38 minute read
Report on Performance
Corporate Plan 2017–18 to 2020–21
PROV’s Corporate Plan provides the strategic direction for the period 2017–18 to 2020–21, and was extended through to the 2021–22 financial year. The Plan articulates the mission, primary strategic objectives and values of PROV; describes our current and emerging operating environment; and details our three overarching outcomes and strategic initiatives. It also details the guiding principles that we use when implementing these initiatives.
Initiatives
• Improve recordkeeping practices across
the public sector: We will continue to support effective recordkeeping in agencies by creating and mandating standards, promoting their implementation, and surveying and reporting on agency adherence and practice. • Increase use of the collection: We will continue to make our collection more accessible and ensure the needs of different communities accessing the collection are met.
• Increase community engagement with public
records: By supporting communities and engaging in community interaction, we will increase usage of the PROV collection and encourage good community collection management practices. • Build our profile: Our reputation as an inspiring, accessible and educational agency will be further increased with targeted communication campaigns to highlight the importance of government recordkeeping to the state and to the public, and our important service to the public and community, online and offline.
• Identify and preserve records of state
significance: We will work with agencies to identify records of significance, determine how long records should be kept to meet the government’s needs, support organisational accountability and meet community expectations. • Strengthen our culture and capability: Our programs over the next four years will ensure that our staff are equipped and supported to work in our changing technology environment.
We will strive to be a leader in diversity and inclusion and develop an employee value proposition.
• Deliver, embed and leverage our systems:
We will complete the development and implementation of a new digital archive that is capable of supporting our electronic recordkeeping standard, and deliver additional business solutions to improve the efficiency and delivery of our service to government and the public. Detailed information about our activities under each of these initiatives can be found in the next section of the report.
Box Hill Girls Technical School - Library. Negatives of Photographs [Publications Branch]. Public Record Office Victoria, VPRS 14517/P1, Unit 43, R278
Strategic Initiatives
Appraisal program
PROV is responsible for the establishment of standards for the management of public records under Section 12 of the Public Records Act 1973. This includes the issuing of retention and disposal authorities (RDAs) to authorise the disposal of public records. During 2020–21 PROV undertook a series of projects to appraise and authorise disposal of records across a diverse range of government functions. This year we issued new disposal authorities for the Office of Chief Parliamentary Counsel, Service Victoria, Energy Safety, the Legal Aid Commission, Small Owner Operators (exempt sex workers) and the Electricity Generation function. Highlights included the appraisal of records associated with two new and emerging areas for government, the oversight of voluntary assisted dying and records generated by the unique functions of Service Victoria. Victoria was the first state in Australia to pass voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 provides a legal framework for Victorians who are at the end of life and meet strict eligibility criteria to request access to voluntary assisted dying. The Act came into effect in Victoria on 19 June 2019. To ensure the records arising from VAD are retained to support trust in government decision making whilst protecting the privacy of individuals, PROV and the Department of Health appraised the records in consultation with stakeholders to authorise their disposal. Our appraisal recommendations were endorsed by the Public Records Advisory Council and the resulting RDAs approved by the Keeper of Public Records. We also worked with Service Victoria to appraise and authorise the disposal of records generated through Service Victoria’s unique functions, as determined by the Service Victoria Act 2018. Our work brought together many government transactions in one place, making it simpler, easier and faster for Victorians to interact with government. This project was of particular interest due to Service Victoria’s role in the provision of digital infrastructure to support contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic. After extensive appraisal and consultation with both the agency partners of Service Victoria and many external stakeholders a new RDA was issued to cover the records generated by the identity verification and customer service functions.
Records Management Network
The Records Management Network (RMN) provides a forum for knowledge exchange and discussion of issues affecting records management within the VPS. We held two RMN events in 2021–22 online via Zoom. The event held in November 2021 was focused on providing attendees with an update on PROV activities that would impact or assist records managers across the Victorian Government. Topics included an overview of the new Digital Archive and details on the relaunch of our transfer program, an update on the review of PROV standards and specifications, information about our recordkeeping assessment tool and Places of Deposit program, and a summary of Microsoft Office 365 functional specifications for recordkeeping. 151 people tuned in for the event with an additional 197 watching it online afterwards. The May 2022 RMN was headlined by Digital Victoria staff who provided an update on the Victorian Government Digital Strategy and the challenges for recordkeeping. Other presenters from Victoria University, the Environmental Protection Agency and Fire Rescue Victoria shared their experiences of digital strategy and records and information management. 170 people participated with an additional 57 watching online in June.
Standards, specifications and policies
Under the Public Records Act 1973, the Keeper of Public Records is responsible for issuing mandatory standards for Victorian public offices. Specifications detailing technical requirements and policies clarifying PROV’s position on complex issues are also issued. In 2021–22, PROV revised and issued the Disposal Standard, the Specification for Places Appointed to Store and Manage State Archives and the Class B Places of Deposit Requirements Specification. The Disposal Standard sets the principles and requirements that Victorian public offices must meet when disposing of digital or physical records. The specifications set requirements for places
appointed by the Minister for Government Services to hold particular categories of records. The Keeper of Public Records also issued the Value and Risk Policy, setting out PROV’s position on how public offices should take a value and risk-based approach to implementing the requirements in the recordkeeping standards, and the Approvals Processes Policy, setting out PROV’s position on how public offices should ensure approvals for decisions and actions are properly captured. The Standards Documentation Framework was also revised in 2021–22.
Functional Requirements for Information in M365
Led by PROV, the Council of Australasian Archives and Records Authorities’ Digital Recordkeeping Initiative Group (ADRI) released a paper entitled Functional Requirements for Information in M365 in October 2021. The paper provides the high-level records management principles and requirements to assist government agencies in implementing Microsoft Office 365 (M365). Recordkeeping capability can vary depending on the software service used, type of license held and any third part integration, such as an electronic document and records management system or enterprise content management system. Effective records management can be achieved by working across M365 services and (where necessary) through integration with other systems to build records management functionality and associated processes. For Victorian Government agencies, M365 must be implemented and managed in compliance with all PROV standards. Requirements include those for system maintenance, storage of digital content, migration, metadata, format, minimum required retention periods, and governance. Ideally, records management controls should be included during the planning and configuration stage, as the ability to adjust configuration settings may be limited post implementation. More information, additional resources, and a copy of the ADRI paper can be found on our website.
Increase Use of the Collection
PROV volunteers
This year has highlighted the strengths and resilience of our volunteer cohort as we were unable to offer on-site activities due to the pandemic. We continued to develop our relationships via Zoom, even celebrating the retirement of a volunteer after 33 years of service at PROV which is an incredible achievement! We also said goodbye to Meg Jenkins who has been the Volunteer Team Leader for the past four years. The future of the program is new and exciting and this year we took this opportunity to test an online model of volunteering. We hope to develop new ways for volunteers to contribute remotely as well as on site into the future. PROV’s first remote volunteer project has been the transcription of a single volume of correspondence and reports from the station manager at Coranderrk between 1898 and 1924. This project is a collaboration with the Research Unit at Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation, and will help to increase accessibility of this record for researchers and First Peoples in particular. In addition, volunteers helped PROV rectify maps and plans from our historical collection using the Map Warper tool.
University outreach
Now in its fourth year, the University Outreach Program continues to offer course-specific presentations to tertiary students across Victoria, helping them with the fundamentals of archival research. Due to the pandemic, all presentations were held online in 2021–22 and our focus was on PROV’s website and digitised collections which could be easily accessed by students working from home. We also began the next step in our program, which is producing video content tailored to specific research areas. These short online videos provide the basics to students, allowing our University Outreach team to spend their time delivering presentations that are more in-depth and specific to the students’ coursework. In 2021–22 we created an overview video, an introduction to crime research and an introduction to researching land and property. The videos are available to everyone via the Deep Dive Subject Research section on our YouTube channel. They have been viewed a total
of 1,061 times and have generated positive feedback from both the academic sector, as well as general researchers.
Digitising program
The launch of our new website and copy request system in August 2021 has seen a significant rise in the number of copy requests from the public. Our team has been working to bed down our new systems and processes and train additional internal staff to help out with the increased workload. A big advantage of the new systems is that any copy request can be published to the website, meaning both the requesting researcher and others can access the newly digitised record. This is in line with the principle of using digitisation to minimise handling of the original record. Alongside these new mechanisms, we conducted a public survey in late 2022 on public attitudes to the publication of wills, probate and inquest records; files that may contain recent personal or graphic information. We are using the results of that consultation to inform our digitised record publication policy and processes. More information about this survey and its results can be found under the Deliver, Embed and Leverage our Systems section of this report. Although most of our time was spent providing copies of records through the copy service, we continue to publish internally digitised records as we can. Examples include patient records from former state-run asylums and the very start of publication of digitised wills (VPRS 7591) for the period 1926–1950. We also published records digitised by the Education Department as part of their project to commemorate and reflect on 150 years of public education in Victoria.
Increase Community Engagement with Public Records
Exhibitions
Throughout 2021, our In the Shadows photography exhibition curated in 2019 remained on display in the Victorian Archives Centre Gallery to allow visitors who missed out on seeing it during the pandemic time to explore the photographs depicting shadows of the past. In April 2022, the National Archives of Australia (NAA) moved their traveling exhibition in. Entitled Out of this world, the exhibition displays the cutting edge scientific research, architecture, design, and even television programming exploring Australia’s role in the space race. The next exhibition planned for the Victorian Archives Centre Gallery is a technical schools exhibit coming later in 2022 as part of the 150 anniversary of public education celebrations. PROV-partnered exhibitions at Old Treasury Building in 2021–2022 included the Lost jobs and Protest Melbourne exhibitions. Have you ever heard of a ‘nightman’, ‘scoop boy’, ‘fairy tapper’, a telegrapher, ‘dolly boy’ or a lumper? These were all jobs that were once common, but have disappeared completely. The world of work is always changing. The Lost jobs exhibition about the lost jobs of Melbourne features records from the state archival collection including Town Clerk’s Files, Ward Registers, and the Duty Diary of Assistant Inspector of Nuisances, to name a few. The Protest Melbourne exhibition traces the history of protests in Melbourne starting as far back as the 1840s and includes protest posters, and petitions from PROV’s collection. These exhibitions were visited by approximately 9,275 people.
Local activations
Our photographic collections are increasingly appearing on displays in the local communities in which they were taken, bringing history home. The Arden Street construction site in North Melbourne, just a short walk from the Victorian Archives Centre, became a temporary home to a historical display in March 2022. Entitled True north, the colourful hoardings were created by the Metro Tunnel Creative Program, North and North West Melbourne Association and the Hotham
Out of this world at the Victorian Archives Centre.
The Arden Street ‘True North’ display featuring PROV records.
History Project Team and feature a timeline of the area. PROV provided photographs of local historical relevance from our collection including the prison register of Elsie Williams who lived in the old Dudley Flats. Railway negatives from our collection were also featured as part of the Glen Eira City Council’s Lighting the past series of nostalgic projections across sites in Carnegie, Elsternwick and Bentleigh in May 2022.
Provenance
Provenance is PROV’s free online journal, published annually at prov.vic.gov.au. Provenance issue 19, 2021 includes three peerreviewed articles and four forum articles based on research drawing on records in the state archives’ holdings. In ‘Policing gender nonconformity in Victoria, 1900–1940’ Adrien McCrory makes an important contribution to the understudied history of trans and gender diverse people and their experiences with the criminal justice system, providing context for our own understanding of the issues facing some members of the trans and gender diverse community today. Catherine Gay’s article ‘Matters of life and death: girls’ voices in nineteenth-century coronial inquest files’ demonstrates the value inquest proceedings can have to reveal the often hidden experiences of girls at a time when many children did not survive to adulthood. Christina Twomey’s forum article ‘Nasty talk’ examines the brutal assault and killing of Mary Kennedy by her husband in 1851: Patrick Kennedy was the first man executed in the new colony of Victoria, after separation from New South Wales. Mary’s story graphically reveals the intergenerational impact and legacy of family and gendered violence in Australia’s history. Rebecca Le Get’s article ‘Therapeutic labour and the sanatorium farm at Greenvale (1912–1918)’ describes what was probably the first tuberculosis facility of its kind to operate in Australia, with farm labour undertaken at an unprecedented scale both as a form of patient therapy but also to support the financial viability of the institution. David Radcliffe discusses the work of building firm Ross, Fraser and Patience and its contribution to the often overlooked role of contracting companies in the construction of Victoria’s infrastructure during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In ‘Affect and the archive’ Amanda Lourie reflects on the emotional impact of the physicality and content of the historical records she works with as a nonAboriginal historian of Indigenous-settler relations. Lastly, PROVs senior collection advisor, Charlie Farrugia, provides an archival perspective and context for the creation and use of the historic ‘parish and township plans’ now held at PROV, a popular yet relatively poorly understood part of the collection. The article demonstrates how the information and knowledge provided by archivists can play an significant role in how records are used and understood by researchers. We acknowledge the anonymous peer reviewers, our copyeditor Rani Kerin, as well as the editorial board which supports the production of Provenance each year: • Tsari Anderson, Editor, Provenance; Coordinator,
Koorie Records Unit, Public Record Office
Victoria • Dr David ‘Fred’ Cahir, Associate Professor of
Aboriginal History, Federation University
Australia • Dr Sebastian Gurciullo, Assistant Editor,
Provenance; Community Archives Officer,
Public Record Office Victoria • Dr Adrian Jones OAM, Associate Professor of
History, La Trobe University • Mike Jones, Deputy Director Research Centre for Deep History, Australian National University • Dr Seamus O’Hanlon, Associate Professor of
History, Monash University
• Katherine Sheedy, Professional Historians
Association (Vic) Inc. • Dr Judith Smart, Adjunct Professor, RMIT
University; Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne • Dr Rachel Standfield, Lecturer, Indigenous
Studies, The University of Melbourne We particularly acknowledge outgoing board member, Dr Dianne Reilly AM, for her significant and valuable contribution to Provenance since 2009. We thank her for her support of the journal’s aims to foster access to PROV’s archival holdings and broaden its relevance to the wider Victorian community.
Koorie Records Unit
The Koorie Records Unit (KRU) promotes awareness of Victorian Government records about Aboriginal Victorians within the PROV collection, and aims to improve accessibility of these records to First Peoples in appropriate and culturally respectful ways. The KRU provides dedicated services and support for First Peoples, in particular the Stolen Generations and their families, wishing to access historic Victorian government records relating to themselves. This includes a Koorie Reference Service in collaboration with the National Archives of Australia’s Victorian office, as Victorian Aboriginal Affairs records are held in both collections. Throughout the year we provided advice and assistance to support a broad range of requests from individuals, organisations and service providers relating to family and community history research, with eligible clients receiving free copies of relevant records. Operating remotely for most of the year due to the impact of the pandemic, we adapted our joint Koorie Reference Service with the National Archives of Australia so as to be able to continue to assist people to access our Aboriginal name indexes and to locate information about themselves and their family members within the PROV and National Archives collections. We continued to provide mostly online workshops, talks and information for First Peoples organisations, community groups and support services, as well as university and archives audiences. Although volunteer input into the Koorie Index of Names was suspended due to the pandemic, we were able to commence an exciting online transcription project with skilled volunteers to enhance the accessibility of a volume of correspondence relating to Coranderrk (1898–1924). The KRU also provided support, advice and input into the following external programs and initiatives during the year: the Yoorrook Justice Commission, the Yoorrook Justice Commission Whole-OfVictorian Government Working Group, the Victorian Stolen Generations Reparations Package, the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria, and the Council of Australasian Archives and Records Authorities (CAARA) First Nations Special Interest Group.
Map Warper
Since launching the PROV Map Warper service in 2019 the public, staff and volunteers have rectified (or geoplaced) 7,373 maps out of 12,091. Importantly 2,938 maps from the nationally significant VPRS 8168 Historic Plan Collection have been rectified. In addition to the rectification service, in 2021–22 we developed an annotation service that allows anyone to annotate maps with historical details such as building types, flora, building construction materials. Users can then perform searches across these annotations, making finding historic maps for specific areas of research much easier. Map Warper has proven so popular a service that we can now boast 1,150 registered users all working hard to geoplace and annotate thousands of maps and parish plans. This all constitutes our first foray into crowdsourcing the processing of records.
Grants and awards
We run grants and awards programs each year to provide funding and recognition for those who preserve and share local history and heritage for all Victorians. Both the Local History Grants Program and Victorian Community History Awards are supported by the Victorian Government through the Community Support Fund. Successful grant applicants were announced in August 2021 with 52 projects receiving a share of $350,000 to preserve, record and share Victoria’s local history. Recipients included Melbourne’s Museum of Chinese Australian History, who received funding for a podcast on Chinese Australian family stories. Chinese Australian Whispers will explore the historical lives of families
Bill Onus as featured in the Victorian Premier’s Award winning documentary Ablaze.
with Chinese background in Victoria and reflect on recent family experiences across the state. The rich history of Victoria’s Muslim community will be explored through a project by the Forum on Australia’s Islamic Relations. They will create video stories highlighting the challenges faced by Turkish migrants in Shepparton, Mildura and Melbourne from 1968–1974. The Palais Arts Fund received support to capture oral histories that tell stories of events at Geelong’s Palais, set against the backdrop of the city’s evolution into a multicultural city. Other successful projects will help Victoria’s history reach everyone in the community through interactive online exhibitions, podcasts, e-books, history apps and oral histories. See the Appendix for the full list of recipients. In October 2021 the Victorian Community History Awards were presented online and viewed by 507 people across both PROV and Royal Historical Society channels. A documentary shining a light on the first Aboriginal filmmaker won the top prize. Tiriki Onus, Alec Morgan and Tom Zubrycki received the prestigious Victorian Premier’s History Award for their documentary Ablaze, which tells the story of Indigenous cultural leader and Aboriginal filmmaker William (Bill) Onus. Described by judges as “history at its best”, the feature length documentary traces the origins of 1940s footage found within the National Film and Sound Archive. Paul Paffen and Richard Broinowski were also recognised at the Awards, sharing the Judges’ Special Prize for their respective books For the Fallen and Under the Rainbow. Other winning entries included a history of LGBTQI+ in Victoria, an oral history on Gippsland Lakes Fishermen and a documentary theatre production on prominent Goldfields businesswoman Fanny Finch. The Victorian Community History Awards are presented by PROV and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, to recognise the work of individuals and organisations that preserve and share Victoria’s history. See the Appendix for the full list of award categories and winners.
Places of Deposit Program and the Bendigo Regional Archives Centre
PROV’s Places of Deposit (POD) program encompasses regional archives which manage and provide access to public records in their local community. In particular, we have a close relationship with the Bendigo Regional Archives Centre (BRAC) run in partnership with the City of Greater Bendigo and the Goldfields Library Corporation. After the North Melbourne roll-out in August, the new search and online ordering system was also implemented for Bendigo record ordering in May 2022 allowing a more streamlined way for BRAC users to order and manage record requests. This year has also seen BRAC’s Nolan street repository reappointed as a Class A POD. A new Storage Standard (PROS 20/02 S2) sets the requirements which must be met to obtain and retain appointment as a Class A Place of Deposit. Council and library staff have worked to ensure their repository meets the requirements to hold permanent public records in line with the new Standard. Another highlight for BRAC has been an increased focus on audience engagement as well as public access through a range of highly successful events and workshops. Events ranged from exploring the bitter and the sweet of the world of regional chocolate and confectionery to how Bendigo managed the unavoidable problem of nightsoil removal. Throughout 2021–22 approximately 260
people attended these fascinating events with 1,368 people now engaged on Facebook and 721 signed up to BRAC’s newsletter. Our Places of Deposit program now sees 102 organisations accredited as Class B PODs including newly appointed groups Rushworth Museum, Ambulance Historical Society Inc Victoria and Port Albert Maritime Museum. This network of PODs now services the majority of Victoria, preserving and promoting public records in their communities.
Build our Profile
Mainstream media
PROV’s programs, events and records from our collection appeared in the media approximately 238 times throughout 2021–22, with coverage ranging from online to radio, television, print and podcasting. Highlights included: approximately 65 pieces of media coverage for the Victorian Community History Awards and more than 30 about our Local History Grants program across local newspapers, history blogs and e-newsletters; 10 items about the launch of our new online systems within history and stakeholder publications; features in Traces Magazine, Herald Sun In Black and White and The Age’s Places that Inspire, as well as coverage for our Section 9 record openings across ABC online channels. Recordkeeping updates were regularly provided to RIMPA iQ, PS News and other industry newsletters. Our records were also used and discussed in the new Casefile podcast Searching for Sarah, and in Archive Fever. Media mentions such as these highlight the significance of our collection and place records in front of wider audiences, generating awareness among people who may otherwise not know about PROV and what we do.
Social media
In 2021–22 we grew our online community from 27,365 in June 2021 to 28,888 in June 2022 across Facebook, multiple Twitter channels, Instagram, Linked In and YouTube. Content across our two main Facebook and Twitter channels resulted in more than 70,245 engagements (comments, shares and likes). We focused specific attention on developing our use of YouTube and Instagram in 2021–22 as a means to visually present our collection to new researchers via tutorials and archival snapshot “Reels”. As a result, our YouTube page has increased from approximately 600 to 784 followers in the last year with videos loaded in 2021–22 watched a total of 7,176 times. Instagram has seen followers increase from 1,900 to 2,850.
Website
The PROV website, built on a Drupal CMS, was significantly enhanced this year when the collections catalogue was merged with the rest of the site (thousands of record, series and agency entity pages) as part of the Digital Archive program of work. The former catalogue was retired and now each record entity landing page is published with a unique URL, enabling us to measure collections usage in greater detail. We saw significant uptake of our digitisation services following the new automatic digitisation request and pay capabilities (as described in the digitisation section of this report), and thumbnails added to the catalogue results pages have made it easier for users to distinguish already digitised records. The publication of thousands of photographs was a particular milestone this year, particularly the Melbourne Harbour Trust collection and the Education Publications Branch collection which offer history lovers a century of Melbourne streetscapes from 1880 until 1980. Overall visitation this year was 992,675. The most popular sections of the site included wills and probates, passenger records, and online collections pages. In addition, our online blog is a section of the website where latest news and stories from the archives are told. The most popular blog posts of the year included Section 9 news, education photos blog and website news. The website team is now focused on improving known navigation issues. A new homepage redesign aims to improve navigation to our subject search guides, and place PROV services directly on the homepage instead of hidden within the master menu.
Events and partnerships
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a continued need for virtual events throughout 2021–22, with PROV delivering a diverse range of online programming. Highlights included a new online tour for Open House Melbourne in partnership with the Victorian branch of the National Archives of Australia. The video tour took viewers behind the scenes of the
Victorian Archives Centre and showcased records in our collections with a focus on the theme of ‘reconnection.’ For Melbourne Writers Festival we held a live online talk by popular author Gideon Haigh. The literature of inquests saw Gideon dig deep into PROV’s inquest collection to present a collection of stories that showed that truth is often more fascinating than fiction, and that we can gain much insight into the lives of people of the past, by examining the circumstances of their deaths. International Women’s Day was celebrated by another live online talk, this time by Katie Wood from La Trobe University and Peter Haffenden from Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West. Their talk Pioneer girls and flappers looked at the young women who found employment at Footscray’s Colonial Ammunition Company from the 1890s through to World War II. Katie and Peter explored the transformational and often surprising ways in which these women and their work broke through the bias. Both our Melbourne Writers Festival and International Women’s Day talks generated a fantastic response from the combined live audience of 389 people, who inundated our speakers with many insightful and interesting questions. Recordings of both events were later added to our YouTube channel and went on to be viewed 249 times. While online talks have many advantages, in particular enabling us to reach audiences who have previously been unable to attend events at our North Melbourne site, it has also been exciting to welcome guests back to the Victorian Archives Centre in 2022. For our first public talk at the Victorian Archives Centre since 2019, we presented Charles Troedel Archive: When the past meets the present by Amanda Scardamaglia, who’s book Printed on stone: The lithographs of Charles Troedel, won the Victorian Premier’s History Award in 2020. Amanda’s talk, attended by 60 people, explored nineteenth century Melbourne through the lens of advertising and was complemented by an exhibition of rare artefacts, kindly loaned to PROV by the Troedel Family. This talk was part of Melbourne Design Week, which PROV has been proud to be involved with since 2018. We were also pleased to welcome author Hazel Edwards’ writing class back to the Victorian Archives Centre in June 2022 after two years learning online. The partnership with Hazel sees new writers introduced to our collection each year, as they work on their non-fiction books and family histories. In addition to our online and Victorian Archives Centre events we were pleased to partner with the National Archives of Australia to present a regional seminar as part of the Ballarat Heritage Festival in May 2022. Researching places: Finding Ballarat history and heritage in the archives was a half day of talks at the Eureka Centre, providing approximately 35 attendees with advice on how to research historic homes and navigate both collections.
Amanda’s Scardamaglia presented Printed on stone at the Victorian Archives Centre Design Week event.
Identify and Preserve Records of State Significance
Digital records transfers
Ingest to the new PROV digital archive commenced late 2021, providing increased ingest capacity and greater flexibility in the types of records that can be preserved, and the ability to preserve more complex records.
The annual transfer of Cabinet-in-Confidence (CiC) records to PROV from Cabinet Office and the departments continued during 2021–22. All departments have now achieved capability to capture and transfer digital CiC records in accordance with our VERS requirements and all departments are now participating in the annual CiC transfer program. The permanent records of the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants (RCMPI), Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System (RCMH) and Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence (RCCOL) have now been transferred to PROV from the Department of Premier and Cabinet in accordance with the Inquiries Act 2014. Records of the Inquiry into Hotel Quarantine are scheduled to be transferred during the 2022–23 financial year. In total, 169,593 digital records were transferred and ingested into the PROV digital archive in 2021–22.
Physical record transfers
The accessioning of physical records into the PROV collection recommenced from December 2021 utilising our new archival management and warehouse management systems. The availability of the new systems enabled transfers to be finalised and many new transfer projects to commence. The transfer of the historic records of Ports Victoria and predecessor agencies including the Melbourne Harbor Trust Commissioners, the Ports and Harbours Branch of the Public Works Department, the Geelong Harbor Trust, and the Port of Melbourne Authority, from the Queenscliffe Maritime Museum, concluded in May 2022. The transfer project commenced in 2019 and primarily consisted of maps and plans dating back to the nineteenth century. Other transfers of note included the transfer of 2017 and 2018 probate records from the Supreme Court. These transfers consisted of over 43,000 probate files, adding to our extensive existing collection of probate records. Records of the Queen Victoria Medical Centre were also transferred this year from Monash Health. These records included correspondence, minutes, annual reports, newsletters and staff registers dating from 1896. Work continued on the transfer of certified plans of subdivision, consolidation, strata and cluster plans from Land Use Victoria. These plans date from 1963 to 1984 and add to subdivision plans dating from 1863 already in PROV custody. PROV has also been working closely with Land Use Victoria to prepare for the transfer of historic records relating to ‘General Law land’ - land alienated by the Crown prior to the operation of the Transfer of Land Act in 1862 and the commencement of the Torrens title system. Records include memorial books and Crown grants dating from 1838 and are forecast to be transferred in the 2022–23 financial year. A large scale project has commenced to document and transfer historic mine and survey records of Geological Survey Victoria (GSV) currently stored at the GSV Drill Core Library at Werribee. This work has been commissioned by the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions and will occur over the course of 2022–23. In total, 121,646 physical records were transferred to PROV in 2021–22.
Strengthen or Culture and Capability
Developing our new Strategic Plan
With our Corporate Plan concluding this year, we developed our new strategy for the period 2022–26. The PROV Strategic Plan 2022–26 reaffirms our vision for public records, publicly available and confirms the outcomes we are working to achieve: • Management: Government records are managed to enable accountability, efficiency and innovation • Preservation: Government records are preserved so that they are available and accessible for as long as they are required • Utilisation: Government records are used by communities to connect to their history and culture and by government for the public good • and a new enabling outcome An efficient and effective organisation: Efficient and effective internal operations enable us to be a modern and valued government agency. This plan clearly defines where we will focus our efforts to make a difference for the Victorian community and our public sector colleagues, and articulates how we will achieve our outcomes. It will enable us to continue to modernise our operations by focusing on improving public office compliance,
enhance the value of the State’s archival data, make use of new technology by improving our own digital capability, and focus on expanding partnerships and improving the ways we present, promote and provide access to public records. The plan was developed through a series of steps, including environmental scanning, strategy workshops with our senior management group, ideas from all staff about key focus areas and internal and external consultation including gaining feedback from our government colleagues, community stakeholders and the broader community. Implementation of our Strategic Plan commences 1 July 2022 and we will report on our progress through future annual reports.
People and culture
As the pandemic continued to impact our lives there was a clear need in 2021–22 to remain focused on improving employee wellbeing and build on our flexible work arrangements to ensure an inclusive, high-performing and engaged workforce. Our annual People Matter Wellbeing Survey was leveraged as an important feedback channel from our people in addition to more real-time feedback from local pulse surveys. With participation rates above 80 per cent, these provided important insights to help us understand where we were doing well and identify areas that needed more work. Overall, People Matter Wellbeing Survey results were very positive, with 92 per cent proud to tell others they work for PROV. Additionally, 98 per cent of survey respondents understood how their job contributes to the organisation’s purpose and 88 per cent felt their job allowed them to utilise their skills, knowledge and abilities. 81 per cent felt senior leaders support staff to work in an environment of change. Key focus areas in 2020–21 included: • Wellbeing, health and safety We have taken a multi-faceted approach to support our people with the physical and mental health impacts of COVID-19 including promoting policies and benefits as well as a range of initiatives to keep people healthy, positive and engaged. These included paid leave to enable and encourage people to get vaccinated, additional arrangements for those isolating where they were unable to conduct their work from home, and providing free influenza vaccination sessions. We offered a number of virtual sessions on how mindfulness can boost physical, emotional, and social wellbeing as well as regularly encouraged activities that promote mental and physical wellbeing. COVID-19 policy updates were held virtually and fortnightly emails sent to keep people informed of work being done to provide a safe work environment and to highlight support and services available. There was also increased communication with links to resources and toolkits designed to make sure our people were taking care of themselves in their home environments, both physically and mentally. • Diversity and inclusion PROV’s Gender Equality Action Plan was written following a review of gender equality and intersectionality data and after a series of staff consultations. Findings show the percentage of women who work at PROV is higher than the Victorian Public Sector average (64 per cent compared to 59 per cent) and over half our workforce is taking up flexible working arrangements including hybrid working, part time working and compressed working hours. Improvements made to our employee leave entitlements including the introduction of family violence leave and changes to our parental leave policies were also acknowledged as being inclusive of trans and non-binary staff. After analysis we have established we are in a good position but there are three key areas that need further development for a more gender equitable workplace. These form our Action Plan which is focused on: 1. Improving our gender and intersectionality data collection systems and processes to enable us to make plans based on evidence 2. Progressing equity in recruitment and career development by identifying and addressing barriers that limit access and inclusion 3. Building our capabilities as a workplace where all people feel safe and respected and experience consistent equity and inclusion in the workplace. • Supporting our people in a changing environment There has been a significant amount of change this year. Implementing a new Digital Archive during a pandemic presented numerous challenges and
support mechanisms were put in place to ensure people felt well supported during this period of learning, development and change. Following the overall success of remote working, we are now embedding more flexible work practices and procedures into normal business. Much work has been done to harmonise policies, procedures and systems to reinforce a positive workplace where our people feel empowered and supported regardless of their location. This includes improvements made to deliver onboarding in a virtual environment, which has increased the quality, consistency and inclusivity of the experience. Environmental scans, feedback from internal surveys and focus groups exploring our employee’s personal experiences with hybrid working are also being used to consolidate best practice recommendations for teams and individuals.
Facilities
In 2021–22 a Facilities Strategy was approved which focuses on environmental sustainability and improving supporting systems and knowledge at the Victorian Archives Centre. Other facilities management works throughout the year included: • A CCTV upgrade of the 70+ cameras located around the Victorian Archives Centre. These cameras now provide an unparalleled view of the facility, key entrance points and building perimeters • We achieved a 72 per cent rating of all waste being recycled. We also recycled 1200 kilograms of metal and over 30,000 kilograms of paper • After a black water (raw sewerage) flood in a key administration area of the building which houses PROV and the NAA, we completed repairs including replacement of floor and wall tiles, carpet, and repairs to internal walls.
Deliver, Embed and Leverage our Systems
Online publishing
We recognise that some kinds of frequently copied records may not be suitable to publish, and in 2021–22 we asked our users for their thoughts to help us better understand their needs and expectations around easy online access to these records.
Type of user
Regular private researcher Casual private researcher One time user Victorian Government employee seeking records management support Historian or other professional researcher Student 137 268 35 48
120
32
Employment sector
Government agency Commercial business Educational institution Non-for-profit 136 25 52 93
Key themes to come out of the responses were: • Users are happy to see public records online.
Just over three quarters (77 per cent) of people said they were happy to see public records online while 14 per cent had concerns about misuse of information and the privacy of living people. • Users have a significant level of discomfort with publishing recent probate files. While 41 per cent were comfortable with publishing recent files, just as many were not, with a high percentage being unsure. People not familiar with PROV’s public access services (first time users and Government records managers) recorded a slightly lower level of comfort than other groups. • Users are comfortable with older probate files being published. The proportion of people comfortable with publishing a probate file over 50 years old more than doubled, and more people than not were comfortable publishing a 25 year old file.
• Concern over publishing records does not
appear to be strongly linked to any relationship
the file has with the user. While a small number of comments were in favour of the relatives of those mentioned in records being involved in publishing decisions, in general, respondents indicated the age of the file is the most important factor in their level of comfort with it appearing online. • As there is some concern over publishing
records with graphic content, users expect to see guidance or sensitivity warning notifications for these published records.
Most respondents (72 per cent) told us that they expected to see some kind of pop-up mechanism to flag distressing material. The survey results have been important in helping PROV to better understand the needs and expectations of the community. In early 2022 we began developing guidelines around what and how to publish and will have these finalised in the next financial year.
Andrew Joyce digitising records for publishing on the PROV website.
Output Measures 2021–22
PROV 2021–22 BP3 Measures
Performance measure Quantity, Quality, Timeliness Unit of measure 2021–22 Full Year Target 2021–22 Full Year Actual Variance (%)
Physical and digital records utilised by public and government users Satisfaction with services provided by Public Records Office Victoria to government agencies and to the public Quality per cent
Provision of services within published timeframes Quantity number
Timeliness per cent
PROV 2021–22 Annual Report Measures
5,400,000 4,744,796 -12% 1
90 91 1%
95 83
-12%2
OUTPUT Unit of measure 2021–22 Full Year Target 2021–22 Full Year Actual
Government Services
Permanent value records transferred Shelf metres
250
Digital records preserved Digital records accessioned Retention and disposal authorities issued Gigabytes Number Number
Number of participants undertaking records management training Transfer projects completed Number
Number
Access Services
Records deaccessioned from the PROV collection Shelf metres Number of visitors to PROV exhibitions and events Number Number of Reading Room visitors Volunteer hours Number Number Collection storage meeting industry standard Per cent Number of KRU enquiries received Number
Storage efficiency meterage
Corporate Services
Staff hours spent on L&D activities Shelf metres
Hours
Online visitors to website Number
30 25,000
5
1,800
8
2,250 4,650 3,000 1,400 95 115 50
1,500 930,000
1,479 55 169,5933
5 2,641
10
683 7,953 4,175 297 95 98 15
1,538 992,675
1 Lower than forecast downloads of images from third party genealogy sites. Also, after a significant increase in online usage during the COVID-19 pandemic we estimated that usage would reduce but not to pre-COVID level. The last two quarters saw similar figures to pre-COVID level. 2 Delivery of digitised records was affected by POST implementation and restricted access to VAC in particular during the first two quarters. 3 The target was exceeded because of the large quantity of very small files which are quick to process. Additional resources were also applied to ingest.
Reading Room and Record Retrievals
Public Record Office Victoria operates two public reading rooms; one at the Victorian Archives Centre in North Melbourne and the other at the Ballarat Archives Centre at the Eureka Centre in Ballarat. Records can also be accessed at the Bendigo Regional Archives Centre within Bendigo Library, the Geelong Library Heritage Centre and (by appointment only) at the Burke Museum in Beechworth. During 2021–22, 4,177 visitors utilised the reading rooms to view public records. 29,728 records were issued to visitors and an additional 3,768 were issued to Government Agencies and for internal PROV use. In 2021–22 reference queries were managed through our online enquiry system which received an average 271 queries per month; providing a consistent and seamless approach to customer service.
Records Issued
Public users
Government users
Number of records
3,255 3,768
Visitors to Reading Rooms
Victorian Archives Centre
Ballarat Archives Centre
Bendigo Regional Archives Centre
Geelong Heritage Centre 28,808
2020–21
Number of visitors
201
531
67 29,728
2021–22
396
350
45
3,181
2020–21
3,386
