Paper short abstract:

The archive of the Aboriginal Artists Agency from the 1980s is a significant collection documenting a key historical period of Indigenous art history. This paper will explore how the database OCCAMS is helping to organize, repatriate and facilitate rich ethnographic information about this archive.

Paper long abstract:

The archive of the Aboriginal Artists Agency (AAA) from the 1980s is a significant collection documenting a key historical period of Indigenous art history. The AAA was responsible for copyright clearance of Indigenous art across Australia, the production of significant Indigenous music albums and Indigenous performance tours across Australia and the world. This paper will explore how the research database OCCAMS is helping to organize, repatriate and facilitate rich ethnographic information about this archive as it is being deposited into the National Library of Australia (NLA).

Research databases are a different tool than databases that are strictly collection-based. This paper will briefly tease out the different types of databases and how they are used in relation to Indigenous collections. The majority of the presentation however will be based around how OCCAMS is facilitating the move of the AAA materials into the NLA and how anthropological methods are capturing contemporary Indigenous understandings about the legacy of the AAA in OCCAMS. This paper will present an understanding of how anthropology is engaging with digital tools as well as its traditional methodologies, all combined in new and innovative ways.