International Council of Archives

Meet Fleur, a young professional from the National Archives of Australia. Her work focuses on supporting the National Archives’ strategic relationships with other organisations and collaborations, regionally and globally. Fleur is also the Assistant Treasurer for PARBICA and is on the project team of the ICA Congress 2012.

Fleur Jamet (Responsable exécutif), Helen Walker (Directrice) et Emma Buckley (Responsable exécutif), membres de l'équipe du service des Relations stratégiques devant les bureaux nationaux de Canberra des Archives nationales d'Australie

Hello and greetings from Australia. My name is Fleur Jamet and I work as an Executive Officer in the Strategic Relations and Personal Records section of the National Archives of Australia (NAA). Responsible for collecting, preserving and providing access to Australia’s most valuable government records, the National Archives also provides a key role in helping to ensure the Australian Government and its departments are effective and accountable to the Australian people through good records management. I work in our National Office located in Canberra, the National Capital. We also have state and territory offices in all of Australia’s capital cities, including Brisbane, the host city of the ICA Congress 2012.

As part of the project team for the Congress, I am excited about the exceptional keynote speakers and the investigations around the central themes of Sustainability, Trust and Identity which promise to be engaging and challenging. The issues faced by archivists and information managers of the 21st century are shared by the international community and we look forward to welcoming you to discuss, in situ for the first time in the southern hemisphere, the evolving strategies and most recent advances in archival management, policy, practice and theory.

I came to the National Archives from the Department of Defence, with the undeniable ‘lure’ of working for a national cultural institution. I hold a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cultural Studies and Policy Formation from Charles Sturt University and having worked in a variety of cultural arenas both in Australia and overseas, and also in the public sector, I relished the opportunity of joining an agency intent on both promoting good governance and preserving and encouraging the use of archival heritage.
My career at the Archives started with arrangement and descriptive work, contributing to the physical and intellectual control of the Archives’ holdings. This has included work on WWII Royal Australian Air Force funeral photographs, an uncontrolled series of Commonwealth Electoral matters dating from 1902 and an updating of agencies responsible for series following administrative changes.

My current role within Strategic Relations involves helping to coordinate and oversee the Archives’ strategic relationships with other national and international archival bodies. This may range from hosting visits from international archival delegations to maintaining strong relationship with key external stakeholders. These include the International Council on Archives (ICA) and its Pacific Regional Branch (PARBICA); the Council of Australasian Archives and Records Authorities (CAARA), which comprises the heads of the government archives authorities of the Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand and each of the Australian States and Territories; the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC); the Australasian Digital Recordkeeping Initiative (ADRI); and Standards Australia, the peak non-government Standards body in Australia, to name but a few.

A career highlight has been my recent appointment to the PARBICA Bureau in the role of Assistant Treasurer. I have been inspired by this passionate community of archival and records management professionals and their keen sense of community, pride and professionalism. Committed to advancing good recordkeeping across the Pacific, PARBICA developed the award winning Recordkeeping for Good Governance Toolkit to help Pacific Island governments and decision-makers enhance the state of recordkeeping in their jurisdictions. The Toolkit has been immensely successful and is currently being adapted for the francophone community, in particular French speaking Africa, by the Association des Archivistes Français – a project endorsed and funded by PCOM.
Anticipating the Congress and all its wonderful opportunities for networking and career development – I look forward to seeing you in beautiful Brisbane in August.

Fleur