The NFSA is delighted by the announcement of new funding for the National Collecting Institutions announced by Minister for the Arts Tony Burke.

The funding will increase our ability to enrich the collection on behalf of all Australians, no matter where you are, and to realise our vision for the NFSA as a modern digital institution connecting all Australians to our audiovisual history.

While we are currently digitising as much of the national collection as possible, concentrating on items on deteriorating formats, this additional funding means we can do more to make the collection stay relevant long into the future.

We want to make more of it digital, make it more searchable for you, and then make it easier for you to find what you need through new online and offline services, such as streaming. 

We can also increase our work to better understand the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander items in our care, including relevant cultural protocols that should properly be in place, and returning these stories to their communities of origin where they can add value to cultural practices including the revitalisation of language.

Our national audiovisual collection is incredibly rich. We want you to use it for learning, for inspiration and for entertainment.  And we want it to be even more valuable and interesting by engaging with the new digital cultures of today, including video games and social media.

It is incredibly exciting to consider what we can now do to keep telling Australian stories in all their diversity and range.

— 5 April 2023