government Issued

A number of new and revised guidelines, advices, and authorities which contribute to the State and local government recordkeeping framework have been issued recently by the State Archivist. These documents have all been published to the internet at www.archives.tas.gov.au/ - the specific address for each is listed below.

Managing Electronic Communications as Records

State Records Guideline No.7 addresses recordkeeping issues that emerge with the increasing use of electronic communication systems in conducting government business. This expands on and incorporates, that which had been previously issued specifically to cover the management of email messages, and which have now become just one of a range of electronic communications through which records are created.
www.archives.tas.gov.au/legislative/staterecords/guidelines_list/guideline_07

Recordkeeping Advice No.4 deals with these same matters but provides additional practical information to support the implementation of the Guideline.
www.archives.tas.gov.au/legislative/staterecords/advices_list/advice_04

Managing Inter-agency Transfer of Personnel Records

State Records Guideline No. 16 sets out procedures for the transfer of records between government organisations when staff move from one agency to another. This guideline includes a formal continuing authorisation for this to occur as a routine procedure and is in line with current best practice that is already in place in many agencies.
www.archives.tas.gov.au/legislative/staterecords/guidelines_list/guideline-16

Information Rights Management

Recordkeeping Advice No. 7 has been revised in line with national best practice regarding the use of information rights technology. Such technology can prevent effective recordkeeping and State and local government agencies are advised not to use this functionality.
www.archives.tas.gov.au/legislative/staterecords/advices_list/advice_07

Disposal of back-up data in IT systems

In order to streamline the management of the storage of computer back-up systems I have amended the Records Retention and Disposal Schedule for short-term Value Records DA No. 2158 to include a section covering the destruction of ‘Back-up copies of records that are created for business continuity purposes’ (01.01.12).
www.archives.tas.gov.au/disposals/DA-No-2158.pdf

Convict records online

Most of the records of convicts sent to Tasmania and held in the Archives Office have been digitised and are now able to be viewed online. The remainder of the records will also be digitised as an ongoing project and will become available as they are completed. The following link is to some further information about these records and how to view them online - http://www.archives.tas.gov.au/generic/convict-records-online

New indexes added to our site

Three new indexes have been added to the ‘name indexes’ section of the website – arrivals, inquests, and a general index

Arrivals

Records of people (passengers, crew, ship's masters) and ships arriving were kept in the 19th century at various levels of detail and the records that are indexed here reflect this variety in terms of the amount of information they provide on individual people or ships. Most arrivals are for the port of Hobart as few records have survived for arrivals of ports outside Hobart. This index is gradually being added to from conversion of an existing card index. It currently covers surnames beginning with ‘A’ to ‘I’ from about the 1820s to about the 1860s.

Inquests

Records of inquests held in Tasmania vary from full files documenting the process to only the formal statements of the coronial findings. These records are being indexed to this database on a continuing basis and will cover the period from the 1820s to the 1930s..

General index

This index contains a variety of references to the contents of various records. The references are mainly to people’s names but subjects are also included. Although the content of some small records are fully indexed none of the entries duplicate the other more specific indexes on this site and there is no particular relationship between the records indexed here.

We have moved

We have re-located from 77 Murray St to 91 Murray St (State Library building) where we will be delivering our public services as part of the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office from the second floor of this building.

The Tasmanian Archive and heritage Office will be providing an integrated public service combining the public services of the Archives Office of Tasmania and the Heritage Collections area of the State Library.

This has incorporated all our previous search room services in a single area with Heritage Collections through a dedicated microfilm reading area and a separate dedicated area for using original and unique material.

As part of this re-location our postal address will also change from 77 Murray St to 91 Murray St. The general enquiry telephone number for combined service will remain as +613 6233 7488 and the general fax number remains as +613 6233 7471.