Indigenous Perspectives on Library and Archival Digital Preservation Practices
Tuesday October 13, 2020
From 1:45pm to 2:15pm
There is growing understanding among GLAM institutions about the importance of preserving materials that reflect Indigenous worldviews and experiences. At the Council of Prairie & Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL), we are starting conversations about intersections between our Indigenous Knowledge and Digital Preservation programs and about barriers to collaboration between academic libraries and Indigenous communities on digital stewardship initiatives.
Document
There is growing understanding among GLAM institutions about the importance of preserving materials that reflect Indigenous worldviews and experiences. At the Council of Prairie & Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL), we are starting conversations about intersections between our Indigenous Knowledge and Digital Preservation programs and about barriers to collaboration between academic libraries and Indigenous communities on digital stewardship initiatives.
Indigenous peoples and allies are already harnessing technology in innovative ways to digitally preserve their knowledges and histories, manifested in photos, textual documents, recorded oral histories, and more, often recorded in Indigenous languages. These materials are extremely valuable; each have distinct preservation needs; yet infrastructure and resource constraints can pose risks to their long-term preservation.
Academic libraries are comparatively well-resourced regarding digital preservation infrastructure and expertise, and many have formally expressed commitment to collaborating with local Indigenous groups on stewardship of archival materials. However, these efforts are complicated by Indigenous cultural property rights and tenuous relationships between Indigenous peoples and institutions that have traditionally erased Indigenous knowledges and histories. In the digital realm, this colonial history has resulted in tools and best practices shaped by settler perspectives on access and ownership.
What is the path forward towards collaboration? The distrust that Indigenous peoples have for governments and other colonizing forces (including academic libraries), resource disparities between academic libraries and indigenous communities, and the relative lack of tools for digital asset management that reflect indigenous perspectives are issues that need addressing. This 25-minute presentation by two COPPUL staff will provide thoughts on forward-thinking strategies.
Speakers
Indigenous Knowledge Coordinator
Council of Prairie & Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL)