Agency Access to Archives

While digitisation is preferred, under certain circumstances Government agencies that have transferred records to the State Records Office can request to borrow original records through the use of the government loans service. 

Agencies may only borrow records that were created by their own organisation (or their preceding organisations). Agencies are unable to borrow State archives of another, separate organisation.

Loans to agencies are assessed against preservation and risk management criteria to ensure State archives remain well managed, preserved and accessible into the future. 

Requesting Records

Before requesting records, an agency must authorise designated officers to be responsible for requesting records from the State Records Office.

Requests for records may be made by the following means:

• Lodging an online request for a government loan via our online catalogue; or
• Emailing a request to govloans@sro.wa.gov.au.

To register for online government loans requests, please create a user account to the catalogue with your work email.  Once you have completed the login, email sro@sro.wa.gov.au and identify that you have registered online and that you are the records manager for your organisation.

Agencies may authorise additional staff to be granted access to the online government loans being ordered by listing staff and their roles in the same email.

If contacting State Records Office staff by email, please supply the following information:

• name and contact number of the person making the request;
• the name of the agency and department within the agency;
• accession or consignment number;
• AN or Series number;
• item or file number; and
• item title.

Loan requests will be automatically declined for State archives that are: 

• older than 75 years; 
• bound volumes/registers; 
• maps, plans or other similar large format records; 
• audio/visual material (including photographic prints or negatives); 
• fragile or damaged. 

Loan approvals 

Once a request is received, agencies will receive an email and request for additional information. Agencies are required to provide additional information about the loan including a risk management plan addressing the movement, handling and storage of the records. 

After all information and the risk management plan is received from the agency, the State Records Office will assess the condition of the records to determine if they are suitable for loan. 

Before the Director, State Records approves a loan, all documentation is carefully reviewed by the State Records Office. The approval process may take up to five (5) working days after all documentation is received from the agency. 

Once the loan is approved, you will be contacted via email to let you know when the items are ready for collection. Requested items may be collected in person from the State Library van dock, Francis Street, 8am - 2.30pm by staff or by a dedicated courier.

The loan period is four weeks. Charges apply to each four-week loan and to overdue loans. Renewal of loans can be requested by emailing govloans@sro.wa.gov.au. A four-week renewal fee also applies. See fees and charges section below. 

If records are being collected, the officer or agent collecting the record must produce a letter of authority on the agency's letterhead before the records will be released.

Urgent Requests

If the request is urgent, ensure you add URGENT to the subject line of an email to govloans@sro.wa.gov.au. You can also call the State Records Office on ph. (08) 9427 3600. Urgent requests may still take up to 48 hours to be ready for collection. 

Care of Records

Records borrowed from the State Records Office must not be altered in any way. For example, folios (pages) must not be added or removed, file numbers or titles changed, or file covers removed or replaced. No writing must be added to any folio on the file. No post-it-notes or other adhesive material should be attached to folios. A condition report will be sent with the loaned archives.

Loaned State archives cannot be shared, handed over or loaned to any other government organisation or third party.

Where loaned archives are restricted access archives, it is important to take all care to ensure confidentiality is managed according to provisions in the State Records Act 2000. 

Any concerns relating to the condition or integrity of the record should be referred back to the State Records Office.

Records will arrive with a loan slip attached. Please ensure that this slip is not removed.

Returning Records

Records must be returned via a member of the agency's staff, or a dedicated commercial courier at the agency’s expense. Records must be wrapped securely for protection. All records should be returned to the State Records Office via the State Library van dock, Francis Street. 8am - 2.30pm.

Charges enable recovery of costs incurred by the State Records Office to carry out the Government Loans service. Overdue and late return fees apply for records not returned by the due date.

Please note: Invoices for all services are issued quarterly.

The following table sets out the Government Loans fees and charges:

Intermediate records

All temporary or intermediate records held by the State Records Office are being returned to agencies. If you request intermediate records, the request will be managed as a return, not a loan. Retrieval fees, as outlined in the above table, are charged for the return of intermediate records. Returned records are not eligible for rehousing or transfer to the State Records Office.