Interested in donating your collection?
Do you have a collection of material relating to Aboriginal education in the Northern Territory? These might be photographs, moving images, sound recordings or documents that you or members of your family generated whilst working or living in the Northern Territory.
We would love to talk to you about donating your collection to us.
What are the steps in making a donation?
First please talk with us!
We will talk to you about your collection and its relevance to our work. We will also discuss the options available for Use permissions, return of digital copies to you, return of copies to communities (Digital Repatriation) and return or relocation of physical copies.
Our agreement with you about the donation will be documented in our Donor Agreement.
Our donation agreements are non-exclusive. We retain a digital copy of your collection. You may also donate these digital copies and/or physical materials to other organisations of your choice. We ask you to grant us use permissions for the copies - these are set out in the Donation Agreement. You retain the copyright in the materials.
Any information you are able to provide about the items in your collection will help document the items and make them more accessible. We will discuss the best way for you to provide this information.
So many resources have been thrown away because people have not known what to do with them. Please talk to us first!
What we do with your collection
When you donate your collection to the Northern Territory Education Mob you grant us and users of the Northern Territory Education Mob Digital Keeping place permission to use your material for the purposes you sign for in your Donation Agreement.
Once we receive your donation, the materials are prepared, digitised and processed.
If requested you will receive a digital copy of your material, and your originals returned.
Documents are loaded to the Northern Territory Education Mob Digital Keeping place in accordance with copyright associated with the document and usage permissions granted in your Donor Agreement.
Photographs are handled as follows:
- Usage permissions for the photographs that are made available for guest access are in accordance with the permissions granted in the donor agreement.
- Copies of photos in the collection are distributed to the relevant communities represented (digital repatriation) through various means. For each community the point of return may be one of the following locations:
- The school
- The art centre
- Another organisation that has a digital keeping place
- A key individual in the community.
- Additional metadata is sought from the community or through social media.
- Copies of the photographs and any details you may have shared are loaded to the Northern Territory Education Mob Digital Keeping Place as restricted access (to administrators only) for review.
- The loaded photos can be reviewed by the donor if required. Donors are encouraged to add metadata about their photos through getting Administration access to the Northern Territory Education Mob Digital Keeping Place.
- If the photos contain images that may be potentially sensitive, they are reviewed by the communities they are relevant to. The community provides advice about which photos can be made available for viewing by guest access.
- A list of photos that have made available for guest access can be provided to you at any time and adjusted as requested.
- If you have agreed, digital copies/original copies of the records and metadata are provided to Library & Archives NT to add to their collection.
Digital Return of Records Held in Institutions
We can, on receipt of a letter of authority, broker the digital return of records from collecting institutions across Australia. If the records are not digitised, it can take time. Often these places charge for the service. In our experience most are happy to wave the cost in return for more information about the records, including which images they can share on their website.
We request permission for the records to be used for personal and education purposes including being added to our Digtial Keeping Place (if the copyright permits).
If you are an organisation or collecting agency and you would like assistance with Digital Return for your collection, please talk with us to discuss how we can help.