Lisa Cianci and Helen Morgan

Presentation at Archives and Reform - Preparing for Tomorrow, Australian Society of Archivists 1997 National Conference, Adelaide, 24- 26 July 1997.

In this section we will look at examples from four projects that ASAP staff have been working on over the past eighteen months to demonstrate some of the potential outputs beyond the ASAP ADS (Archival Data-management System). Output is the word we use to describe those products other than the ADS database that we create for records users.

You've seen how the ADS works and examples of how it can be used, but once you have gained control of your records, there are many, many ways of making that information about the records available to the end user. By 'end-user' I mean archivists, researchers, students, the general public - anyone we think might be a potential user of records and anyone we might choose to target to raise the profile of the archives.

As you know, we do archival work on records we ultimately will not have custody of. Our projects differ greatly in scale, scope and content and they occasionally fall outside of what we consider to be science, technology and medicine archives. We've put together a visual presentation that shows aspects of some of the diverse work that we have undertaken in the documentation, preservation and promotion of archives and records.

The first three of these projects are more typical of the small project work we have been doing in our Melbourne office - they are relatively small groups of records, but with considerable historical significance. ASAP's involvement began with the use of the ADS to document the records and/or artifacts, after which, Guides, displays and other published materials were produced. The last project we will look at has been produced by our Canberra office. It uses the records already held by other archives and already documented by them as the basis for a virtual exhibition.

All of these projects involve the creation of published material that is used to promote an awareness of the history of science, technology and medicine in Australia, and in doing so, draws attention to the archives as a valuable resource for the study of this history.

What we are about to show you does emphasise our use of technology as a tool - as the means to an end if you like, because database, desktop publishing and internet technology have made so much possible in terms of providing access to records, and spreading awareness of archives to a large number of people. So lets take a look at our four projects ...

ASAP Projects

	CSIRAC Computer Archives
	The Records of John Stewart Turner
	Kew Asylum Museum / Archives
	Optical Munitions Panel Virtual Exhibition