Tag Archives: libraries

M4, P4: Professional Development Collection

For one part of my final project, I want to focus on professional development and staff training, and this amazing flipcard collection PD opportunities. There’s a huge range of learning opportunities here– from microlearning or multi-day workshops. There are labels for Indigenous, Indigenous Information, and Indigenous Language. A few of the courses I flagged to explore (many have passed but could be offered again, and the materials might be available for review):

Outreach and Engaging with Indigenous Communities
Oral History and Social Justice
Indigitization Program
Decolonization workshop
How to create an oral history collection

It looks like it’ll be a great resource for professional development opportunities for educators in many contexts.

M4, P1: Decolonizing Knowledge Production

One of the most challenging aspects of my decolonizing the library action plan is challenging the theoretically underpinnings that established libraries. They are largely organized in a falsely subjective classification schemes and the conversation around decolonization needs serious focus on knowledge production. One of my colleagues shared some work by Louis Yako, and I found it very compelling. Yako (2021) challenges the “long-held Western claims to objectivity, and the assumption that knowledge produced by the West about the rest is independent, unbiased, and unaffected by power relations and inequalities.”

Decolonizing Knowledge Production: a Practical Guide

This has implications both for our classification of resources– how we label them, how we rank them in knowledge system hierarchies–, how we teach about source evaluation, and how we provide public service. There is an gatekeeper element to librarianship that implies that we hold the keys to the secure and “best” information, that we are arbiters of what makes reliable information, and our field has historically aligned itself with Western knowledge systems at the exclusion of other sources. In order to move forward, we need to examine our systems of knowledge production, reflectively assess ourselves, our values, and our biases, so we can move forward in a more inclusive direction.

Yako, L. (2021, April 19). Decolonizing knowledge production: A practical guide. CounterPunch.https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/04/09/decolonizing-knowledge-production-a-practical-guide/

M3, P5: Reconciliation and the Canadian Federation of Library Associations

Library & Literacy Services for Indigenous (First Nations, Métis & Inuit) Peoples of Canada Position Statement

The Canadian Federation of Library Association represents library and information professionals from across Canada, from public, academic, and special libraries. The CFLA has been committed to developing policies and position papers to provide best practices and guidance on all issues related to libraries. The Committee on Indigenous Matters develops plans, policies, and position papers to help libraries address and implement TRC Calls to Action, implement the CFLA Truth & Reconciliation report recommendations, promote learning opportunities and engagement with colleagues. CFLA collaborates with Indigenous peoples to address library, archival, and cultural memory issues and engage in reconciliation. They use a medicine wheel to represent the working groups and their priority areas; they prepare materials, PD, policies, and position papers; and they promote courses and learning opportunities for library and information professionals.

For my final project, I want to create an action plan for my library and the CFLA policies and positions will help develop the strategic foundation necessary for a well-designed, professionally-sound strategic plan. My library serves people from across Canada, so having a less immediately local and more cross-country approved approach would best inform my planning process.

M2, P5: X̱wi7x̱wa Library

UBC’s X̱wi7x̱wa Library is the first (and, at present, the only) Indigenous branch of an academic library in Canada. The library, once headed by the brilliant Gene Joseph, is a leader in Indigenous academic library work. For classification, they use a variation of the Brian Deer Classification system, a method of Indigenous Knowledge Organization, that prioritize place in the classification.

In this video, Gene Joseph talks about knowledge and libraries. X̱wi7x̱wa translates to the English ‘echo’ and it’s perfect for a library, a place where knowledge is ready for the next person to access it.

M2, P4: Co-Lab(orating) in Making History Accessible

https://co-lab.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng

While investigating Indigenous library initiatives, I came across the Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) Co-Lab, a crowdsourcing tool to tag, transcribe, describe, and translate Canadian heritage documents. This looks like the sort of project that could be used for a hack-a-thon or edit-a-thon project for a Canadian heritage project or event or even in a social studies classroom. This would be a great tool to teach about metadata, knowledge organization, issues with classification, and access to primary sources.

The Co-Lab (LAC, n.d.) intro hook very effectively caught me!

Imagine transcribing handwritten letters like the one that Louis Riel wrote the day before his death to his wife and children, asking her “to make them pray for me,” or tagging the names of soldiers in photographs from the First World War. You can help to unveil a great part of our history by using Co-Lab.

Transcribe, tag, translate and describe digitized records from our collection. The more work we collaborate on using the Co-Lab crowdsourcing tool, the more accessible and usable our digital collection will become for everyone using the Library and Archives Canada(LAC) website.

Library and Archives Canada. (n.d.) Welcome to Co-Lab! Co-Lab Home. https://co-lab.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng

M2, P3: Indigenous Heritage Action Plan (LAC)

Library and Archives Canada collects, preserves, and provides access to historical materials documenting the Canadian experience. In 2019, they worked with members of the Indigenous Advisory Circle to create the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) Indigenous Heritage Action Plan. The plan outlines 28 concrete actions LAC will take to engage, collaborate, manage, identify, support, and promote Indigenous heritage materials within the LAC collection. The action plan introduces their approach to institutional change and how they intend to fulfill their commitment to the TRC calls to action.

Per the Action Plan (LAC, 2019):

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is committed to playing a significant role in reconciliation between the Government of Canada and First Nations, Inuit and the Métis Nation based on a renewed nation-to-nation or government-to-government relationship, particularly with regard to human rights. These rights include international Indigenous rights, as defined by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), a Declaration to which the Government of Canada is fully committed. LAC has an important role to play in ensuring Indigenous rights to culture and language preservation, and in managing information relating to Indigenous peoples. International rights extend to include victims and survivors of human rights violations, as set out by the United Nations Joinet-Orentlicher Principles (UNJOP). Through the preservation of information documenting human rights abuses, such as those that took place within the Indian residential school system, LAC supports Indigenous peoples’ inalienable right to know the truth about what happened and why.

Library and Archives Canada. (2019). Indigenous heritage action plan. Indigenous documentary heritage initiatives. https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/aboriginal-heritage/initiatives/Pages/actionplan.aspx