These videos demonstrate some of the functions of the site.
Watch all the videos together in this short video (<5 mins)
(approx 7Mb)
If you have or know of books you think should be in the archive, we may have copies of them already but don’t have permission to make them public.
We are also looking for other materials in NT languages by Indigenous authors and storytellers. See our collections policy and offer of materials for information about adding to the archive.
This project began with a focus on NT schools which had bilingual education programs, as shown on the archive.
The next stage of the project aims to include other NT languages which didn’t have bilingual education programs, so if you have other materials, please see our collections policy and offer of materials for information about adding to the archive.
At this stage materials from outside the Northern Territory are not included. For materials from other states, contact AIATSIS..
You can use the search box on the top right of the screen and type a word or phrase in English or any Aboriginal language in the archive. The results will show any books with that word or phrase in the title first, then books with that word or phrase somewhere in the text.
Very few of the stories currently have audio recordings, but we’re very keen to add more. If you have a recording or can make a recording of a native speaker reading one of these stories, please let us know.
We’d also like to hear from people who can create (or would like to try) e-books.
E-books in the Living Archive are electronic ‘talking’ books, where you can hear the story being read aloud while reading the text and looking at the pictures. Some computers open e-books automatically when you click the link (for example, here), but others require you to download an extra piece of software to open the .epub format, such as Calibre or iBooks.
We’re looking for better ways to create and present e-books, so if you have information you’d like to share, please let us know.
We are building a tool which will allow appropriate community members to add materials directly, but in the meantime, please see our collections policy and offer of materials for information about adding to the archive.
We realise that there are some mistakes in some books, and would love to have your help fixing them.
We are building a tool which will allow appropriate community members to edit files directly, but in the meantime, please contact us via the feedback page and let us know.
At this stage materials from outside the Northern Territory are not included. For materials from other states, contact AIATSIS.
The website understands special characters like ŋ and ä and ḏ, etc., so if you use a keyboard with these characters you can type them directly into the search box.
You can also type in the word or phrase without using special characters and it will search for words with and without them. For example, if you type ‘malu’ you will get results with the words ‘mäḻu’, ‘mälu’, ‘maḻu’ and ‘malu’.
If you’re looking for a way to type special characters for Aboriginal languages AuSIL has a useful keyboard interface.
The site uses a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license, which means you are free to share, copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the creators of the material, and you may not use the material for commercial purposes.
For more information about this, visit Creative Commons
One of the ways the archive becomes Living is through collaborative efforts with the original language and story owners. If you would like to work with someone on a particular story or language, the best point of contact is through the community directly. We’re preparing a contact list to help with this – the communities are generally small enough that when you call one organisation there they can help you find an individual (though you might need to make several calls to get to where you need!)
If your question is not answered here please contact us