The Mints Secrets

[interest]

From the Mints
 
RoyalAustralianMint @RoyalAustMint  ·  Jun 25

We've changed old processes for the better. Electronic records instead of paper is saving us tonnes of paper & space.

So you know we're talking old files, these books date to the mid-60's & are mostly handwritten

An almost 50yr history means we have plenty of archive records. New records are all digital


Electronic records has also retired these from most offices, making better use of our space

[Unicorn]

Cool ...... I want to see what's in the 4 drawer cabinet in the corner!

[Robster]

"Hard to get stuff".!! :angel:

[purplepennyhunter]

I'm going to edit the title from secretes to secrets

[Robster]

"Less messy".! :angel:

[JeffH]

I could not see any secretions in the pictures. I expected to find something about the PVC packaging they used in years gone by.

[nealeffendi]

As a numismatologist I hope they don't destroy the old paper records. I've spent thousands of hours in various archives over the years and repeatedly noted that when they make electronic or photographic copies of records they lose large amounts of information. A weak/faded annotation in pencil might not be visible. Notes in the margin might have been over the edge of the scanner. They forget to scan a page. They scan numerous pages horribly out of focus. Etc,etc. An example,the Mitchell library contains the earliest reference I know of to the 1930 penny, problem is they copied it to microfiche out of focus and then destroyed the paper records.
Sometimes the medium itself that the original record was in gives valuable information. For example a few months ago I found by chance a complete wartime (WW2) list of Melbourne mint employees recorded in a Sydney mint record book. That is valuable as it proves that Melbourne mint stored many Sydney mint records and that staff had access to them.
Electronic records are also risky as solar flares, EMPs, malware, control delete etc can wipe records (often permanently) in seconds. In the US a Congressional Hearing was told a week ago that their tax office had accidently erased a whole bunch of important emails between senior officials (better than a dog eating your homework as an excuse).
I have original records from a genetic engineering research project that I did 30 years ago. Problem is they were stored on floppy disks (remember those) and I no longer have access to a disk drive. That was an issue raised back in the 1990s when archivists pointed out that much of the information would become inaccessible because people wouldn't have the hardware to access the files.So now with my numismatic research I always print out a paper copy of stuff I also store on USBs.

[JeffH]

Hear hear.
I know someone who would take all the physical records for posterity. Me? I would like to get my hands on some of the redundant shelving and cabinets.

[Pedro]

Bet that corner drawer holds the answers to the incused 50c questions!

Pedro