The Stanner Reading Room and Client Access rooms will be closed from Friday 13 December 2024 to Wednesday 8 January 2025.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this website may contain images, voices and names of deceased persons.
Please do not post original items, documents, or photographs, or leave them at AIATSIS unless asked to do so.
AIATSIS welcomes donations of unique, rare and unpublished materials relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies, culture, knowledge and experience. We accept photographs, sound recordings, moving image, art and objects, ephemera and print materials, including manuscripts, personal papers, diaries, field notebooks and theses. We may accept offers of published materials that are otherwise hard to source.
All materials are assessed for suitability against a set of criteria before acceptance.
All offers of material are assessed by our specialist staff. We will contact you to obtain more information to assess your offer if we cannot make an assessment based on the information contained in your Offer of Material form.
If AIATSIS agrees to accept your donation you will be asked to complete a Deed of Gift.
AIATSIS is experienced in the ethical and safe management of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collections, including secret / sacred material and other sensitive information. We ask all donors to alert us to potentially sensitive content to ensure it is handled appropriately.
Briefly describe the object or collection.
If no, please describe your relationship to the material / owner(s) and provide the name and contact details of the owner(s), if known.
e.g. number of boxes or other carriers including digital carrier, e.g. hard drives / USB's.
e.g. 3 boxes in garage, digital cloud storage.
AIATSIS will make material available for access and copying in accordance with cultural protocol, the Copyright Act and AIATSIS policies.
As a general rule, the copyright owner of a work is the creator / author / maker in the first instant, unless the creator has assigned copyright in advance (e.g. to a client or a publisher). Performers may also share copyright.
Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) rights refer to all aspects of Indigenous peoples’ cultural heritage. For more detail refer to the Arts Law website.
Note: AIATSIS will endeavour to house the material in your preferred location but in some cases, this may not be possible due to collection care or storage requirements. All material is currently processed in Canberra first.
E.g. digital images, photographs, list, inventory, certificate of authenticity, receipts, or other documentation.
Note that the total size of all attachments must not exceed 18MB.
Please email additional files to donations@aiatsis.gov.au if your total size exceeds 18MB.
*Individual files cannot exceed 10MB. The total of all files must not exceed 18MB. E.g. list, inventory, certificate of authenticity, digital images or other documentation.