Published Thursday 5 April 2023

Statement from Patrick McIntyre, CEO of the National Film and Sound Archive:

'The new funds will turbocharge our ability to increase discoverability and access to the national collection for all Australians.  

'We are currently ramping up the digitisation of the collection for long-term preservation, especially those items on obsolete and deteriorating formats. The increased funding announced today will allow us to realise our vision for the NFSA as a contemporary digital institution connecting all Australians to the national story through the objects in our collection.  

'We can now proceed with the next phases of our strategic plan, which are firstly to create tools that make this increasingly digital collection searchable for all Australians, and then to make it more accessible through new online and offline services, such as streaming.  

'Australia’s national audio-visual collection is an incredibly rich source of material that can be used for learning, inspiration and entertainment. The NFSA is complementing its traditional strengths in heritage forms with a full engagement with the digital culture of today, including videogames and social media.  

'The new funding will allow us to keep pace with the increased costs of doing business, but also – and most importantly – it will address the very real decline in resources that has taken place over a decade or more.  

'We can now look at some of the structural problems we have, including the fact that we have only half the curatorial and accessioning workforce we had ten years ago. This has severely hampered our ability to keep pace with changes in audio-visual creation, distribution and consumption that have taken place in the country over the same period.  

'We can also increase our work to better understand the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander items in our care, including relevant cultural protocols that should properly be in place, and returning these stories to their communities of origin where they can add value to cultural practices including the revitalisation of language. 

'It is very exciting to consider the possibilities we now have before us in terms of innovations in digital preservation and public accessibility.  

'We are also very relieved to receive $3M in funding directed towards urgent capital upgrades across our sites. This is also sorely needed.'

Images and vision here. 

Media enquiries:

Louise Alley | Communications Manager | 0422 348 652 | louise.alley@nfsa.gov.au