PRESENTATION
Presentation Title:
Collecting and accessing Australia’s First Nations’ stories
Presenter:
Rebecca Bateman, Nicki Mackay-Sim
Date:
Thursday 14 May 2026 | 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Presentation Description:
The vast majority of First Nations material in the National Library have been collected without the knowledge or consent of individuals or communities. It is a legacy of curatorial and collection management work that has provided a high level of discomfort for decades.
It is 30 years since first publication of the Australian Libraries and Information Network’s ATSILRN Protocols. The National Library is challenging itself to ensure its work abides by the statements and collection practices that reflect the Library’s 21st century role as a steward rather than owner of the collections it collects, preserves, describes and makes accessible—supporting First Nations communities’ agency of ownership and engagement with the collection.
In this presentation, Rebecca Bateman and Nicki Mackay-Sim will reflect on the changed approach to collecting and giving access to the Library’s First Nations materials—collecting with First Nations communities rather than past practice of from them.
The Library’s ICIP Protocol has led organisational change to move beyond the inaction of the past. This paper outlines the positive pathways that are propelling the National Library of Australia forward, ensuring the building and enacting of positive engagement and collecting practices with First Nations Australians.
Rebecca Bateman
Director Indigenous Engagement, National Library of Australia
Presenter Bio
Rebecca is a Weilwan and Gamilaroi woman with family from Warren in North West NSW and connections to the Gunnedah region of NSW and Charleville in QLD.
She is the Director Indigenous Engagement at the National Library of Australia where the Indigenous Engagement Team at are working to transform the way in which the National Library engages with First Nations people to tell First Nations stories. Rebecca is privileged to have been entrusted with leading that change.
As a member of the NSLA First Nations Advisory Group and the ALIA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Expert Advisory Group, Rebecca is privileged to work with other First Nations colleagues to bring cultural accountability and authority to the GLAM sector.
Rebecca is passionate about the rights of First Nations people to speak for their culture and have agency over the records that document it – she advocates for the restoration of cultural authority in all that she does.
Nicki Mackay-Sim
Director, Curatorial & Collection Research, National Library of Australia
Presenter Bio
For over twenty-five years, Nicola Mackay-Sim has collected and managed, researched and promoted the National Library of Australia’s collection. She is Director Curatorial & Collection Research, overseeing the collecting of art and photographic collections, manuscripts and personal archives, and ‘retrospective’ rare printed materials. Career highlights range the bringing in of a very rare ‘Heaven and Hell’ map by Ambrosius Schevenhuysen (?1700), and even more rare convict artist Thomas Watling rendition of the Banksian Cockatoo (c1792-97); the papers of AB Paterson and Geoffrey Robertson, to the photographic archive of photo-journalists Penny Tweedie and Jeff Carter. However the acquisition of over 80 artworks by lawman and jalngunguru (for his country east of Broome), stockman and artist Joseph Nangan (‘Butcher Joe’) OAM, has been most personally fulfilling to date, seeing the Library work in line with its ICIP Protocol consulting with the artist’s family, copyright holder, art dealer, and vendor concurrently. The recognition of and sharing of collection materials containing Indigenous knowledge and culture has been a priority for Nicola throughout her career, particularly the inclusion of First Nations individuals and communities in truth-telling, decision making and collecting practice more generally. She is passionate about collecting for all Australians to access their history, whether onsite and online; about all forms of Australian cultural, artistic and documentary heritage, from whatever period.