Accountability and accessibility: ensuring the evidence of e-governance in Australia

Purpose – To review the challenges associated with ensuring the capture and preservation of and long‐term access to government records and publications in the digital age and to describe how libraries and archives in Australia are responding to the challenge.Design/methodology/approach – Literature‐ and case‐study‐based conceptual analysis of what makes government online information so vulnerable and initiatives at the National Library of Australia and the National Archives of Australia.Findings – Democracy, governance, consultation and participation all depend on the availability of authentic and reliable information. Government agencies as well as educational and research institutions are producing increasingly large volumes of information in digital formats only. While Australia has done more than most countries to date to address the need to identify, collect, store and preserve government publications and public records in digital formats, large amounts of information are still at risk of loss.Resear...