PRESENTATIONS
The project has been presented at the following events:
Chief Investigator Michael Christie also gave seminars at the
University of Cologne as the Visiting Professor and Dr R Marika Visiting Chair of Australian and Indigenous Studies.
LANGUAGE NAMES AND ISO CODES
Naming and identifying languages has always been a difficult thing in Australian languages. The
International Standards Organisation (ISO) has developed a range of 3-letter codes which are commonly used to identify languages. We're using these codes so that materials in our archive can be accessed by a wide audience, however, these codes are linked to languages or language names which are not always in common use in the community. For example, the book
Mirinyuŋu Goŋmiyin (The whale's story) is available in both
Warramiri language and
Gälpu/Golumala/Ŋaymil languages, however the ISO code for all of these is [dhg] (Djaŋu), so it looks like there are two books in exactly the same language! The Living Archive team has put in some submissions to
request changes to these codes with the aim of making the ISO codes closer to how the languages in our books are identified by the people and communities who created them. You can go to
the ISO change request index to read and
support our proposed changes.
TALKING BOOKS
We've also been experimenting with different ways of bringing the books in our archive to life. With audio recordings of speakers reading the books aloud, we can create 'talking books'. Chief investigator
Brian Devlin has been working on linking text, audio and images using
html5. Linguist
Mary Laughren has been working with Lajamanu elder
Jeannie Herbert (at right, with Cathy Bow) to record some books in
Warlpiri that will be turned into talking books. If you know anything about
epub formats, or have recordings that could be linked to books in our archive, we'd love to hear from you!
COMMUNITY PERMISSIONS
The search for signatures continues, with significant help from a number of people. On a recent trip to Central Australia,
Cathy Bow and
Susan Moore visited
Papunya, and spent time driving around the local football oval with senior Luritja elder
Charlotte Phillipus pointing out various people who were watching the footy competition and inviting them to hear about the project and sign permission forms. also, the school council at
Yipirinya School in Alice Springs were happy to give permission for all their materials to be made public on our website.
People in our network with connections in communities have also assisted with the search -
Elizabeth Caldwell had worked on
Groote Eylandt for many years prior to retirement, and she was delighted to return there and reconnect with a number of people while sharing about the Living Archive project.
Haydee McKittrick is working with
Anita Painter in
Barunga to find many of the authors and illustrators of books in
Kriol and other languages.
Cathy will soon be visiting
Wadeye and
Maningrida to assess the language materials there which have yet to be digitised, and to get permission signatures. We're still following up some contacts in other areas, and hope to get many more signatures before the end of this year.
PROMOTING THE LIVING ARCHIVE
We now have some
A5 brochures and
A2 posters available to promote the website and archive - let us know if you'd like some for your office, school or home.
The
Charles Darwin University Origins magazine recently featured an article about our project, including an interview with Milingimbi elder
Waymamba Gaykamaŋu about the inclusion of her father's stories in the collection.
FUTURE PLANS
We're still holding our collective breath waiting to hear if our application for further funding from the Australian Research Council for another Linkage, Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities grant. If successful, we'll be working with
NT Department of Education and
Australian National University again, plus new partners
Northern Territory Library,
Batchelor Institute, and
Catholic Education.
If you haven't checked out our site yet, please go to
www.cdu.edu.au/laal and give us your
feedback!
Also, please
forward this newsletter to other interested people.