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First Roundtable on Library and Archives Collections and Services of Relevance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People

State Library of South Australia, Adelaide, 4 May 1995
The Aboriginal Thesaurus

The 'Aboriginal Thesaurus' (working title only) is a project that was initiated by the Aboriginal Research Institute of the University of South Australia, and which involves the Northern Territory University Library and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. The Aboriginal Research Institute successfully applied for funding for the thesaurus.

The project was originally called: Thesaurus and Library practices Guidelines. The project description was:

'To develop a thesaurus and a set of library practices that can support improved access to Aboriginal and Islander related works. The thesaurus will initially focus on the Mabo/Native Title area. It will then extend to other areas and improved library practices will be developed. The project will promote the adoption of these practices both nationally and internationally'.

From this original description the project branched into two areas, the Thesaurus and Protocols.

So far the areas covered by the Thesaurus are: Native Title, education, the Arts and the beginnings of the spiritual beliefs section. These areas were chosen because of the current importance of Native Title and the development of the Native Title CD-ROM, another project by the Aboriginal Research Unit. The thesaurus has made slow progress because there have only been two compilers working part-time.

One of the compilers Heather Moorcroft sees the main aim of the Thesaurus as an aid to the changing of exclusive language in existing thesauruses and subject heading systems. In a personal message Heather noted that, 'It is important that the Indigenous voices of Australia are heard and felt through proper representation in catalogues. It is very important that we as thesaurus makers are imaginative and creative and do not rely wholly on the literature itself because so much has been written ABOUT Aboriginal people, and not so much BY Aboriginal people, but this is changing. This means that we need to find the 'right' words in other ways, i.e. by consultation and reading staff by people, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal who understand the issue of Aboriginalism and who are dealing with that'.

I came into the thesaurus project late, once the aims, project descriptions and starting points had already been decided. However, when I was invited to join the team I was given the opportunity to chose my subject area. I chose Arts. I selected this area because it is the subject area that I deal with daily in my position as a bibliographer with the library of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

The terms I chose came from current literature combined with terms already in use by Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APAIS). APAIS has been used as a starting point for the whole thesaurus, with the agreement and support of APAIS staff. As APAIS has only been used as a starting point, the terms then expand into what is being used by today's writers, many of whom are now Aboriginal.

One important decision that had to be made was about the use of the most common appropriate works in use today, and not works that are only used regionally, for example didjeridu (spelt with a u not oo) instead of yidaki. However, regional terms, which are the only terms in use, such as, rarrk, which is a style of cross hatching on bark paintings, are used. Inappropriate terms are included with a note DO NOT USE, such as primitive art.

Also included are two terms which are not necessarily in use, in the form that they appear in the thesaurus, but, it is hoped that if ratified by the reference group, they will be terms that help change perceptions. They are, 'traditional style' and 'non-traditional style', instead of 'traditional art' and 'non-traditional art', which has the connotation that this is hoe art was always done and hasn't changed. Art always continues to change and develop with each new artist and no more so than art done by Aboriginal peoples, and to change the term to traditional style, reflects that it is done in the style of the ancients. There was some debate about changing the term traditional style to 'classical Aboriginal style', however, traditional is the term currently in use.

I see this thesaurus as an aid for library workers and library users. For library workers this thesaurus would be a guide to the appropriate terminology to input into their systems, and for the users of libraries this would be a tool to aid in searching library catalogues, using the appropriate terminology to gain maximum results for their search.

The Arts part of the thesaurus has been shown to a number of 'experts' in their various fields at the Institute but it has yet to be taken to an Aboriginal reference group. Before any of the thesaurus can be released it needs to be ratified by an Aboriginal reference group.

Because language changed consonantly and a terms that might be acceptable now may not be in a year, we have had to overcome out irresistible need to have the answers set in concrete. So that those of us who have been working on the thesaurus see it as an ongoing working document which will hopefully reflect the dynamic nature of language usage.

The continuation of the Aboriginal Thesaurus project is one of the projects funded and organised under 'The Representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge in the Distributed National Collection'. Even though the Thesaurus is not yet completed we are looking to see it completed within the coming year.

References:

Fourmile, Henrietta. "Who owns the past? Aborigines as captive to the archives." in Aboriginal History 13(1-2) 1989, p. 1-8.

Moorcroft, Heather. "The Construction of silence" in Australian Library Journal 42(1) 1993, p. 27-32.

Moorcroft, Heather. "Ethnocentrism in subject headings" in Australian Library Journal 41(1) 1993, p. 40-45.


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