Memory Place

Introduction

This project aims to make Indigenous cultural and environmental knowledge, records and data available to local Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members and the research community.

The system is intended to be made as flexible as possible to accommodate the differing knowledge systems across Australia (and the world). We are hoping to make our project compatible with other similar projects throughout Australia and draw on the experience and knowledge of those already developing their systems.

Here on Groote the database will initially be populated with data that has been collected by researchers on Groote Eylandt over the last 90 years. Many of the resources have already been digitised and include: clan songs and stories (many transcribed and translated); plant and animal knowledge paired with donated high-quality images; totemic information; mapping data; art photos; genealogical data not yet digitised; photos of people and events; and the Anindilyakwa dictionary. The traditional plant and animal knowledge recorded in collaboration with the Anindilyakwa speakers of Groote Eylandt is a vast and detailed collection of information.

To be involved in the project, sign up for one of our mailing lists.

For more technical details of the project see our sourceforge project site. The code documentation is also available online.

What is Memory Place?

Memory Place is a software project being developed by the Anindilyakwa Land Council, who represent the traditional owners of the Groote Eylandt archipelago in East Arnhem Land, for use in Indigenous communities on Groote Eylandt and in other communities. The software is being developed in close partnership with the NT Library.

Memory Place is designed to store and present information and materials including but not limited to: clan songs and stories; modern music; historical and contemporary photos and videos; Indigenous plant and animal knowledge; totemic information; mapping data and information about places; photos and stories about art and crafts; information about people and clans. The first version of Memory Place contains a sub-set of the above, and later versions will expand on this.

Why's it being made?

Memory Place has been developed in response to the wishes of older Groote Eylandters to pass on cultural knowledge and language to younger generations, and provide a safe keeping place for records of the past, in a culturally sensitive and responsible way. Memory Place seeks to address the many challenges and current issues in the rapidly developing and converging fields of Indigenous Knowledge recording, and digital archiving in Indigenous communities.

The first release...

After a year of programming work, the first release of Memory Place is freely available for download for people to trial. It is designed to work across all platforms, although there is currently only an installer for the Mac OSX platform. Please let us know if you would like instructions on how to get Memory Place working on another platform. This release does not contain the full functionality or features which the project is working towards, but will give users a chance to get a feel for the software, and generate highly valuable feedback which will inform the next phase of development work.

We need your feedback!

Please take the time to read about the features of v0.1 in the document "Key Features of MP v0.1" (email us for a copy, we will uplaod one soon), view the sample data, and add some of your own media and information to Memory Place. When you feel you have become familiar with Memory Place, please take some time to fill out the feedback form (also available as a word document or plain text), and/or email the project administrator.

If you would prefer to make comment by speaking rather than writing, please email the administrator so we can arrange a time to speak on the phone about Memory Place. Or perhaps you may like to record your comments on tape or CD and mail them to us?

Part of the feedback process is asking users to find problems or "bugs" in the software, and report them to the development team so that the problems can be fixed. In this way the users really help improve the software.

If you come across any problems when using Memory Place, please send an email describing the problem any error messages that appear, and what you were doing directly before the problem occurred.