Sue Coleman is the OHS Officer at State Records. With Safe Work Australia Week next week we thought it very timely to introduce her!

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This is the first in a series of information posts regarding State Records OHS commitment. If you are from a similar institution you may have similar safety issues. If you are from a smaller archive hopefully some of these tips will be of use to you.

I will introduce myself first, my name is Sue Coleman and I am the OHS Coordinator for State Records. I have worked for State Records for 23 years in several different programs and I have been the OHS Coordinator for about 5 years.

The safety, health and welfare of our staff, visitors, volunteers and contractors is of the utmost importance to our organisation. We have made a firm commitment to comply with all sections of the OHS Act 2000, OHS Regulation 2001 and associated Codes of Practice.

The very nature of our business, the storage, retrieval, cataloguing etc of records poses its own unique problems. The fact that we store such a large amount of boxes at the Western Sydney Records Centre, and that’s not including maps, plans and volumes, raises safety concerns that can be categorised simply as manual handling issues. That is the physical action of pushing, pulling, carrying, stacking, lifting and generally moving large amounts of records.

Over the coming months I will be discussing how State Records works to minimise the affects of manual handling issues along with other subjects such as slips, trips, falls, Occupational Overuse Syndrome (OOS)  plus the mental health and well being of our staff.

See you soon.