Trust & Technology Project

Although oral memory is highly valued by Indigenous people, to date there has been no extensive effort by Australian archival services to discover how to capture it and make it accessible to the relevant communities. Through this project we will undertake an extensive analysis of Indigenous needs in order to understand key issues such as access to archives, intellectual property, and authenticity, and to develop a relationship of trust between archival services and Indigenous communities. Archival techniques and information technology will then be used to build a prototype of a trusted archival system for Indigenous oral memory, emphasising preservation and access.

This project involves a coalition of Monash University academics from the School of Information Management and Systems and the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies as Chief Investigators, and Industry Partners led by the Public Record Office of Victoria, which includes Koorie and other Indigenous groups.