Mukurtu (MOOK-oo-too)

1. A free and open source community content management system that provides international standards-based tools adaptable to the local cultural protocols and intellectual property systems of Indigenous communities, libraries, archives, and museums.

2. A flexible archival tool that allows users to protect, preserve and share digital cultural heritage through Mukurtu Core steps and unique Traditional Knowledge licenses.

Do You MOOK-oo-too?

Mukurtu was built with the specific needs of Indigenous communities in mind. We listened to concerns about access, preservation, licensing and sharing within cultural systems that don't match easily with Western legal and social systems. Mukurtu aims to meet these needs while also being flexible enough to showcase the differences of Indigenous cultural heritage needs. We invite you to try this demo version of Mukurtu. We are working hard to meet your needs and we need your help. Mukurtu started as a grassroots effort and we remain committed to developing Mukurtu around your needs. So give it a try, kick the tires, test and give us feedback so we can make Mukurtu work for you and you can be part of a growing community of users dedicated to solving the challenges of preserving, protecting and sharing Indigenous digital cultural heritage respectfully and responsibly.


Gather.Create.Share

Traditional knowledge is an inseparable part of cultural heritage materials. This knowledge is a valuable part of a peoples' history and part of their path to the future. At Mukurtu we know that managing traditional knowledge is as significant as preserving digital cultural heritage. In order to provide tools to help Indigenous communities manage their traditional knowledge we have worked with intellectual property specialists and lawyers to create a set of traditional knowledge licenses that work with traditional copyright and creative commons licenses to provide flexible and adaptable sets of agreements that clearly state the access and use parameters for materials (at the item and collections level). These licenses also provide a starting point for dialogue with others who may own Indigenous materials and not know the proper ways to manage and circulate them. Our hope is that these licenses will be a starting point for open, respectful and mutually beneficial conversations between the many stakeholders who are involved with and care about Indigenous cultural heritage materials.

  • Cultural Protocol-Based Access Control

    Cultural Protocol-Based Access Control

    Mukurtu allows communities to define how their materials circulate and are shared between community members, to other museums, libraries and archives and to the public. Easy-to-use drop-down menus provide granular access controls based on the cultural protocols of the community. Protocol choices are established by the community and can be updated, edited and changed at any time. For examples of cultural protocols used by the Warumungu community in Central Australia watch this video.

  • Flexible Templates

    Flexible Metadata Fields

    Mukurtu provides both standard dublin core metadata fields and customizable and expandable traditional knowledge fields to manage your content. Maintaining the Dublin Core fields allow you to map your metadata to other institutions and potentially share and exchange. The Traditional Knowledge fields allow you to define what is significant about the content in the style and manner most appropriate to your cultural system.

  • Multiple Licensing Options

    Multiple Licensing Options

    Users choose between traditional all-rights-reserved copyright, Creative Commons licenses and a series of “Traditional Knowledge licenses.” Traditional Knowledge licenses allow Indigenous communities to manage and define their cultural heritage materials with both legal and jargon-free "human readable" options. These licenses work with copyright and Creative Commons licenses to provide a range of options suitable for the specific needs and complex legal position of much Indigenous cultural heritage materials.

  • Free and Open Source

    Free and Open Source

    Mukurtu is provided free of charge to download, customize and adapt for your digital archive and content management needs. Mukurtu is also an open source software tool suite licensed using a GPL. Follow our development blog and join a user community to create more plugins or get answers to any of your questions.

  • Get Mukurtu!

Mukurtu News

Mukurtu's first online community gathering is scheduled for December 14, 2011
Dec 07 2011
We have been putting our IMLS funding to good use over the last few months with a full development sprint completed and another already underway. In order to keep Mukurtu growing inline with your needs, we invite you to join our first online community gathering. See the preliminary agenda on our wiki and RSVP. Keep Mukurtu-ing!
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Mukurtu receives $484,772 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museums and Library Services
Sep 27 2011
The funding will make it possible to deploy, evaluate, and refine Mukurtu through community design and implementation workshops in partnership with an international team.
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Mukurtu 0.5 Demo Release available for download
Sep 24 2011
We are pleased to announce the availability of our first Drupal 7 based Mukurtu application, built in cooperation with the Center for Digital Archaeology and CivicActions..
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Mukurtu gives back to Drupal
Sep 12 2011
Working with CivicActions, Mukurtu is pleased to announce that we have added two patches to Drupal 7.
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Mukurtu signs MOU with WIPO
Apr 05 2011
Mukurtu is pleased to work with WIPO to develop a set of Traditional Knowledge licenses specifically designed for the needs related to sharing and protecting Indigenous digital cultural heritage materials.
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Mukurtu featured on BBC
Feb 23 2011
Kimberly Christen appeared on the BBC's Digital Planet radio show on February 22 discussing the Mukurtu project, the ethics of open access and the need to take seriously Indigenous peoples' concerns when designing digital tools. Listen to the podcast of the show and let us know what you think!
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NEH Grant announcement
Dec 12 2010
In March 2010 the Mukurtu project received a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Start Up Grant to produce a beta-version of the Mukurtu software tool suite.
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Documentation Wiki

Check out the Mukurtu wiki for detailed instructions about installing, modifying and using Mukurtu. Each section walks users and archive administrators through the necessary steps for adding content, using Mukurtu Core and generating traditional knowledge licenses. If you have a question we have not answered, send us a message. We'd love to hear from you.

Go to Wiki

Mukurtu Development Blog

Follow the development of the Mukurtu archiving tool as we add features, create modules and refine the system to be interoperable and customizable to individual community archiving and content management needs. Join in, add a comment or make a suggestion. We’d love to hear from you.

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Mukurtu Team

Partners & Sponsors

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