National Archives of Australia

= National Archives of Australia =

The National Archives in located in the Australian Capital Territory or ACT. The website Home Page is http://www.naa.gov.au/. The website motto is "Illuminating the past, guiding the future." By clicking on the following link, you will get to the subsite for Research guidance: http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/research/index.aspx. This is a very good guide for researching online and/or onsite at the Archives.

RecordSearch holds over 6 million records created by 9000 Australian Government agencies, mostly since 1901. Searchable records include documents, photographs, posters, maps, films and sound recordings. Generally, 30 years after a record is created, the public can access it.


 * If you want to get right to the record searching from the home page, click as follows: Collections tab, then choose Record Search OR click on PhotoSearch or RecordSearch at the top right OR click on one of the links below.
 * Written record search http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/recordsearch.aspx
 * Photo record search http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/photosearch.aspx

Informational excerpts from the website:
"The National Archives makes digital copies of a large number of items in its collection available for viewing through the RecordSearch and Photosearch databases. See our step-by-step guide to researching the collection for information on how to find and view records. Records are digitised on demand as part of our national digitisation service. There is also a proactive program to digitise material that is of high-use or high-value. The National Archives publishes a number of online exhibits featuring material from its collections. Many digitised records are also available through our specialised websites:

Uncommon Lives Documenting a Democracy Australia's Prime Ministers Vrroom We continuously add new descriptions and digital images. Currently, 18.2 million digital images are available for viewing.

Users are defined as: Guest user (Search now), Registered user (Log in), Archives user (Register). Following are the special access definitions:

Special access
If you are:


 * a former governor-general, minister or senior public servant who wishes to refresh memories of events dealt

with while in office


 * an authorised biographer of one of these people
 * a person who has deposited personal records with the Archives
 * a person preparing major works of national significance for publication

you may qualify for special access to the Archives collection. This means you are granted access to records which are less than 30 years old or which are not publicly available.

Official access is an agreement from an agency to let a particular person access their records for an approved purpose. It is different from public access because it allows access to records which may not be available to the public (such as records that are less than 30 years old, records that have not been assessed for public access, or records which have been assessed and found to contain exempt information).