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For The Record (No.13, February 1997)

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Spotlight on Training

Using a Keyword Thesaurus

is a course offered by the Records Management Office. The course is a practical program which provides participants with the skills required to use a keyword thesaurus to classify documents, create file titles and index records. The course makes extensive use of Keyword AAA: A thesaurus of general terms, the new thesaurus produced by the Archives Authority of New South Wales.

Who should enrol?

The course is designed for people whose work involves classifying, titling and indexing records using a keyword thesaurus.

What does it cover?

The course covers three major areas.

Principles of Keyword Classification

introduces the methodology of business functional analysis, the benefits of controlled vocabulary, features of the keyword system, the hierarchical principle and components of Keyword AAA.

Structure of Keyword Thesaurus

looks at the layout, content, language and entries in the Keyword AAA, and the accompanying Classification Guide.

Practical Exercises

provides participants with the opportunity of using Keyword AAA to classify and title documents. The first exercise allows participants to develop record titles from natural language abstracts of correspondence using Keyword AAA. The second exercise allows participants to analyse classifications and titles using Keyword AAA. The third exercise allows participants to develop record titles using a functional thesaurus and Keyword AAA.

How much does it cost?

The fee is $165. This covers:

How long is the course?

The duration of the course is one day (9am-4pm).

When can I come?

Using a Keyword Thesaurus is next offered on Wednesday 16 April 1997.

How do I enrol?

Further details and registration form may be obtained from the Records Management Office:

Telephone: (02) 9237 0120
Fax: (02) 9237 0119
E-mail: rmonsw@records.nsw.gov.au


Page Top Update

State records legislation

We have experienced some delays with the development of State records legislation over the ‘silly season’. However, we can report that we have now received feedback from those agencies who attended our briefing sessions late last year. As a result of that feedback, we hope to widely circulate an exposure draft of the Bill in the near future.

Desktop Management: Guidelines For Managing Electronic Documents and Directories

The Archives Authority will be issuing Desktop Management: Guidelines for Managing Electronic Documents and Directories to New South Wales Government agencies in February 1997.

These guidelines are designed to provide simple and effective advice to deal with electronic documents on personal computing systems. Depending on the individual requirements, agencies can adopt one or a mix of strategies that are offered in the guidelines to manage electronic documents and, thereby, reduce the threat of loss to unmanaged electronic records that may be stored on PC systems among these documents.

The guidelines will be available on the Archives Authority World Wide Web site:

(http:\\www.records.nsw.gov.au) under Policy and Standards, Electronic Recordkeeping.

Alternatively the guidelines can be purchased through the Archives Authority. Please contact the Administrative Officer on (02) 9237 0120.


Page Top Electronic mail addresses

In keeping with the Government’s objectives for conducting more Government business electronically, the Archives Authority has provided a growing number of its staff with Internet electronic mail addresses. A number of these addresses appear in this issue of For The Record accompanying the name of the contact officer for a given matter. Readers are encouraged to communicate with us by electronic mail.

Astute readers will have noticed that these addresses reflect (within the constraints of an 8-character address) the titles of the positions to which they are assigned. Many organisations assign electronic mail addresses based on the names of the employees. We chose to use position titles because the bulk of the people who correspond with us by electronic mail, as with other forms of communication, want to deal with our staff because they are providing services or performing functions associated with the positions they occupy. Our customers should not need to know who is doing a given job, or whether they have moved on somewhere else, in order to do business with us. In addition, we expect that this arrangement will make it easier to set up arrangements for automatic capture of electronic mail messages into an electronic recordkeeping system at some time in the future.

A full list of our electronic mail addresses is part of the Contact Directory available through our World Wide Web site (http://www.records.nsw.gov.au) under ‘About the Archives Authority’.


Page Top Tidbit

Where were you in 1966?

For some we were merely a twinkle of mischief in our parents’ eyes but others will have memories of the news and views of the day. Items such as the introduction of decimal currency to Australia and its accompanying jingle to the tune of Click Go The Shears, the Beaumont children mysteriously disappearing from an Adelaide suburb or Jean Shrimpton’s scandalous spectacle, hatless, gloveless and in a mini skirt.

The music charts were ruled by The Easybeats and their classic Friday on My Mind, the cinemas screened the "ocker" film They’re a Weird Mob and Lygon Street gave diners a delicious taste of multiculturalism by opening Australia’s first pizza restaurant. Politics received a change of ministry as Harold Holt replaced Sir Robert Menzies upon his retirement in January, subsequently the decision to "permit the employment of married women in a permanent capacity in the Commonwealth Service" was made. Lyndon B Johnson, the first US President to visit Australia, also came to our shores and along with him the anti-war protests.

Thirty years on, the beginning of 1997 was marked by the release of a wealth of new material for public scrutiny by the Australian Archives. On the first day of each year, Commonwealth records that have been hibernating for 30 years become accessible. The cream of last year’s crop was undoubtedly the 1966 Cabinet papers, which reveal the thinking of the 8th Menzies Ministry and the first Holt Ministry and shed light on a multitude of issues and the way in which decisions were made at the time.

The release of the Cabinet papers always sparks discussion, conjecture and controversy. This year has been no different with the media highlighting the "secrets". Items reported in various print media and television reports included Opperman’s involvement in the policy that effectively brought the end to white Australia, the chemical weapon fears and wariness of the US seeking approval for testing in "tropical conditions", the "dog that didn’t bark", Indonesia and the Vietnam paper trail. Other important issues ranged from the missed opportunity of Senate reform and the failed bid by Sneddon to end the death penalty to our snubbing of the British military, reasons why married women were marginalised and the panic over the costly F-111 fighter plane blowout.

Finding out more about the Cabinet records held at the Australian Archives is as simple as visiting their Internet site at:

http://www.aa.gov.au/AA_WWW/AA_Holdings/CabinetRecs/CabinetRecs.html

or emailing them at ref@aa.gov.au

or writing to them at:

Australian Archives
PO Box 34,
Dickson ACT 2602


Page Top Help Us Get To You!

If your mailing details are incorrect, or you would like more copies of the newsletter, please complete the details below and FAX your request to (02) 9237 0119

Mr/Ms/Mrs/Miss……………………………………………………

Address……………………………………………………………..

……………………………………… Postcode ………….

o Please amend my details as above.

o Please provide me with …….. extra copy/ies of each issue.

o Please remove my name from the mailing list.

A New Records Management Thesaurus

Records provide evidence of actions and decisions and are an indispensable ingredient in accountability. Sound recordkeeping and records management practices lie at the heart of efficient business practice and accountable management and administration. The Records Management Office announces the release of Keyword AAA, our new thesaurus of general administrative terms.

Keyword AAA:

For more information, please contact the Records Management Office on:

Tel: (02) 9237 0120
Fax: (02) 9237 0119
E-mail: rmonsw@records.nsw.gov.au
Level 3, 66 Harrington Street The Rocks Sydney NSW 2000


Page Top Archives Authority of NSW and the Australian Archives

There has always been a close relationship between the Commonwealth and New South Wales State Government archives, the Australian Archives and the Archives Authority of New South Wales. However, we are now working closer together than ever before. Our collaboration includes assisting each other with the drafting and production of standards, policies and the training of staff.

The most recent sign of this collaboration has been the commencement of an arrangement to offer secondments between the two institutions. The first member of staff to arrive from the Australian Archives is Ms Angela Chaperon who will be working at the Records Management Office for the six months of her secondment. Angela is from the NSW Regional Office of the Australian Archives and has had experience in all facets of records work.

While she is with the Records Management Office, Angela will be developing skills in Keyword AAA, preparing standards, codes of best practice and other guidance which we will be disseminating to NSW government records practitioners. We hope to continue this exchange of staff by sending a member of the Archives Authority’s staff to the NSW Regional Office of the Australian Archives in the near future.

We hope that the result of our collaborative efforts will be a more integrated approach to records and recordkeeping across government jurisdictions for you, our clients.


Page Top Continuing Education

School of Information, Library and Archive Studies

(The University of New South Wales)

presents


Page Top Management of Electronic Records

Monday Mornings 9.00am - 12.00 noon

10 March - 9 June 1997

The Management of Electronic Records course is a component of the formal post-graduate diploma program with limited places for professionals interested in continuing education. It examines tools for the management of electronic records and data archives created using new and emerging technologies in the public and private sectors. The course has been designed to provide an overview of the basic knowledge and skills required to establish authoritative recordkeeping regimes within electronic environments in offices and repositories.

Topics covered include:

A separate registration form is available through the University of New South Wales.

Please contact:

Maureen Henninger
Telephone: (02) 9385 3589, Fax: (02) 9385 3430
Email: m.henninger@unsw.edu.au


Page Top *Now Available*

The new Guidelines for the destruction of ephemeral, facilitative and duplicate records is available; in hard copy $4 (free to NSW government agencies), on disk $20, or visit our Web site http://www.records.nsw.gov.au or

Contact the Publications Officer on (02) 9237 0137 for your copy now.

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