Digitising and handling Indigenous cultural resources in libraries, archives and museums

Abstract

Indigenous cultural resources expose long memory trails which extend from understandings of origins to engagement with contemporary challenges. The tangible traces of aeons old intangible experience, they include practical and ceremonial artefacts housed in museums, sites of cultural significance, testimony and stories collected in libraries, and records of experience deposited in archives. Many feature images and other elements which may be culturally bound, requiring sensitive and informed handling. Curation of Indigenous cultural resources, including digitisation, raises special and complex issues which go beyond the usual concerns of professional practice, both challenging professional norms and demanding appropriate protocols.