KLRC LANGUAGE ARCHIVE
Purpose
The purpose of the KLRC Archive is to maintain and provide access to language materials which have been collected for the KLRC by linguists, researchers and language workers since the 1980s. We also have materials provided by people who did not work through the organisation. These materials include audio, visual and written items, with some dating back to the 1950s. Our aim is to develop a system that allows Aboriginal people to have access to the information without too many barriers. We have limited space, so we would like to keep information that is practical for people and communities. We currently have a project underway with the University of Western Australia to help with digitising and archiving our language resources. This includes support from linguists as well as cataloguing staff.
Archive Room
The KLRC building was purpose built from rammed earth with the Archive Room in the middle of the building as an archival storage area. This has the best environment for the materials as there is not much variation in temperature and humidity throughout the year. This is very important for preserving audio, visual and paper items. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. A lot of the linguistic information is important for research by academics and is kept at places like AIATSIS. A proportion of the current holdings are copies, mostly from originals held at AIATSIS. AIATSIS is currently supporting regional language centres with a centralised database. It is hoped that this will help make it easier for Aboriginal people to access the information in the KLRC Archive.
Issues
There are many unlabelled tapes, films, CDs and floppy disks that we cannot play or open with current computer technology. There is a lot of linguistic material that may have no practical use to the community, such as elicitation recordings. We probably do not need to keep them as they are stored at AIATSIS. The issue is that with many items we have to watch or listen to identify the language and the speaker and type of content, because there has not been enough information provided about the item. This is a big job, and people from across the region are needed to help the KLRC. At this time we do not have the resources to support such a project. Another big job is identifying the people and places in thousands of photos, both old and new (digital) in order to provide more information in the database.
Where we’re going…
This is a BIG job and one that will be ongoing as long as the KLRC is operating. The more that we can do with this invaluable asset, the better the quality of the information we will hold for the community to access.
