Taking it to the People: Why the National Archives of Australia Embraced Digitisation on Demand

Abstract

To increase the accessibility of its collection, the National Archives introduced a digitisation on demand service in April 2001. The service delivers low resolution digital images of collection material via the archives website. In the three years since the introduction of the service, nearly 3.5 million images have been made available over the internet delighting the archives' diverse range of clients. This paper outlines the digitisation trials conducted by the archives and the development and implementation of this very successful service. A number of the archives' proactive digitisation programs, which further enhance the accessibility of their collection, are also described. © 2004, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.