The Living Archive project is about to enter its fourth year – not bad for something that was originally funded for 1 year! Careful spending and a second successful funding application has allowed us to continue the project over a longer period, and do so much more than we could have done in a single year.
Some statistics:
At the end of 2014 we had 3115 items uploaded to CDU Library’s eSpace server, of which 1353 are publicly available through the LAAL website. The public items represent only 43% of the total, and one of our goals for this year is to increase that percentage. The main reason for this is the difficulty of identifying and tracking down the creators of each item to get their permission to make the items public. We’ve already collected over 600 signatures, yet there are still nearly 1000 additional names to find. Some items don’t have any information about the creators, so they can’t be made public without someone giving permission, but who do we ask?
- Number of languages represented: 30
- Number of communities represented: 27
- Language with the most items publicly available: Pintupi-Luritja (189 items)
- Language with the most items uploaded: Warlpiri (517 items)
- Language with the highest proportion of uploaded items made public: Maung (80%)
More items are being uploaded regularly – some have already gone up this week, and more will follow soon. The process takes a while to ensure that all the information is correctly recorded and uploaded, and we still find errors even after careful checking! If you find an error, feel free to let us know.
Comparison figures for the end of each year so far:
| year | uploaded | public |
| 2012 | 436 | 89 |
| 2013 | 1453 | 645 |
| 2014 | 3115 | 1353 |
Looking back at our plans for 2014, it’s nice to see that we achieved most of them. Some of our achievements include:
- revamping the website to include a more intuitive map page and a separate project site where we can post other information
- developing a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter an efficient means of sharing information quickly, as well as a record of some of our activities
- having public ‘launches’ in both Canberra and Darwin which attracted a very positive response
- adding materials identified through the ‘Search and Rescue‘ strand, particularly through the workshop held at Batchelor Institute in July. There are already 134 items from 3 languages, with more coming soon
- having our archive added to OLAC and ANDS and accessible through Trove
The to-do list for 2015 looks enormous already, but we’re looking forward to developing the Archive further, with input from our users.
Here are a few things we have planned for this year:
- our LAAL Reader app to allow mobile users to download whole collections for use offline
- an API which will allow users to log in to the site and made changes. This will include visiting some communities to test the functionality
- working out how to make information about items not yet public available to users
- engaging with the academic community to encourage researchers to use the archive
- working more closely with remote schools and others to find creative ways to use the materials in the classroom
- update our language map with feedback from community members and other experts
- more writing – we had two academic papers published last year, with two more due out soon, and two more currently under review. We have ideas for several more, the challenge is finding the time to write them!
- more permissions
- streamlining processes for adding audio files and e-book files to the archive
- continue to try to update codes for Yolŋu language names in ISO 639-3 to better reflect language naming practices in current use
- sustainability audit to work out how best to maintain the archive once our funding expires at the end of 2015
Thanks for helping us make this a ‘living archive’ by engaging with us as we develop it, and by using the materials in the archive.