Bernadette’s Story

Bernadette’s Story: This annual award honours the late Bernadette Bean’s outstanding leadership and significant contributions to the records, information and archives management industry for more than 30 years.

Bernadette passed away in February 2018. Even though her modesty prevented her from saying so, Bernadette was a high achiever and led an outstanding career. She was a strong leader and mentor, a prolific reader, and a world-acclaimed crime fiction reviewer and book blogger.

Bernadette was committed to information sharing, challenging the norm, mentoring students, nurturing staff she supervised, and recognising and celebrating the achievements of others; particularly the efforts of individuals, groups / teams, students, researchers, historians and volunteers who are not as readily recognised for their efforts. She believed in the importance of keeping up-to-date with industry developments and best practice techniques through education and training programs, networking, reviewing professional journals and actively participating in online discussion forums.

She was an intelligent, generous, compassionate humanitarian; a role model for women; and a strong advocate for children’s literacy, local community causes, the environment, the arts, history and cultural heritage, local libraries, social justice, victims of domestic violence and other crime, and the disadvantaged.

Bernadette firmly believed in the adage that ‘nothing is impossible, rather that some things are more difficult than others’.

Further insights about Bernadette’s significant contributions to society follow. They form part of her enduring legacy. Hopefully Bernadette’s examples inspire people to make the world a better place and demonstrate that, both individually and collectively, we can make a difference.

Bernadette’s career highlights and achievements

Bernadette completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Australian politics and history at the University of Adelaide. She later graduated from Monash University after completing a Master of Information Management Systems.

Bernadette was a strong professional who dedicated her 30 year public sector career to making a difference. She was a highly experienced government archivist and records and information manager. Her professional roles included:

• • archivist at State Records New South Wales (NSW) for three years, and with State Records of South Australia (SA) for seven years
  • records management strategist for the SA Department of Transport for nine years
  • manager, records management at SA Health for 12 years.

Bernadette attended and presented at conferences, network meetings, training courses and professional development seminars. These activities positively contributed to her outstanding leadership capabilities; and her extensive knowledge of records, information and archives management industry standards, technologies and best practice.

She was a creative leader and a lateral thinker. Bernadette actively focused on collaborating with customers and stakeholders to identify and address their business needs, especially towards enabling business process improvements and efficiencies in the public sector.

Bernadette’s highly developed skills and experience in document management, digital imaging, strategic planning, business case development, policy and technical writing, records retention and disposal management, archives, project and change management, and electronic document and records management system (EDRMS) / enterprise content management (ECM) solutions were well recognised by her colleagues and peers.

Some of Bernadette’s significant career achievements included:

• • Management of several NSW State Bicentennial Archives Projects while at State Records NSW.
  • Authoring a chapter in the ‘Selected essays in electronic recordkeeping in Australia’ publication commissioned by the Australian Society of Archivists (ASA).

• • Involvement in drafting the SA State Records Bill and related community and stakeholder consultation. The Bill was subsequently proclaimed as the State Records Act 1997.
  • Development of the first state-wide SA Government Records Management Policy and Practice Manual. This important manual supported the adoption of SA State Records Act and Australian records management standards’ requirements by SA state and local government authorities.

• • Active involvement in the development of the SA Local Government Authorities General Disposal Schedule which defined legal requirements for the retention and disposal of government records managed by local councils across the State.
  • Development of numerous agency-specific business operational records retention and disposal schedule authorities for various SA state and local government authorities.

• • Establishment and adoption of integrated agency digital plan management procedures and solutions based on best practice and industry standards.
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  • Successful outsourcing and performance monitoring of agency records storage and archiving services, which provided benchmarks for adoption by other government agencies.

• • Presentations at professional association and networking group conferences, and delivery of numerous training courses for customers.
  • Development of creative videos and online recordkeeping training modules; long before they became the norm for educating executives, managers and employees. Although she was an early adopter of online learning delivery, Bernadette also championed innovative face-to-face workshops, training courses and other flexible learning programs to convey important concepts and cater for different learning styles.

• • Spending endless hours collaborating with a small, dedicated group of like-minded professionals to organise and facilitate regular successful SA state and local government records and information management and related EDRMS / ECM solution networking events. These events educated participants on digital records management legislative requirements, industry standards, strategies and technologies. They also promoted opportunities for across jurisdiction and agency knowledge sharing and collaboration.

Bernadette was also instrumental in leading a project team responsible for pioneering the development and implementation of a holistic enterprise EDRMS / ECM solution for a large state government infrastructure agency.  This involved system requirements specification, design, rollout, change management, training and user support programs. The solution implemented still currently underpins the agency’s critical business processes and workflow automation, and enables the ongoing management of millions of digital government records of vital importance to the organisation and the State’s history. This agency-wide digital information management project was one of the first of its kind within SA Government and across Australia. Bernadette was always happy to share details of the agency’s innovative programs and learnings, and demonstrate the functionality of an EDRMS / ECM – then a new and sophisticated technology that was unfamiliar to many organisations and records and information managers in SA and across Australia.

Bernadette’s professional groups and associations 

Bernadette was an active professional member of many groups and associations. These included the:

• • Records Management Association of Australia (RMAA), now known as Records and Information Management Practitioners Alliance – Global (RIMPA Global).
  • Australian Society of Archivists (ASA).
  • Australian Institute for Information Management (IIM).
  • Historical Society of SA Inc (HSSA).
  • National Records and Archives Competency Standards Group.

• Various professional association and industry group roles voluntarily carried out by Bernadette included:
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  • President and Secretary, RMAA SA Branch, and Editor of the branch newsletter.
  • Inaugural President, RMAA SA State Government Chapter, and Chapter Events Organising Sub-committee.
  • Secretary and National Membership Officer, ASA Branch Executive.
  • Member, ASA National Conference Organising Committee.
  • Member, ASA Electronic Records Special Interest Group.
  • Member, HSSA.
  • Member, SA RecFind, Hummingbird and Objective EDRMS / ECM User Groups.

Bernadette’s personal interests 

Bernadette had many personal interests. These included volunteering, history, cultural heritage, movies, music, photography, politics, travel, the arts, spending time with family and friends, and reading since long before she went to school. Her reading preferences were for crime and historical fiction books, memoirs and biographies. Bernadette always enthusiastically consumed the latest book she had acquired or loaned from her local library and encouraged others to do the same.

Her passion for books saw Bernadette:

• • establish two world-acclaimed crime fiction book blogging sites to review and critique books for readers and authors
  • promote bricks-and-mortar bookshops
  • support children’s literacy programs
  • campaign for the retention and upgrade of her local public library
  • encourage Australian crime fiction authors and mentor women writers.

Bernadette’s passing triggered an outpouring of glowing tributes to ‘Bernadette in Oz’, as she was known in the blogging world. These tributes originated from bloggers and authors across the globe who highly respected her candid book reviews and regarded themselves as Bernadette’s close friends, even though they had never met her in person.

Bernadette’s favourite charities and causes

Some of Bernadette’s favourite charities and causes included:

• • Books in Homes Australia – a charitable foundation that provides books to children living in remote, disadvantaged and low socio-economic circumstances, ensuring crucial early literacy engagement and the development of reading skills needed for lifelong achievement.

• • MedSTAR – a 24-hour emergency medical retrieval service providing South Australians with emergency medical patient care, treatment and transport from any location in the State to the most appropriate medical facility. Bernadette was a keen promoter of the great work that MedSTAR does for the community, having had personal experience with this world-class service.

• • Nelson Street Stepney Historical Cottage Villas – the last three remaining heritage German worker’s cottage villas built by early European settlers in the 1880s, which the local council had marked for demolition. Significant calls to retain these villas made by Bernadette, other local residents and community groups resulted in the cottages being preserved due to their vital historical importance in the early development of Stepney; and to the area’s residential and commercial zone created by one of Adelaide’s earliest pioneers, Hakan Linde. They are currently regularly used by the community as part of the Linde Reserve/Dunstan Grove precinct.

• • Norwood Payneham St Peters Community Garden Association – a community association responsible for overseeing the establishment and management of the Linde Reserve Community Garden. This shared community garden allows members to build environmentally sustainable garden beds and composting systems to grow organic fruit, vegetables and other plants. It also provides a meeting place for members to share sustainable gardening ideas and skills; and aims to preserve key historical features, provide an arts eco park and foster a stronger sense of community. Bernadette chaired the association’s management committee, facilitated fundraising activities, and was spokesperson for The Friends of Linde Reserve/Dunstan Grove.

• • Norwood Library – a local public library run by the Norwood Payneham St Peters Council providing a variety of services to meet the information, recreational and lifelong learning needs of the community. Bernadette coordinated the community’s response and led a highly successful ‘Libraries Matter’ / ‘We Shall Not be Shushed’ community public campaign to prevent the closure of the library, and restore funding for the upgrade of the library’s services and facilities.
  • St Vincent de Paul Society (‘Vinnies’) – a charity comprising members and volunteers with a compassionate outlook who care about social justice and making a difference in the lives of disadvantaged people around Australia and the world. Bernadette would frequently serve meals to Vinnies’ clients attending the ‘soup kitchen’, including on Christmas Day to enable other volunteers to spend time with their families.
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• • Share the Dignity – a women’s charity that makes a difference to homeless women and victims of domestic violence by collecting personal hygiene products for women experiencing homelessness and poverty. The charity also funds funerals for victims of domestic violence and campaigns for justice for women in Australia. Bernadette regularly reached out to friends to donate to this worthy charity in lieu of giving birthday and Christmas gifts to her.

• • The Smith Family – a children’s charity helping disadvantage Australian children to get the most out of their education so they can create better futures for themselves. Bernadette was a generous donor and supporter of this charity which included sponsoring a child.
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  • The Salvation Army Australia (‘Salvos’) – a charity focused on giving hope where it’s needed most and bringing hope whenever there is hardship or injustice. Again, Bernadette also supported the Salvos by regularly donating items.