Digital archive

Digital public records depend heavily on technology. This makes them fragile and increases the risk of loss as technology continues to change. As hardware and software become either more sophisticated or obsolete, digital material becomes harder to manage and maintain.

Digital preservation encompasses a comprehensive set of well-managed activities intended to address these issues and ensure the ongoing accessibility of digital records for as long as they are required. QSA has both a dedicated digital preservation system (Archivematica) and processes in place that actively monitor and preserve all digital public records in its collection.

Transferring your digital public records of permanent value to the digital archive can help your public authority meet its legislative requirements under the Public Records Act 2023, ensuring records remain authentic, accessible and usable over time despite changes to technology, systems and organisational structures. QSA accepts permanent records that are born digital or digitised, provided the digitised copy meets the conditions outlined in the Source Records retention and disposal schedule.

The benefits for your public authority include:

• being able to preserve and manage your public authority’s permanent digital public records in a dedicated digital preservation system, reducing the risk of data loss
• ensuring your permanent digital public records remain accessible and usable despite changes to software, hardware and business systems
• providing authorised users ongoing access to your permanent digital public records
• reducing ongoing maintenance and storage costs
• supporting the decommissioning of legacy business systems, simplifying your ICT environment
• reducing the need to manage future migrations of permanent digital public records during technology upgrades, system replacements and machinery-of-government changes.

Our digital transfer model will include four basic elements:

• measuring and testing the feasibility of a potential transfer
• working closely with public authorities to plan and prepare digital public records and metadata for transfer
• making the digital public records accessible and searchable online in ArchivesGateway to users with appropriate permissions
• making open digital public records accessible and searchable online in ArchivesSearch.

Transfer of digital public records will largely be conducted via upload in ArchivesGateway. This allows for integrity checks, like checksum validation and virus scanning, to occur at the time of upload. If any errors or failures are detected, remediation can occur immediately.

Any content saved to digital carriers such as CDs, floppy disks or USB flash drives, will need to be extracted from the carrier first and then uploaded via ArchivesGateway.

QSA can work with public authorities to help analyse and extract any digital holdings stored on digital carriers.

Once digital public records are transferred safely into the digital archive, they are monitored over time to ensure ongoing integrity and accessibility.

Email digitalarchive@archives.qld.gov.au for help with alternative transfer methods, particularly if there are limitations in bandwidth when uploading large or multiple files for transfer.

Email digitalarchive@archives.qld.gov.au for help if your public authority is considering transferring digital public records to the digital archive.

To prepare for future transfers and support the long-term authenticity, integrity and usability of digital public records, your public authority can:

• choose software and file formats that are well supported and widely used
• use consistent file naming conventions with meaningful descriptions
• store digital public records in secure and reliable locations
• identify which digital public records have permanent value and required for preservation
• capture and maintain accurate metadata that provides meaning and context to the digital public records.

Visit Transfer records to QSA to learn more about the transfer process.

The process for transferring physical and digital public records is similar, but there are some differences. Digital transfers are usually uploaded through ArchivesGateway and each digital record must be listed individually in the Transfer List spreadsheet. The Transfer List spreadsheet also requires additional metadata for digital transfers.

Email digitalarchive@archives.qld.gov.au before preparing a digital transfer. We will help assess the proposed transfer, including the size and quantity of items, confirm the required metadata and assist with the digital transfer, either through ArchivesGateway or another agreed method.

Visit Transfer records at QSA to learn more about planning and preparing digital transfers.

Whether digitised or digital, permanent value digital public records can be transferred and ingested into the digital archive in nearly any format.

Digitised copies of permanent value public records may be transferred to QSA where they meet the requirements of the Source Records retention and disposal schedule.

While QSA does not impose specific file format requirements for transfers, we provide recommendations for suitable formats for long-term preservation.

Digital transfers are ingested and stored in Queensland’s digital archive which uses Archivematica, a digital preservation system, to manage and preserve digital public records.

Archivematica can accept most file formats, but zipped archives need to be extracted before transfer. Each digital file must be listed individually in the transfer spreadsheet so it can be matched with its archival description and managed through the preservation workflow.

Extracting zip files before transfer allows each file to be checked, identified, preserved and described individually, rather than being hidden within a compressed zip archive.

QSA adopts a prudent approach to digital preservation, focusing on preserving the original files and normalising them when necessary. This is achieved by ensuring that the files are free from viruses, conducting fixity checks to ensure file integrity, and understanding the file formats present in our collections. This proactive approach ensures the long-term viability and accessibility of digital public records.

Queensland’s digital archive is hosted within Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Australia, with no data stored outside of Australia.

The environment is managed and monitored by QSA’s third-party supplier using AWS monitoring and security control services. The third-party supplier is ISO270001 certified and is audited on this requirement every year.

All customer data stored in AWS is encrypted at rest. All data stored in AWS is copied across 3 data centres that are geographically separate.  The digital archive also maintains a copy of your data at CITEC. This data is also encrypted at rest.

ArchivesGateway requires multi-factor authentication to log in with audit trails enabled. ArchivesGateway users can only see records associated with their public authority.

Digital public records transferred to QSA will be visible via ArchivesGateway, but access to them will follow the principle of least privilege, ensuring that users will only have access to what they need to perform their responsibilities.

Digital public records visible in ArchivesGateway will be classified as non-sensitive, sensitive, or highly sensitive. The classification will be applied by the agency in consultation with QSA. Access to the records will be governed by the access classification.

Open digital public records will be available via ArchivesSearch.