The role of the National Archives of Australia is to promote the creation, management and preservation of authentic, reliable and usable Commonwealth government records and enable ongoing public access to the archival resources of the Commonwealth. Records that are created by Commonwealth government agencies and transferred to the National Archives are, of course, predominately digital. Digital records bring a range of challenges, but they also potentially present new opportunities in the way archives can conduct their business. This paper outlines a project currently underway at the National Archives, named Project Chrysalis, which is an end-to-end business system that aims to transform the way in which the Archives does its digital business. Project Chrysalis represents not just a technical solution, but also significant business change for the National Archives. However, if implemented successfully, the project should enable the Archives to sustainably harvest, preserve and provide access to digital records in the information age.

Government; digital records; business system; metadata; automation; machine learning; change

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Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Digital Preservation

School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill