In 2024, FNMA embarked in earnest to assist its Ordinary Members to digitally preserve their collections. This endeavour was supported by a generous grant from Rio Tinto.
The Archiving Project implemented a number of components in the digitisation process:
- An Audit of all members with analogue collections, conducted by AITSIS. This was to establish the range, quality and quantity of materials that needed preserving.
- Training member organisation staff in the processes of digitising. This was conducted by the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA). 23 staff from 13 organisations involved in the digitisation process travelled to Canberra for a 3-day training event. The training covered the need for preserving content, the stages of digitisation, storage, cleaning, cataloguing and digitising.
- Archive Plan. Oganisations involved in the digitising collections prepared a comprehensive Archive Plan, which indicated their overall needs that then could be processed by FNMA measured against a set of criteria to assess the request for support.
- Storage preservation. Those media organisations involved in digitisation were sent a pack of robust cardboard packages in which they can store their current analogue items in a more safe and secure environment.
- Transport. Those organisations that completed their cataloguing were provided with safe and secure transport boxes to deliver theit collections to the digitisation organisation, in most cases, AITSIS.
- Next steps. This will entail direct assistance to help organisation catalogue their collections so there is a catalogue of the material they hold prior to cleaning and digitisation.
- RESOURCES for digitising can be viewed at First Nations Media Archiving Resources Toolkit. NOTE : All resources in this Toolkit are copyrighted to First Nations Media Australia and may not be used for commercial purposes
Additional resources can be found at FNMA Archiving Resource.