The two technicians are responsible for digitising tens of thousands of tapes at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, ensuring the significant archival material remains accessible.
The analogue equipment used to play the recordings is no longer manufactured, meaning the pair spends many several days each week scouring the internet for spare parts and dated instruction manuals.
Mr Hansen said they even build their own components to make the machines work.
“It's a really fulfilling thing to be able to get an old bit of gear that's failed, to bring it back to operational stage or to modify it to suit your requirements,” he said.
“…It is a bit of a race against time to get enough spare parts or spare machines to do the many thousands of hours of work that's needed of them.”
The institute also accepts donated materials relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies, which meant the unpublished material could have significantly deteriorated prior to its archiving.
The Abbott Government allocated $3 million to AIATSIS to continue its digitization of its archives, which hold footage of significant cultural events for Indigenous people.
These include footage of ceremonies, music and oral histories.
The institute’s moving image collection currently stands at more than 8000 videos and 830 films – or more than 6.5 million feet of motion picture film - while the collection also holds 40,000 hours of audio.
