Funding for the country's largest digitised archive has been announced, after months of the National Library of Australia (NLA) calling for more financial support.
In its upcoming May budget, the federal government has promised $33 million over four years to the NLA.
The NLA, which runs digital archive database Trove, will also be separately allocated funding of more than $9 million — a move the government said would secure the future of the service for years to come.
Minister for the Arts Tony Burke announced the funding as part of Revive, the government's National Cultural Policy to "maintain our strong cultural infrastructure".
"Trove is, in many ways, Australia's digital memory: It records and retains some of our most important stories, moments, challenges, controversies and successes in one accessible location," Mr Burke said.
"Whether you're using it to look up a bit of family history, or for academic research, Trove is an incredibly important part of our national cultural institutions."
In its statement, the government said it was cleaning up the "mess" left behind by the former government, and that the essential services — such as Trove — had been neglected in previous budgets.
"It takes us a step closer to ending the budget cuts and culture wars of the previous government."
The announcement comes after months of stories about the dire states of some of the country's national institutions, including the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), which have been waiting for funding that the government had hinted would come in the May budget.
In a letter to Mr Burke, obtained by the ABC under freedom of information laws, the NGA's chair had expressed his worries and foreshadowed money-saving measures the gallery might have had to take, including charging entry and letting staff go.
'Take Trove off life support'
The NLA also asked for more funding as the repairs continue on its heritage copper roof, damaged during a devastating hailstorm in 2020.
In 2016, the NLA's Trove was under threat after the then-Coalition government announced a $20 million cut in funding.
ACT Senator Katy Gallagher said of the funding announcement: "Trove and the National Library can now keep doing what they do best."
"We know just how important Trove is to so many Australians, and the Albanese government is pleased to be able to provide our National Library the funding needed to finally take Trove off of life support," Senator Gallagher said.
"Without this funding, Trove would simply cease to exist in a few short months — and, with that, free digital access to much of Australia's history would be denied to millions of Australians."
Opposition arts spokesman Paul Fletcher today welcomed the funding but took aim at the time it had taken the federal government to provide it.
"It is curious that it has taken until now for the Albanese Labor government to confirm funding for Trove beyond this point, having failed to do so in either the October budget or the National Cultural Policy released in January," he said.
He also highlighted that today's announcement contained no additional information about funding for the other national cultural institutions, including the National Gallery of Australia.
"All Australians who love these institutions will be anxiously waiting to see if the Albanese government responds to the repeated calls from the chair of the National Gallery Council," he said.
Trove currently boasts a collection of more than 14 billion digitised records, Australia's one-stop shop for the history of the nation that is utilised regularly by academic institutions, researchers and people who the government describes as "ordinary Australians keen to understand the history of their families or their communities".
