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Legacy collections: valuable but are they accessible

Title (author1): 
Ms
First names (author1): 
Grace
Surname (author 1): 
Koch
Institution: 
Australian National University
Country: 
AUSTRALIA
Presentation type: 
spoken paper
Date: 
30 Sept Wednesday
Start time: 
1 700
Venue: 
Grand Auditorium
Abstract: 

Audiovisual archivists observe guidelines and policies that govern what material will be acquired and what access conditions will be placed upon collections. With new collections, archivists can negotiate both documentation formats and access conditions with depositors. Many archives, libraries and other collecting institutions that have existed for a long time, however, have changed their access policies over the years, and negotiating new provisions with depositors may prove impossible because some of them cannot be contacted. As a result, some older collections, which I refer to as legacy collections, become difficult to manage because the original deposit conditions may reflect outdated views of society and may be very restrictive. In the case of organisations that hold recordings of Indigenous peoples, recent generations seeking to learn the traditional knowledge recorded by their elders may have difficulties gaining access to the recordings made by their own relatives.
This paper will outline how collections of Indigenous recordings differ from other materials and will present several case studies that show problems for clients who want to gain access to material that falls under the provisions of historically-restrictive deposit conditions for Australian Indigenous collections. It will draw upon a recent study made by the author of access guidelines and policies used by Australian collecting institutions that hold Indigenous materials, showing how procedures have evolved to enable archivists to manage Indigenous collections with restrictive deposit conditions.