‘There’s no back-up copy’: Australian treasures are on the brink of destruction We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later. Dismiss May 1, 2021 — 5.30am Normal text size Advertisement Do you remember taping programs off your television with a VCR? Back in the days before streaming, many of us amassed small libraries of movies this way, the tapes becoming scratchy and wobbly with age. Then along came the DVD: a much more stable, digital format. The VCR quickly became obsolescent, and all those VHS tapes, lovingly compiled, became unplayable, virtually overnight. Simply put, this is the dilemma that faces the National Archives of Australia. It is stuck, metaphorically, in the VHS era, and without an urgent injection of funds, it will be trapped there. It has a vast collection of historical records: not just documents and files, but tape recordings, films, and television programs. And much of it is on the brink of destruction.