Sharing stories with Black Words

Jake Milroy, a UWA Arts graduate, is currently working in the UWA Library on Black Words, which is a subset of AustLit dedicated to indigenous works. Jake started at the Library in March and will be working full time until the end of the year.

"I'm working on the WA, Northern Territory and Torres Strait Islander indigenous authors," Jake explained. "I track them down, different storytellers, and we include where they are from, their language, who they might be related to, background information and history. It's a pretty good job - I get to read a lot of interesting stuff!"

Black Words includes published and unpublished works and oral histories in various formats.

"I've found oral histories to be the most interesting to work on," Jake said. "Some of them are in the original language, and they have English translations as well, and they just have amazing stories of incredible people, providing the bigger picture of Australia's actual history and what happened. Some people have lived until they were like 130 and just seen so much. The other week I added a CD by Noel Nannup who is an elder of the Nyoongar community, and he's got Yindjibarndi heritage as well, so he knows a lot of stories. His CD is called When the Sea Level Rose and it talks about the Nyoongar relationship to the land around the metropolitan area prior to Rottnest Island (Wadjemup) being separated from the mainland. I thought it was important and should be included on AustLit and the rest of the Black Words team agreed."

As Black Words is primarily a catalogue of the details of works, the actual audio of the CD isn't included. Wherever possible, Jake provides a link to an electronic source.

"We work closely with the National Library and Libraries Australia so that people can find who holds the items," Jake said. "Some of the works are really old and you need permission to see them anyway, but it helps members of the public know what's out there."

Jake was born and raised in Perth but his people are Palyku from the eastern Pilbara region. His father, David Milroy, wrote the play Windmill Baby, so from an early age Jake has been aware of the importance of Aboriginal writers and their place in Australian literary history. He considers it an honour to be involved in the Black Words project.

"I enjoy being part of developments that encourage the incorporation of our history into a national system of record and believe that having Aboriginal writing readily available on the internet will assist in the creation of more great works."

Much of the material Jake is working on comes from the Battye Library but he has also recently completed indexing all the records of the AIATSIS (Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies) materials that were donated to Shenton House. Being based in the UWA Library has allowed Jake to draw on the expertise of Dr Toby Burrows and Charles McLaughlin in the Scholars' Centre.

"Toby and Charles have a lot of AustLit experience and they are very supportive and give me help whenever I need it. It's great working in the Library, it's a good environment and I really enjoy it. It can get a bit isolated working by yourself, so I try to get out and see other people in the Library and look at the different collections."

Jake is hoping to continue his work in 2010.

"AustLit relies on funding from subscribers and donors so my role really depends on that," Jake said. "I could be here again next year but maybe not full time."

JakeMilroy