Links for University and Library
Resources for Indigenous Topics

AIATSIS Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) is an Australian Commonwealth statutory authority within the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, for information and research about the cultures and lifestyles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, past and present.

The Institute has a huge online collection of information, undertakes and encourages scholarly, ethical community-based research, holds a huge digitized "Perfect Pictures" collection of films, photographs, video and audio recordings which is only accessible on site, provides an online catalogue of the world’s largest collections of printed and other resource materials for Indigenous Studies, and has its own publishing house. The ASEDA: Aboriginal Studies Electronic Data Archive for indigenous languages is also now maintained by AIATSIS.

National Library of Australia

The National Library of Australia (NLA) offers online access to electronic media, some of which is public domain (e.g. DAOO Artists Online Biographies, )  but much of which is either only available on site or to Australians who have obtained membership of the library, e.g. Acedemic Search Premier (with 4500 full-text journals), Informit Indigenous Collection (bibliographies and full-text searches for global indigenous studies), Informit Literature and Culture Collection, AustLit: the Australian literature resource.

University of Sydney, A History of Aboriginal Sydney

The website A History of Aboriginal Sydney is designed as an ongoing project to document historical and contemporary events, people, places and stories, for use in schools, especially in Sydney, by Aboriginal families and organisations, by the non-Indigenous people of Sydney who wish to know and share more of the lives and achievements of Australia's first peoples.

University of NSW, Indigenous Law Centre (Sydney, NSW, Australia)

The Indigenous Law Centre has been a research centre based at UNSW Faculty of Law for 30 years. It produces the Indigenous Law Bulletin and the Australian Indigenous Law Review as well as a number of special reports such as ."30 Years in Review a chronicle of Indigenous legal history between 1981 - 2011". Further resources are available online, including access to issues 1996-2006 to the Australian Indigenous Law Reporter.

The special search engine for archive issues of Australian Indigenous Law Review found for example 9 cases/articles dating back to 1997 for "aboriginal art", all of them available as PDF.

University of Sydney, Australian Studies Resources (Sydney, NSW, Australia)

The University of Sydney is a creator of digital editions of Australian literary and historical texts and hosts a number of other Australian Studies Resources.

  • Journals of Inland Exploration - major encounters with the new geography, example full-text search for "aboriginal"
  • First Fleet and Early Settlement - manuscripts and published journals of the First Fleet
  • Australian Key Journals: Periodicals Contents Index - you can find all issues mentioning a specific artist, or search for example for "aboriginal art"
  • Australian Literary and Historical Texts - the main searchable collection
  • Australian Classic Works - contemporary Authors on demand at Sydney University Press
  • Australian Federation Full Text Database - the national debates and auxiliary writings of the 1890's
  • Australian Cooperative Digitisation Project 1840-45: Novels - literary emergence in the 1840's
  • Australian Poets: Brennan--Harford--Slessor - 3 major 20th C poets introduced by John Tranter
  • Joseph Henry Maiden Botanical Texts - pioneering botanical texts and images