ASAP's Mission

Aim:

The Australian Science Archives Project's aim is to improve access to Australia's scientific, medical and technological heritage by helping to preserve records and artefacts and by communicating the existence of this heritage to a wide audience.

Objectives:

Identification and Preservation

ASAP aims to play an active role in identifying and ensuring the preservation of records and artefacts of historical value that add to our understanding of the history of Australian science, medicine and technology.

Documentation

ASAP provides professional archival, historical and records management services for both individual clients and the wider community to ensure that records significant to our scientific heritage are appropriately managed and documented.

Communication

ASAP communicates the significance of Australia's scientific, medical and technological heritage to both the general and research communities in Australia, and to an international audience. ASAP also promotes the importance of sound records management and archival practice to scientists and technologists in order to further their understanding of the importance of safeguarding their own records.

Participation

ASAP works to encourage co-operative links between heritage institutions with the aim of fostering understanding, interaction and the development of shared goals. ASAP also seeks to develop relationships with related bodies internationally, both in order to ensure that our work meshes with similar work being done overseas and to assist the professional development of our staff.

- From the ASAP Annual Report 1994-5, formulated during an extremely well-fed few days in Hepburn Springs, as ASAP's core staff (all 13 of them) got together to think about what ASAP is and does.

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