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The Living Archive is  an ARC Infrastructure project which draws on three institutions (NTDET, ANU and CDU) with the aim of producing an archive of books in Aboriginal languages. For more information see www.cdu.edu.au/laal

Newsletter #7

October 2013


Hard to believe it's been six months since our last newsletter! Have you checked out our website yet?

PROJECT UPDATE
The website at www.cdu.edu.au/laal continues to be refined and tweaked, addressing technical and usability issues.
  • Earlier in the year we invited some users to give us some feedback about the site, and this led to a number of improvements.
  • Our graphic designer, Trevor van Weeren, has been working on some new graphics to give a fresh look to the site.
  • We're planning a further round of evaluations before we consider the site 'ready'.  We're always keen to get feedback, which you can easily give through the website itself http://laal.cdu.edu.au/feedback/.
  • We enjoyed a visit from our developer, Steven McPhillips in July, which was a great opportunity to meet face to face and discuss things in person, which led to some futher refinements.

PROJECT NUMBERS

At the beginning of October 2013 the Living Archive contains:
  • Around 1500 items uploaded to repository
  • Awaiting permission to make public
  • Around 250 already public, with more about to be released
  • Around 1000 items ready for upload
  • Digitised, OCRed, metadata checked
  • Around 1500 items in progress
  • Digitised but awaiting OCRing, etc
  • More books awaiting digitisation
  • Other sources not yet investigated properly
  • e.g. public, state and academic libraries, personal collections
We've just rearranged some servers and done an upgrade on the app, so there are more items ready to be released in the very near future.
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 BOOKSMary, Jeannie & Cathy recording Warlpiri stories
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.
Our mailing address is:
Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages
The Northern Institute
Charles Darwin University
Darwin, NT 0909
Australia

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