ABC defends redundancies from ABC Archives
David Anderson insists ABC Archives will be protected following an outcry over job losses.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
It’s almost as if the ABC had not counted on a prominent outcry to their announcement this week to axe some 58 roles in ABC Archives.
Awkwardly, the announcement comes ahead of key ABC shows celebrating its 90th anniversary: The ABC Of… and ABC 90 Celebrate!
But as these tweets remind us, the Archives are used across multiple ongoing shows.
The Weekly, Tomorrow Tonight and Hard Quiz all work very closely with ABC librarians and archivists. We would often be lost without them. And the ABC archives are such a significant resource and record of Australian culture. The work these folks do is vitally important. https://t.co/m6WJpRatS6
— Charlie Pickering (@charliepick) June 9, 2022
Don’t it always seem to go,
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?
Speaking personally, ABC archives & the specialist knowledge our archivists have of them are precious historical resources, enriching our stories endlessly. I value these professionals & their work. https://t.co/Zqq9avDlhY— Louise Milligan (@Milliganreports) June 8, 2022
No. Please don’t @ABC. Our libraries and archives are where our history resides. Different skills required to store and access these materials than journalists possess to -supposedly – write history’s first draft. https://t.co/JVyIp5EEZO
— Anne Summers (@SummersAnne) June 8, 2022
Former ABC archivist Rod O’Hara explains why the role is so important (I tend to agree)
ABC archives staff to be targeted in latest proposed cuts' @RNDrive https://t.co/t9D9dwKtaT
— Andy Park (@andy_park) June 9, 2022
Big shout-out to Clare Cremin and Kate Jarvis whose work in the ABC archives guided us through six seasons of the Agony series. What professionals. Will we ever see their like again? https://t.co/HPMTYqa4M9
— Adam Zwar (@adamzwar) June 8, 2022
This is appalling & must be reversed. ABC is fundamental to our national historical memory. Something that Liberals, like those on the ABC board, no longer have any interest in. How surprising this decision was delayed until after the election. #SaveOurABC https://t.co/ftySNiODZg
— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) June 8, 2022
Yesterday Managing Director David Anderson released a statement:
ABC Archives is an asset of national importance and the ABC will always protect it.
The digitisation of ABC Archives is designed to protect our national heritage and make it more accessible for content makers and all Australians.
The ABC’s digitisation work undertaken in the past two years represents one of the largest projects in terms of scale and duration of its kind. It ensures the ABC’s highly valuable and sometimes fragile content is preserved for future generations. It also ensures this content is now more searchable than ever before.
Before undertaking this important project we engaged with similar organisations that have already completed or are in the process of preserving their legacy media collections, including the National Archives of Australia, the BBC and CBC.
Already approximately 90% of our audio and 35% of our cassette-format video tape content that is high value and high risk has been converted into digital files. We have also digitised all one-inch and Umatic tapes, so in total 60% of our videotape holdings is now available on digital formats.
By the end of this year 1.2 million documents, 637,000 images, 97,000 videotapes and 54,000 audio carriers will have been digitised.
The ABC has for several years been transitioning to a digital-first media organisation.
This week we announced to employees a proposal to make changes to the ABC Archives team. I can assure all Australians that the proposed changes would not in any way affect the quality of the Archives’ content, now or into the future.
The proposed changes to the management of the ABC Archives and news library would include introducing several new technological platforms to ensure accessibility.
We are confident the proposed changes would not compromise the Archives team’s ability to provide appropriate services to content makers. Following the proposed changes, the ABC’s archives and library services would employ around 70 people.
There would continue to be highly-skilled Archives staff based in newsrooms and assisting and supporting our content teams, and they would remain responsible for the archiving of raw material.
Safeguarding the ABC Archives, making it fully accessible and more easily usable are part of responsible stewardship of this wonderful resource.
- Tagged with ABC 90 Celebrate!, The ABC of
One Response
An expected and cold response from ABC management. Meanwhile, the writer of this piece still has a job.