Depositing your Personal or Family Papers in the Archives Office

The Archives Office of Tasmania, which operates under the Archives Act 1983, is the repository for all Tasmanian government records which are of permanent or long-term value, but the Office also collects records of individuals and families who have lived in Tasmania or contributed to Tasmanian life. We do this because letters, diaries, photos and other material give unique information about the lives or history of your family and, regardless of whether or not your family attained a degree of fame, they have contributed to the heritage of our State. When you donate your personal or family papers to the Archives Office they become, like the records of our governments, part of our State’s ‘archives’, where the information helps us to explain our present by understanding our past.

What records to deposit?

Personal and family records selected for permanent preservation will be those that have long-term value to the community. This may include letters, reminiscences, diaries, scrapbooks, photo albums, professional papers, speeches, lectures, business records genealogical information, films, videos and audiotapes. Also of interest are files relating to an individual’s civic, business, religious, political and social activities. It is also possible that among family papers will be found the records of an organisation or business in which the person had an active involvement – these records may also be of interest to the Archives Office.

However it is important to remember that many personal records may have much more significance, meaning, and attachment to the immediate family than as a long-term community asset and material of this sort is best retained by the family.

If you are in doubt about the value of a particular collection of personal or family papers consultation with Archives Office staff is recommended before considering destroying them.

Procedures

If you have decided to deposit your family or personal papers with the Archives Office you will need to contact us to arrange for the transfer.

At this stage the Archives Office should be given as much information as possible about the records and the person or family who created or compiled them. A Deposit Agreement form must be completed to establish the terms of the deposit and provide clear directions with respect to ownership, custody, control and use of the records. You will also need to consider what you may want done with any material which the Archives Office does not consider is appropriate for permanent preservation. All these issues can be discussed with staff of the Archives Office when completing the Deposit Agreement form.

Depositors are strongly encouraged to donate their records as outright gifts to the Archives Office. This clarifies the transfer of ownership and therefore facilitates the continuing care, management, and access to the archives. Where depositors consider that it is necessary to retain ownership the Archives Office may, in exceptional circumstances, be willing to accept them as an indefinite loan subject to agreed conditions. These conditions may include charges for storage costs or conservation.

In some circumstances donations of records may be able to be made under the provisions of the national Cultural Gifts Program, which provides in specified cases incentives through the Australian taxation system. The Archives Office can provide advice on this program.

Owners of records who are not able to deposit them with the Archives Office at the present time but who are interested in having their records preserved in the long-term are invited to make a bequest in favour of the Archives Office of Tasmania

We may also be interested in making copies of some records in circumstances where the owners wish to retain the originals, provided that the appropriate conditions for the management of the copies can be negotiated.

Community access

Records deposited in the Archives Office normally become open for public access once they have been described and formally listed. However depositors have the option to restrict access to their archives for a certain period of time. The maintenance of confidentiality or the protection of privacy are the usual reasons for such restrictions.

Copyright

The copying or publication of archives deposited with the Archives Office is undertaken in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. When arranging the deposit of personal or family archives the Archives Office will normally seek to transfer ownership of copyright from the depositor as the management of copyright issues many years after the donation can be extremely complex.

Physical security

Archives deposited in the Archives Office are stored in a secure repository which is protected against fire and unauthorised access. The storage areas are air-conditioned with appropriate temperature and humidity controls to protect the archives. Our conservators can restore documents in need of repair and microfilming is an option for records that are likely to be heavily used or are already in a fragile condition.

Cultural Gifts Program

The Commonwealth Cultural Gifts Program provides potential incentives through deductions within the taxation system for depositors of records in the Archives Office.