AIATSIS Librarian Rita Metzenrath assists SLNSW Education Officer Andrea Sturgeon identify language material.
Education Officer in the Education Program of the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW), Andrea Sturgeon visited the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Print Collections recently to research the variety of teaching materials held by the Institute.
Andrea is involved in creating teaching resources based on the Indigenous Australian language wordlists held at the SLNSW. She is initially working with the content of a few Wiradjuri wordlists from the collection with a focus on tree and plant names. Aboriginal artist and designer Lucy Simpson will contribute the visuals for the resources.
Andrea was grateful for the access to the wide range of material held by the AIATSIS and the assistance of AIATSIS Library staff in identifying useful resources.
“It’s given me a much broader connection to what is being created in the wider Indigenous community,” Andrea said.
“I have had a very thought provoking day and look forward to following up the leads AIATSIS provided me. I am sure that this will be the first of many connections with such a terrific and dedicated team of people.”
The wordlists Ms Sturgeon is working with were made possible by the Rediscovering Indigenous Languages Project at the SLNSW.
A Senior Research Fellow with the AIATSIS Centre for Australian Languages, Dr Michael Walsh was the lead researcher on the project when it started in 2011, the focus of which is to find and rescue wordlists and vocabularies recorded and held by the State Library since 1788.
Dr Walsh said the project has uncovered an amazing collection of items which will eventually be made readily available to the public through digitisation.
“So far the project has uncovered some 200 resources in over 100 languages,” Dr Walsh said.
“The languages cover the entire country, from the Torres Strait to Perth. Some are extremely rare and have not been seen since they were deposited, such as a 130 page bilingual dictionary in Diyari and Wangka-Ngurru from northeast South Australia.
“These hidden gems are invaluable resources and have seen the Indigenous Collections of the State Library grow and grow.”
During her short time at AIATSIS, some of the materials explored by Andrea included:
Indigenous Art across the curriculum by Dellene Strong,
Items from the series First Australians: Plenty Stories by Trish Albert,
Plants in action: incorporating Indigenous perspectives by the Australian Academy of Science,
A programme in visual perception and concept development for Aboriginal Children by the WA Department of Education,
Elliiott School abd the Longreach Waterhole DVD
You can do it: Aboriginal studies and Torres Strait Islander studies across the curriculum by Curriulum Corporation.
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