The 2011 conference of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Library and Information Resource Network (ATSILIRN) took place in Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria on the 7 and 8 July 2011. The theme of the 2011 Conference was ‘BIG: big ideas, big collections, big picture’ drawing speakers from the Library and archive profession who work with Indigenous collections.
Ryan Stoker and I visited the State Library of New South Wales (NSW) on 2 June 2011 for a guided tour of the exhibition Carved Trees: Aboriginal cultures of western NSW.
ATSIDA Reference Group member and exhibition co-curator, Ronald Briggs, introduced us to the exhibition that includes images from the Clifton Cappie Towle collection documenting carved trees from Gamilaroi and Wiradjuri Country in western NSW. The carved trees were cultural markers for Aboriginal people in western NSW.
Archival issues relating to Indigenous people and Human Rights were the subject of a recent workshop held in Melbourne as part of the 2010 Australian Society of Archivists (ASA) Conference.