 |
 |
Collections Access &
Development
The future of connection material project
Connection
material generated by native title claims is of great value, not
only to claimants, but to the wider community because it offers a
valuable contribution to Australian history, anthropology,
sociology, land management and other disciplines. With this in
mind, a plan needs to be created for both present and future care
of the material.
In April-May 2005
the Native Title Research and Access Officer, Ms Grace Koch surveyed
native title representative bodies (NTRBs) to find out about current
storage practices and plans for the future of documents that have
been either collected or generated by the native title process. The
second part of the survey asked for ideas as to how AIATSIS could
assist NTRBs with these matters. NTRBs are interested in developing
a coordinated approach to the care, handling and future security
storage of the documents they create. Access, copyright and other
ownership issues will also need to be resolved as well.
The 2005 Native
Title Conference provided a forum for staff of Native Title
Representative Bodies to examine issues for the future of this
valuable material. Approximately 50 people attended the formal panel
session and requested an extra full session to finalise their wish
list.
Since then, there have been sessions at each Native Title
Conference with presentations and discussions about the collections
held by NTRBs and information on various aspects of cataloguing,
databases, legal status and access conditions. In 2006 we held a
workshop on the legal status of material held by NTRBs with special
emphasis on how the Federal Court deals with Native Title material.
In 2007 the workshop consisted of a panel dealing with access issues
with presentations from a collection manager, a legal officer and a
claimant.
In June 2006, representatives from 13 NTRBs met in Canberra to
discuss databases and the needs of their organisations. A list of
ideal fields of information was drawn up along with some guidelines
for access of native title material. Several NTRBs have used the
information from this workshop to design their own databases.
Below you will
find resources arising from this project or related to the
management of material.
2008
2007
2006
2005
|
