Councils, health services and cultural institutions across central Victoria are confronting a hidden data crisis as duplicate digital images clog storage systems, waste public money and slow the work of preserving the region's history.
4 min read
Bendigo's public institutions are sitting on tens of thousands of duplicate digital image files — redundant copies of photographs, scanned documents and heritage records that consume server storage, inflate IT costs and create genuine headaches for archivists and records managers trying to find the right version of anything. The scale of the problem, while not unique to regional Victoria, hits harder here because budgets are tighter and the stakes for cultural preservation are higher.
Digital duplication has been building quietly for years across local government, health and arts sectors. Every time a staff member emails a photograph, downloads a scanned report or re-exports a heritage image in a different format, a new file is born. Multiply that across hundreds of employees, dozens of shared drives and several institutional mergers over a decade, and the arithmetic becomes uncomfortable fast. The problem is front of mind right now because several Bendigo organisations are mid-way through major infrastructure projects that require clean, verified digital records.
Industry research published by the International Data Corporation found that between 25 and 40 per cent of files stored on typical enterprise networks are exact or near-exact duplicates. Apply that range conservatively to a mid-sized regional council or health service running several terabytes of shared storage, and the waste is not abstract — it translates directly into hardware costs, cloud subscription fees and staff hours spent searching for the authoritative copy of a file.
At Bendigo Health, which is partway through a significant capital expansion at its Lucan Street campus, digital records management has taken on new urgency. Construction projects generate enormous volumes of photographic documentation — site progress shots, inspection records, heritage-condition surveys — and duplication rates in project-based environments routinely exceed 30 per cent of total image storage, according to records management research from RMIT University's information management faculty. Every redundant file is a quiet invoice the institution keeps paying.
The City of Greater Bendigo manages cultural and planning records that include historical photographs stretching back to the goldfields era. The Bendigo Art Gallery on View Street, which holds a significant collection of digitised works and archival images, operates its own asset management system. Staff at institutions like these spend measurable time — industry benchmarks suggest as much as 15 per cent of a digital archivist's working week — verifying which of several nearly identical files is the master copy before any image can be published, licensed or shared with researchers.
La Trobe University's Bendigo campus, on Edwards Road, has been a quiet contributor to addressing the problem through its library and information science programs. Students undertaking practical placements with local cultural institutions have, in recent years, helped conduct basic deduplication audits — manually comparing file metadata, creation dates and resolution specs to flag obvious redundancies. It is slow work, and it does not scale.
The Bendigo Regional Archives Centre, which holds records for several local government bodies and community organisations, has been evaluating automated deduplication software as part of a broader records modernisation effort. Purpose-built tools can process thousands of image files in hours rather than weeks, flagging duplicates by comparing pixel-hash fingerprints rather than relying on file names or folder locations. Licensing costs for enterprise-grade deduplication platforms typically range from around $3,000 to $15,000 annually depending on storage volume — a meaningful line item for a regional institution but a fraction of the cost of the storage waste it eliminates.
For Aboriginal cultural heritage collections, the duplication problem carries additional weight. Misidentified or duplicated images of sacred objects or Country can result in inappropriate distribution of material that communities have asked be handled with strict protocols. The Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation, which holds custodial responsibilities across much of the Bendigo region, has emphasised accurate, controlled digital records as part of its cultural heritage management agreements with local government bodies.
The practical path forward for most Bendigo institutions involves three steps: a baseline audit to establish how many duplicates actually exist, a decision on whether to use automated tools or manual review, and a file-naming and storage policy to prevent the problem rebuilding itself within two years. None of it is glamorous. All of it saves money and preserves what the region is actually trying to protect.
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Published by The Daily Bendigo
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