Who can access the Australian Museum collections?

Providing access to its collections is one of the Australian Museum's most important functions. You access the collections every time you visit the Museum. Our website, outreach programs and publications also give further access to the vast wealth of information in our collections.

The Museum also has an active loan program with research and educational institutions around the world. We also welcome visiting national and international scientists and students who wish to study specimens and objects in our collections.

Through outreach programs, the Museum provides indigenous communities access to their cultural objects held in its collections. For example many Aboriginal communities are establishing and maintaining their own museums, called 'Cultural Centres' or 'Keeping Places' and developing cultural exhibitions within them. Museum staff work with communities to produce these exhibits using objects from the Australian Museum's collections and local knowledge within the community.

The Museum also undertakes the repatriation of significant cultural objects and ancestral remains to indigenous communities both within Australia and overseas. These objects and remains have immense spiritual and cultural meaning to indigenous communities and the Museum holds these values above any other interests.

Brooke Carson-Ewart , Web Manager
Last Updated: 3 February 2009