If you are a public servant new to working in information and records management and helping other agency staff with these matters, the amount you need to know can seem overwhelming.

The National Archives is here to help you. We have a range of training courses and publications that cover both general and specific topics. There is information on our website and we have an Agency Service Centre to help Australian Government agencies with their records management queries.

Our website is a great place to get an overview of what records management is all about and what your agency needs to have in place. It is organised into broad tasks related to records management that should link you directly with the information you are looking for:

• Information management framework – Find out what a record is, why you need to manage records, and what policies and procedures your agency needs to ensure it meets its obligations in relation to government records management.
• IT systems – what you need to know about computer systems that can make and keep records and managing records in existing systems.
• Create, capture and describe – when staff in your agency need to make a record, where to put it and how it should be described (including metadata standards such as AGLS, the Australian Government Recordkeeping Metadata Standard, and the Email Metadata Standard).
• Keep, destroy or transfer – how long to keep records, and how to destroy or transfer them. This section includes information about accountable destruction of records, how to get a records authority, how to sentence a record using an authority, how to transfer records between agencies or, if the government is privatising aspects of your core business, how to transfer relevant records.
• Secure, store and preserve – how to secure, store and preserve your records, both physical and electronic.
• Access – how to make sure your records are findable and readable for as long as they are required. This section contains information on different ways to access records held by the National Archives as well as advice on how to track records within your agency.

There are also useful sections on training and a listing of all of our publications.

The most detailed information is generally found in publications linked from the top-level pages or from the publications page. As you become more experienced you may choose to go directly to the publications page rather than through the main site. Using our search facility in the top right corner of any page or the site map – in the footer – can help you find the information you need.

If you are new to leading records management in your agency, and you are not sure where to start, we recommend you start with an assessment of how things are at the moment. You can do this using our tool, Check-up.

Check-up gives you the questions you need to ask about your records management. The reports you can generate using this tool will help you isolate where you need to focus attention and help you prioritise areas for improvement. This can be used as a benchmark so you (and your agency’s management) can see things improving over time.

You may also wish to undertake some training such as our Records and Information Management in the Australian government, and follow up with further training in specific areas relevant your agency situation.

Other courses run by the Archives include:

• Keep the Knowledge – Make a Record – a course to teach Australian Government employees about their records management responsibilities and obligations
• Check-up briefing – a briefing session on how Check-up can improve your ability to manage your records and information
• Normal Administrative Practice training  – a training session on how to apply a Normal Administrative Practice in your agency.

Other short courses are being developed. Information on when our courses are running can be found on our training calendar.