Cassie Shaw works as Digital Archivist at RMIT University Archives
In August 2025, the RMIT University Information Governance Board endorsed our Digital Preservation Roadmap. It was an exciting mile marker for our team at the University Archives, after close to three years’ work on both the roadmap and our underlying Digital Preservation Strategy 2024-2031, which is a foundational document for improving digital preservation capability and capacity across the University.
RMIT University Archives operates as the institutional repository for university records that are evidence of the functions and activities performed throughout RMIT. Our mission is to acquire, organise, preserve and publicise such materials and to assist researchers in their use. This is our what.
We are always conscious that maintaining compliance with laws and regulations that support accountability, transparency and authenticity is key, but in this process, we also focussed on how important it is to keep the stories of the work we all do. We spend our work lives doing useful, interesting and valuable things that we want to remember, to recognise both the fact that we do these things, but also that investment in great ideas, work and people. This is our why.
(Slide from our Stakeholder Engagement ‘Elevator Pitch’)
So we developed a Digital Preservation Strategy for RMIT which aims to improve understanding of digital stewardship and preservation, underpinned by developed processes and protocols that give us in Archives the capability to support our users to utilise a mature, proactive digital archiving .
We spent most of this year evidence-gathering for the Roadmap, including
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a Risk Assessment in collaboration with the University’s Enterprise Risk Management team, which helped us characterise the risks and their mitigations,
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a Staff Capability Audit across the Library and Data & Analytics teams to get a sense of the skills required for recruitment,
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Indicative Costings to detail the financial investment in people, systems and storage for the life of the Strategy, and
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a Digital Asset Survey to begin to understand the scope of the permanent digital material to be preserved.
This process helped us get a sense of the investment required to meet the risks and start to build a viable service for the preservation of RMIT’s permanent digital records.
(Slide from our presentation to the Information Governance Board seeking endorsement for the Roadmap)
We were so grateful to be so well supported by so many people across the university who helped us get over the line for endorsement for a program which will give us improved staffing, a fit-for-purpose archival documentation management system and improved use of the current digital preservation repository, Rosetta, building a sustainable digital preservation program for the University.
The DPC’s consultancy service was also invaluable for guidance, scrutiny and support as we worked through the roadmap development process. Working with Paul Wheatley and Karyn Williamson helped maintain our focus, which in fact boiled down to Why Preserve?
As I’ve mentioned our why is definitely about compliance, accountability and transparency, but it’s also about respecting the cultural and heritage value of the amazing work that goes on in our university and the people who make it, so that we can remember and maintain it for those who come after us.
So now the real work begins! After catching our breath, we will begin work on the investment case to confirm the budget for the roadmap, and start making some concrete progress. It’s been a huge effort from the team, and we’re excited to get into it!