This lightning talk will seek to provide an informative look at the things I have learnt since becoming a Digital Archivist as someone coming from a traditional archivist background. At the end of last year I accepted a role as Digital Archivist on the Digital Preservation team at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The position is to assess and prepare the digital material of the National Art Archive collection as part of the Gallery's wider implementation of their new system Preservica. Having had limited experience with digital archives beyond the usual day-to-day but always being interested in it, the journey of working as a Digital Archivist has been filled with interesting challenges and developments. In my talk I will share mistakes, successes, and lessons I have learnt in my role and throughout the project. I will provide practical information in the form of materials and software I used to educate myself and perform my role, look at similarities and differences I encountered between working with traditional and digital archives, archival issues encountered on this large project, and discuss examples of working with colleagues across different backgrounds to communicate and problem solve. It is my hope that sharing my experiences in an open and honest way will help other archivists who are interested in digital careers or expanding their knowledge in the area with something they can apply to their own roles, through discussing and perhaps demystifying some of the perceptions between digital and traditional archives.

Data growth is climbing across multiple sectors, especially through generative AI which is creating a significant data boom. Uploading data to the cloud carries environmental impact through the high energy, water and fossil fuel consumption needed to power and cool data centres and produce computer equipment. Cultural heritage institutions around the world are contributing to this data boom. We are seeing growth in our digital collections, and we are generating and using data in new ways, including via the use of generative AI to create metadata, transcribe audiovisual content and make content more accessible to audiences. We are also adopting Software as a Service applications for their cost effectiveness and convenience to store and manage our digital collections in invisible data centres owned and operated by large corporations. Preserving data for the long term is a resource-intensive exercise, which should be reserved only for records of enduring value. Further to this, the act of ingesting records into digital repositories for ongoing preservation should be done so with careful and holistic planning to ensure efficient data workflows, and reduced data duplication. System implementations should consider an organisation's wider digital ecosystem and seek to create efficiency and streamline processes. This lightning talk will present how the University of Melbourne's Digital Preservation Program is exploring sustainable practices to curb their carbon footprint. Global data projections will be shared to illustrate how all organisations - including archives - should take ethical steps to ensure we are managing our digital collections and supporting infrastructure wisely and sustainably for future generations.

In the age of Large Language Models and increasing community concerns around information security and privacy, this talk considers the risks and benefits in allowing archival catalogues to be indexed by Google and other bots. Following a sharp uptake in requests to remove catalogue records from Google search results, QSA recently temporarily removed Item level search results from Google while we evaluate options and monitor impacts on access to records and volume of takedown requests. This has led to questions at QSA around how to respond to community expectations, including managing the visibility of and access to our collection. This talk will outline QSA's key considerations, approaches and observations made to date.

As the Powerhouse embarks on a bold phase of renewal and transformation, the Variable Media Institutional Archives Project has become essential in safeguarding the museum's own story. This ongoing initiative tackles the urgent challenge of preserving fragile audiovisual formats - magnetic tape, optical discs, and cellulose film - that document decades of exhibitions, events, artist interviews and curatorial research. Without action, these irreplaceable records of institutional memory are at risk of vanishing. This presentation will share the behind-the-scenes work of the Variable Media Institutional Archives: from designing digitisation workflows and building a dedicated studio, to navigating technological obsolescence and setting new preservation standards for time-based media. It will showcase how the museum is rethinking how it cares for its own history and what that means for the future. We'll also explore three standout case studies: the repatriation of interviews recorded in Jervis Bay in collaboration with the First Nations team; a meaningful reunion between the museum and the descendants of the Wong Ah Sat family, who were gifted digitised oral history interviews of their relatives during a recent visit; and rarely seen 1970s footage of the Powerhouse Último’s construction - including the iconic hoisting of the Catalina aircraft - content now playing a valuable role in current de-installation efforts. As institutions worldwide face the realities of ageing audiovisual media, this talk offers a compelling glimpse into how one museum is turning preservation into connection - reviving stories, building trust with communities, and using the past to guide a more inclusive and informed future.

The archives of Tooth and Company at the Noel Butlin Archives Centre at the Australian National University Archives are one of our most heavily used collections. The recent inscription of these records, on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register, along with related records at the Powerhouse Museum, has caused the author to reflect the sense of connection researchers can gain from engaging with these records. This collection has been used by a diverse range of experienced and first-time researchers. In an era where the archives sector is asking itself "who are we missing," and we must continually justify our own existence, archives of hotels can spark interest in a long running and dominant part of Australian social life. Pubs are found throughout Australia, from luxurious establishments in wealthy suburbs to being one of the last businesses in a rural location. This paper is the first stage of a multi-phase project to highlight hotel and brewery archives in institutions across Australia. It will discuss the role hotel and brewery archives play in engaging researchers, particularly those new to archives. It will also highlight how these collections build connection between archives, researchers and local communities, especially in country and rural locations. This paper will examine community engagement with local reporting on the Tooth & Co collection, and social media engagement. Rural pubs are a tangible site that researchers can visit and possibly trace their own journeys or the journeys of their ancestors.

Our two ARC LIEF funded projects “The Australian Emulation Network: Accessing Born Digital Cultural Collections” and “The Australian Emulation Network Phase 2: Extending the Reach” brings together a community of practice from GLAM institutions across Australia. Digital Archivists, librarians, and curators come together to learn how to make disk images from obsolete media, then bring this content back to life using Australian Emulation-as-a-Service Infrastructure (AusEAASI). I will showcase the AusEAASI tool and demonstrate several ways it has been used to provide access to previously lost born digital materials from a variety of disciplines. AusEAASI is useful for both archival appraisal of contents of various obsolete carriers once the disk images are made, as well as providing a browser-based emulation window of the emulated complex digital objects that can be added to your catalogue and presented in your reading room for researcher use. I will describe disk imaging, show AusEAASI, our catalogue of software, and how to use the simple API to embed an emulation in a website.