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WA state library gathers Indigenous stories through interactive archive project

The State Library of Western Australia has gathered 1700 stories about the state’s Indigenous people through its Aboriginal heritage online interactive archive project Storylines, reports Perth Now.

Around 2500 photos of Indigenous West Australians from the library’s archives have been uploaded to the interactive archive, which allows users to add written or oral annotations.

The library’s archive holds around 100,000 photos of Indigenous West Australians, which have been donated to the library during the past 125 years. However, many of the photos were donated with no information about who or what is depicted.

Storylines manager Damien Webb said that the stories were ‘part of the core fabric of WA’ and that ‘the library hoped the initiative would help support Aboriginal people’s efforts to strengthen their culture and identity, and change perceptions about Aboriginal people and history’. The library will also return photos to communities that wish to build a private archive of their people’s history.

 

Category: Library news