Documenting Australian Society: An initiative of the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Committee

The topic of documenting Australian Society has been discussed regularly by Australian documentary heritage professionals since the 1990s. The journal Archives and Manuscripts has published theme issues on the topic in 2001 and in 2023. In 2018 the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Program organised a national summit on the topic in Canberra. That summit meeting endorsed ‘The Canberra Declaration’ as an action agenda for the documentary heritage sectors and agreed that the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Program should take carriage of the initiative. Since then, a steering committee has been established and three seminars/webinars have been organised. The first seminar was on Documenting Covid-19 in Australia, the second on Documenting the Experiences of Australian on Welfare and the third on reinventing archival appraisal practices. This paper discusses the background and objectives of the initiative, examples of similar initiatives in other countries, the current status of the initiative and plans for the future.