From the early 1960s through to the 1990s Geoscience Australia's predecessors conducted numerous remote field programs, mapping the geology of the Australian Antarctic Territory. Scientific observations, measurements, sample numbers, locations, and other anecdotal information, such as weather conditions and day-to-day life in the field during those early Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions, were faithfully and sometime painstakingly, recorded in that quintessential accessory, 'the field notebook', by field geologists. These handwritten field notebooks now reside in the Geoscience Australia library, and are publicly available for all to enjoy. Currently, the interested geologist or historian must physically visit Geoscience Australia to gain access to these irreplaceable and invaluable sources of scientific and other information. The Geoscience Australia library regularly receives requests from researchers to view field notebooks, as the raw data contained is of continued relevance and value to contemporary scientific research. In addition to the scientific observations, the notebooks record the realities of what everyday life in Antarctica was like. Among the scientific data are lists of food supplies, field logistics and planning, equipment requirements, comments on the dog sledge teams, and WYSSA (private telegram) messages home to loved ones. Increasingly, we are finding that family historians are keen to access their relative's field notebooks for inclusion in their own publications and family histories. In order to make these valuable records more accessible to the world and in line with Geoscience Australia's policy of ensuring that our geoscience data, information, and collections are discoverable, accessible and searchable as a public resource a digitisation project has been undertaken. Under the guidance and assistance of the Australian Museum's DigiVol program (https://volunteer.ala.org.au/), and with a loyal cadre of hardworking volunteers, we are digitising and transcribing all the Antarctic field notebooks for web delivery. Thanks to the hard work of our dedicated volunteers, our collection of almost 90 Antarctic field notebooks is well on its way to being released. Although the Geoscience Australia library has a comprehensive collection of Antarctic field notebooks, we do have some gaps which we are keen to fill. We¿d like to hear from anyone who has any Bureau of Mineral Resources, Australian Geological Survey Organisation, or Geoscience Australia Antarctic field notebooks that we could include in our project, to make the important information contained in them accessible to researchers from around the world.

Fuelled by a virtual explosion in digital capabilities the world is changing very fast and the field of Geoscience is no exception. Geoscience Australia (GA) has undergone a rapid digital transformation in the past 5 years. This has in part been driven by increasing organisational ICT costs, and partly by whole of government and more broadly global changes to the digital environment such as; growth in data, cheaper, more available cloud and infrastructure, new advances in AI and ML, new models for continuous development (DevOps) and public expectations that data will be available and accessible. The overarching principle of Geoscience Australia's Digital Strategy 2019-22 acknowledges that GA’s Enterprise ICT is inherently integrated with scientific data and ICT requirements, and more broadly these are the foundation of the digital science we are respected for at GA. As such, this strategy brings all three of these components together in a whole of agency digital strategy. The Digital Strategy focuses on strong foundations, systematic experimentation, data-driven science and digital culture and capability. Eighteen different strategies lie under these themes to help guide GA's focus for the next 3 years. There are also a number of high level KPI’s designed to help us measure our success.

The Great Artesian Basin Research Priorities Workshop, organised by Geoscience Australia (GA), was held in Canberra on 27 and 28 April 2016. Workshop attendees represented a spectrum of stakeholders including government, policy, management, scientific and technical representatives interested in GAB-related water management. This workshop was aimed at identifying and documenting key science issues and strategies to fill hydrogeological knowledge gaps that will assist federal and state/territory governments in addressing groundwater management issues within the GAB, such as influencing the development of the next Strategic Management Plan for the GAB. This report summarises the findings out of the workshop.