Preserving and making Indigenous histories accessible at the National Library of Australia

At a recent event held at the National Library of Australia (NLA) during NAIDOC Week, three Indigenous young adults spoke about their roles in preserving, researching and cataloguing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture.

Nicolette, Shannon and John are part of the library’s graduate programme where they enjoy the opportunity to work on projects which have a meaningful impact on Indigenous people. In listening to their respective NAIDOC presentations, it was obvious that their work has also had an impact on them.

After completing studies at Macquarie University, Nicolette Suttor joined the library in 2013 and now works in the cataloguing team as the Indigenous literature specialist. At age 10, Nicolette was asked by an Aboriginal Elder what group she was from. Confused by the question, she ran home to her mother who confirmed that she was Indigenous. Since then she and her family have been searching for their group.

“I don’t know who my people are but I’ll fight for all of them because all Indigenous history and culture needs to be saved,” Nicolette said.

University educated archaeologist Shannon Sutton began working at the NLA in 2014 and because of his keen personal interest in genealogy, makes a strong contribution to the library’s family history team. Working in the team gave Shannon the knowledge and skills to trace his family history. The library’s collections enabled him to find a more complete story of his ancestry, something he didn’t expect. He now wants to help others.

“Come in here and research. You never know what you are going to find about your families in our collections,” Shannon said.

After graduating from James Cook University and majoring in History and Australian Indigenous Studies, John Morseu began working at the library in 2015 within the Oral History section. He is the library’s first ever Torres Strait Islander staff member.

“I think of myself as an avenue connecting with community,” John said.

“As Torres Strait Islanders, we’re very keen to understand what’s in institutions but we don’t know how to get there, so I think my role is to filter out what’s important and send it back home.”

And sending “it back home” might mean all the way from Europe where one day, John hopes to study the Torres Strait Islander collections kept in famous European institutions.