The TLAM class recently learned a lot more about the development of tribal libraries in the United States by reading about Lotsee Patterson’s work that began in the 1970s¹. With partners like Charles Townley and the support of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Patterson helped to make Native-run libraries on tribal lands become a reality. She also helped to found the American Indian Library Association.

“It was an exciting time to be in library school,” Janice Rice, senior academic librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College Library, shared with the class during her recent visit.

Janice Rice

One can easily see Janice’s admiration for the work Patterson and her peers accomplished to set up libraries across the U.S. During this time Janice, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, had been pursuing a master’s degree in library science. Since then, Janice has also been involved in the American Indian Library Association, and like Patterson was at one time president of the association.

For the class, Janice briefly traced the history of American Indian libraries:

• Boarding schools era: an example was given about American Indian students maintaining and using libraries in residence halls at the Indian boarding school in Carlisle, Pa.
• 1970s: tribal libraries were created across the U.S. to meet the information needs of tribes and because of Patterson’s efforts
• 1980s: tribal college libraries were created for college accreditation

Janice explained how tribes, when planning their libraries, try to make their libraries relevant to their communities. The focus is on what’s most important to the tribe as a community, not the individual. And to look forward and think of future generations and their needs. Therefore, tribal libraries are integral to its communities once they’ve been planned and established. We see this evidence in the many roles a tribal library may play today: a public library, a tribal college library, a tribal archive, and/or a school library partner.

Connecting with other tribal libraries and librarians is an important part to building a tribal library community. It is from each other that we may discuss and build on best practices as it relates to our communities. There are tribal college librarian gatherings, Janice shared, and professional organizations like the aforementioned American Indian Library Association (http://ailanet.org). The AILA may be especially important to tribal libraries with limited budgets because members, for a small annual fee, may access a multitude of resources.

Janice concluded her visit with our class by providing a few interesting resources to the class to learn more about Native peoples and Tribal Libraries. These resources are listed below:

Tribal Libraries, a Selected Bibliography:

Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes: http://m-a-s-t.org/

Map of U.S. Federal and State Indian Reservations: http://infoplease.com/images/indian9.gif

Other resources mentioned above include:
American Indian Library Association (http://ailanet.org)

-Mee Xiong

¹Biggs, Bonnie. (2000). Bright Child of Oklahoma: Lotsee Patterson and the Development of America’s Tribal Libraries. American Indian Culture & Research Journal, 24(4), 55-67.

At the end of our semester studying indigenous information issues, the TLAM class welcomed guest lecturer, Miranda Johnson to speak to us about Maori activism and biculturalism in New Zealand.

Johnson is Assistant Professor in the departments of History and American Indian Studies at UW Madison. Her research interests focus on Indigenous history and policy, especially in New Zealand.

Like all guest speakers we’ve heard from, Miranda Johnson managed the impressive feat of relating years of history and policy within a very limited amount of time. In the hour we had with her, we discussed:

• Maori activism in the 1960’s and 70’s for land and language
• The role of the Treaty of Waitangi (link to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi)
• Scholarly influences upon Maori activism: Ruth Ross
• Establishing biculturalism and bilingualism in the 1980’s

Throughout our discussion with Johnson, we were able to make connections with what we have been studying about and experiencing of Native American issues relating to information, language, and activism. It was enlightening to see how 1960’s and 70’s American Indian activism in the US inspired, and in turn was inspired by Maori activism in New Zealand.

We also saw other similar issues relating to land and language loss and continuing debates about Native sovereignty. Differences between the two countries’ native populations were striking as well. In a smaller country where the indigenous population speaks the same native language, biculturalism has taken great strides. It is especially inspiring to see the effects of language revitalization and the role that libraries have played in this.

In our discussion with Miranda Johnson, we also learned that despite the strides taken in the 1980’s and ‘90’s, there is still political pushback against this ideal of biculturalism. She also raised the point of how biculturalism should not take the place of multiculturalism as New Zealand sees greater immigration from other countries.

The TLAM class thanks Professor Johnson for providing us with this global scope of indigenous activism, how it relates to libraries and information issues, and what we can do as librarians and cultural heritage professionals to best serve indigenous people and communities.

Articles by Miranda Johnson:

2008 ‘Making History Public: Indigenous Claims to Settler States,’ Public Culture 20.1:    97-117

2005 ‘Honest Acts and Dangerous Supplements: Indigenous Oral History and Historical Practice in Settler Societies,’ Postcolonial Studies, 8, 3: 261-76

2005 ‘ “The Land of the Wrong White Crowd”: anti-racist organizations and Pakeha
identity politics in the 1970s,’ New Zealand Journal of History, 39, 2: 137-57

2000 ‘Chinese Civil Society: a case of failure or scholarly obfuscation?’
New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, II, 2: 107-35

Further Reading about Maori Libraries:

Te Ara Tika: Maori and Libraries in New Zealand – Staying the Distance. Szekely, C.       (2002). World Libraries 12(1).

Can you imagine writing a paper with over 20 other people? What would you write about?

Michelle Caswell co-authored such a paper, titled “Educating for the Archival Multiverse.” In March, she gave a guest lecture to the TLAM class on issues related to this paper.

The “multiverse” in the title refers to the concept of various possible universes; in this case universes of thought and perception that make up the worldviews of different people and different cultures. Caswell and her compatriots feel that current archival practice and the education that feeds into it is dominated solely by a Western cultural perspective.The worldviews of other cultures, and particularly native cultures, are not reflected in archives.

Caswell explained that possible solutions to this issue can be found in the closely related concepts of pluralism and social justice.

Archival pluralism requires practitioners to first recognize the varying perspectives of different cultures and communities, and how the default system of archives may disenfranchise them. Building relationships with communities and collaborating with them can help to overcome these issues. Pluralism encourages multidisciplinary approaches to knowledge, and exploring different perspectives

Social justice is the promotion of a more equitable distribution of resources within society. It also promotes the idea that various peoples should be able to express and define themselves in their own ways, and not have to be defined by others; obviously, this is closely related to pluralism. Emphasizing social justice as a goal challenges the predominant view of archivists as impartial custodians of cultural material. While archivists may be well intentioned, current archival practice perpetuates a single cultural perspective and the associated power structures.

Although the focus of the paper and the lecture was on archives, it is obvious that other cultural institutions, like libraries and museums, could benefit from similar considerations.

And of course, it is not just Caswell and her coauthors who are working towards these changes. A similar philosophy can be seen in Mukurtu (pronounced MOOK-oo-too). This is a platform for digital archives created in collaboration with the Warumungu Aborigines of Australia. The system limits access to certain material in accordance with cultural protocols and authority. It is open source and available for use by other communities. More information can be found at: http://www.mukurtu.org/

-Travis Mueller

Perhaps it is distance itself,
That causes our voices,
To be lost,
From the margins.

It seems we are invisible too,
Out here in the distance,
As we flicker at the margins,
Of time.

- from “Margins” by John D. Berry, California, 2003

In a group breakout discussion on March 22nd, 2012, TLAM students talked about the possibilities in which tribal librarians and advocates can bring the voices of their communities forward. Traditional, mainstream Eurocentric cataloging systems, such as the Dewey Decimal System and Library of Congress, have long consigned indigenous knowledge to the margins. A classmate noted cultural bias in the typical shelving of Native American literature under the “History” section of local libraries. Top-down classification systems like the Dewey Decimal System perpetuate “ghetto-izing” Native cultures by relegating their existence to the past as Holly Tomren describes in “Classification, Bias and American Indian Materials.”

However, since the 1970s, tribal librarians and advocates have been creating innovative, community-centered and culturally appropriate systems to organize their resources.

To promote a Native classification scheme, TLAM students considered the following ideas proposed by researchers/librarians such as UW-Milwaukee Professor Hope A. Olsen and Brian Deer:

1. Organization versus Classification

According to Olson, the concept of organization is appropriate to indigenous classification because it “suggests an organic whole made up of connected parts” (Tomren 10). Traditional classification, on the other hand, emphasizes arrangement of information as individual entities.

2. Using Unbiased Subject Headings/Terms

Olson talks about the need for librarians to be aware and eliminate derogatory terms used by Library of Congress that further marginalize communities of color, women and the disabled.

3. Creating Knowledge Organization Reflecting Indigenous Worldview

Libraries need to understand that the Western worldview, which emphasizes hierarchy, linearity and individuality cannot be applied to the organization of non-Western knowledge. Native cultures, in particular, value relationships, holistic concepts and balance. In addition, indigenous cultures are diverse and should not be treated as a monolithic entity as they have been since the beginnings of American colonization. The Brian Deer Classification system is an example of a classification scheme that reflects a First Nation’s perspective and was developed in the 1970s.

Inspired by these ideas and those from David Weinberger’s book on cataloging in the Digital Age Everything is Miscellaneous, students also presented the following steps towards improving current cataloging protocols in various library settings:

• Consult with members of indigenous communities on creating appropriate knowledge organization systems.

• Encourage user/patron participation in creating subject terms and/or tag information (organized online) themselves.

By engaging in conversations about issues in tribal librarianship such as indigenous classification, students of TLAM are learning how to apply values of democracy, equality and cultural sensitivity not only in tribal libraries, but in all libraries.  Discussions like these provide us with rich background knowledge that fosters our abilities to collaborate with tribal librarians and community organizations with a better understanding.  Most importantly, we are gaining insights and new ideas to replace traditional, oppressive cataloging systems with ones that are inclusive, liberating and accessible to users of all backgrounds.

Readings on Indigenous Classification:

• Naming and reclaiming indigenous knowledge: Intersections of landscape and experience. Doyle, A. (2006). Proceedings of the Ninth International Society of Knowledge Organization, Vienna, Austria. Wurzburg: Ergon Verlag.
• Classification, bias and American Indian materials. Tomren, H. (2003). [Unpublished] San Jose: San Jose State University.
• Brian Deer classification system.
• Te Ara Tika: Guiding Words: Ngā Ingoa Kaupapa Māori, Pūronga Tuatoru: Māori Subject Headings Project, Phase 3 Research Report. Simpson, S. (2005).

-Dawn Wing