International Council on Archives’ 2025 Congress
Simon Froude
Director-General, National Archives of Australia
Barcelona, Spain
29 October 2025
Introduction
Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm Simon Froude, Director-General of National Archives of Australia.
Thank you to the International Council on Archives, both for the opportunity to speak today and for organising this excellent event.
At National Archives of Australia, we secure, preserve and make available enduringly significant Australian Government information.
We also set information management standards, helping improve how Australian Government agencies create, manage and use their information assets.
Like so many of our colleagues in archives around the world, we're operating in a complex and rapidly changing environment.
Technology is reshaping the information landscape, altering audience expectations, and transforming the very nature of our collections.
It's a dynamic and often unpredictable climate, one that demands flexibility, foresight and a willingness to adapt.
To meet this moment, we recognised the need to evolve, so we've developed a new strategy and a suite of initiatives to help us manage our growing and changing collection while also creating richer opportunities for audiences to discover, explore and access our records.
This is a transformative time for us, and today, I'm pleased to share some of the work we're doing to respond to change, prepare for the future and better connect people with the records that matter to them.
Changing audience expectations
Firstly, I want to set the scene.
When we think about how people are engaging with archives today, it's clear that we've already witnessed a massive change.
The expectations of our audiences – from researchers and academics to journalists and the broader public – are changing rapidly, and that change is not slowing down.
Just a few decades ago, the only way to interact with records was to visit a reading room and handle those documents yourself. Access was shaped by where you lived and how far you could travel.
Today, digital technology has opened the doors wide. People can find and view records online, from the other side of the country or even the other side of the world.
The barriers to access have fallen, but the expectations of the public have risen.
Today, researchers have been conditioned by seamless internet searches to expect instant access, searchable databases and smooth digital experiences.
It's natural that people would compare our systems and services to what they use in other parts of their lives – like streaming platforms, social media or online shopping sites – and it make sense that these are the kinds of benchmarks we're now measured against.
This pushes us to innovate and evolve as we strive to meet our audiences' expectations for digital access while embracing the transformative possibilities it unlocks.
However, there's something almost romantic about the experience of interacting with physical records, and we shouldn't lose sight of that.
Many of us fell in love with archives because of the sensory experience: the quiet stillness of a reading room, the feel of paper, the satisfaction of loading up a microfiche reader. There's a certain power to holding something that has passed through countless hands before yours.
An example of this, and one of the most powerful items in our collection at National Archives of Australia, is the Larrakia petition from 1972.
The Larrakia people are the traditional owners of the Darwin region, in the far north of Australia. At the time of this petition, they were fighting for land rights and recognition.
The petition circulated First Nations communities across mainland Australia and eventually made it all the way to Buckingham Palace.
You can literally see and feel the human story in the petition: hundreds of signatures and fingerprints, the repaired tear where it was damaged in a scuffle with police.
Records like these carry a presence digital records can't quite match.
Digital records, however, bring their own opportunities. They can be searched and analysed in ways that physical items never could. They do not deteriorate with exposure to light, nor can they be harmed by physical handling.
Still, we know that digital records are fragile in their own ways. They are dependent on complex networks: electricity, hardware, software, and knowledge to open, use and understand them. They are both easier and harder to access than the paper records that came before them.
We're excited about how digital records can make it easier to meet the growing expectations of our audiences, but we're also conscious of the ethical dimensions, particularly around Indigenous data sovereignty.
As we open more digital collections, we need to think carefully about how we ensure that the right people have a say in how their information is used.
Keeping up with technological change
So, how do we keep up with all this change?
None of us can predict exactly where technology will go next. File formats, storage media, software – they're all constantly evolving.
It's almost nostalgic to look back on the government records of previous generations, made on paper in tidy stacks, able to be stored neatly away in a box on a shelf in a climate-controlled warehouse.
The digital files being generated today are a stark contrast: now we have complex databases housed in interlinked systems where context can be hard to trace.
As I mentioned earlier, digital technology offers many preservation benefits for archival institutions, but it also presents challenges.
Formats become obsolete, data corrupts, and some records, such as databases, require a suite of other technology to access them. Some records were created using bespoke software, which means they can only be opened in a very specific digital environment.
At National Archives of Australia, we employ a range of different processes to manage our digital content.
We have developed a risk profile for our digital collection that allows us to understand its vulnerabilities, and to keep watch on file formats that are at risk of becoming obsolete.
We also create 3 copies of each file, stored across 2 separate locations, with integrity checks and audit logs to ensure continued authenticity.
However, we still have work to do to ensure we have preservation plans developed and implemented to migrate records from obsolete digital formats as required.
While the bulk of our digital collection is in stable formats, the 3% of it that's been assessed as moderate or high risk includes more than 220 different formats.
Across Australia and internationally, our peer institutions are facing similar hurdles, so we know that collaboration is essential.
We value the professional networks and connections we have built through the ICA and through our membership of the Digital Preservation Coalition.
We're also involved with research partnerships in this space, and are a partner in the Australian Emulation Network led by Swinburne University of Technology.
This multi-year project is funded by an Australian Research Council grant and brings together cultural institutions and universities, aiming to establish a shared emulation infrastructure to help stabilise and provide access to significant and complex born-digital records held in the collections of Australia's museums, archives, libraries and galleries.
We're also doing our own research and boosting our capability.
A few years ago, we established our Digital First Program to substantially uplift our ability to manage, preserve and provide meaningful access to our increasingly digital collection.
As part of this, we're focused on modernising our data storage to safeguard our digital records, creating a consolidated view of our collection data and metadata to enable enhanced analytics and insights, and uplifting the ways that people discover and interact with our collections online.
As technology continues to evolve, we know it's essential to have these kinds of processes, initiatives and capabilities in place – not only for our role as stewards of a collection, but for the role we play in supporting information management across government.
Throughout Australian Government agencies, information management experts are facing resourcing hurdles when it comes to managing the sheer volume of digital data in their remit, and they're also struggling to keep pace with rapidly changing technologies.
They often have the added challenge of making their voices heard, and of helping colleagues understand that good recordkeeping is essential to ensure transparency and accountability.
To help drive maturity and capability improvements in information management across government, we're currently developing a new agency engagement and support model.
This involves exploring an evidence-based, integrated approach, and working to understand how to influence some of the systemic challenges in government.
It's here that our dual roles really come into focus – transforming ourselves to safeguard the records entrusted to us, while helping other government agencies navigate a similar journey.
Opportunities of AI and how we can meet risk
I want to touch now on one of the biggest talking points of recent years – artificial intelligence.
Right now, artificial intelligence is unlocking new opportunities across countless sectors, and archives are no exception.
At National Archives of Australia, all our staff are being trained on the basics of AI to help streamline their work, and we're also exploring how AI tools could improve access and searchability of our collection.
We've welcomed guest speakers from other cultural institutions to demonstrate the tools they're starting to use, and we plan to undertake pilot projects ourselves, so we can test how AI and machine learning might help with transcription, description, searchability and more.
And the possibilities are almost endless in this space. There are tools being developed or already available that can transcribe, summarise and translate records, detect images or voices in audiovisual records, or even chat with members of the public to help them find files.
All of this sounds revolutionary – and it is. But as we know, AI also poses significant risk.
Increasingly, bad actors are harnessing this powerful technology to spread false narratives at scale, and this mis- and dis-information is eroding trust in our public institutions, social cohesion and even democracy itself.
In the face of these challenges, archives around the world stand as a safeguard for truth, accountability and the authentic public record – that is to say, our collections have never been more important.
In a world where anyone can publish content, people are looking for authoritative references. We must continue to act as trusted sources of truth, preserving original documents to ensure there is always a verifiable version of events against which claims can be measured.
We need to preserve contextual information too. When we're dealing with digital files, that contextual information, like metadata, provides valuable certainty that a record is genuine and authentic.
We also need to ensure our archives are open and accessible. By doing this, we not only allow the public to access verifiable information, but we provide journalists, historians and educators with unedited records they can use as reliable primary sources.
In the face of an information landscape impacted by AI, archives can also support civic, political and media literacy, empowering people to think critically and build a core understanding of democracy. In turn, this can foster a more discerning public, less susceptible to false claims.
So, while we embrace the opportunities of emerging technologies, we also embrace the careful, ethical and fair use of these tools.
In addition, we recognise the role archives play in safeguarding the authentic public record as we all navigate this complex environment.
Unlike the tech giants, there is only one National Archives of Australia, and our citizens cannot simply go to a competitor if we betray their trust.
That trust is foundational, and it's our duty to honour it with transparency, integrity and accountability.
What this means for the future of National Archives
So, what does this all mean for the future of our work?
For us at National Archives of Australia, it means that caring for our precious analogue collection remains vital, but our future increasingly depends on building digital capability.
I mentioned the work we're doing to keep pace with technological change, uplift our digital abilities and provide audiences with meaningful access to our digital collection, and this will continue.
As part of this, we will come to rely on skilled staff who can work across the entire digital archiving workflow – from transfer, description and sensitivity review to reference and ongoing management.
The archivists of tomorrow will need to be as fluent in digital workflows as they are in physical conservation techniques.
So, at National Archives of Australia, we're investing in our people.
Our digital archiving cadetship is the first of its kind in Australia, creating pathways for those with technical skills and an interest in preservation.
The program sees us employ promising graduates on a part-time basis while supporting them to complete a graduate certificate in digital archiving.
Each year, we also support several employees to pursue the same digital archiving qualification, enabling them to upskill and learn while continuing their day-to-day work.
Initiatives like these are helping us build the next generation of archivists, those who understand both the heritage value of records and the technical realities of preserving vast digital collections.
Conclusion
As we look ahead, the role of government archives will only grow in significance. In a world where information is abundant but trust can be fragile, our collections offer authenticity, continuity and connection.
We are not just preserving the past – we are shaping how future generations will understand it. And that means embracing change, investing in people, and staying true to the values that define our profession: integrity, care and service.
The journey ahead will be complex, but it's also full of possibility. With the right mindset, the right tools and the right people, we can ensure that archives remain not only relevant, but essential – a trusted source of truth in an ever-evolving world.
Thank you.
Media contact
National Archives of Australia Media Team
Phone: 0417 247 157
Email: media@naa.gov.au