DRAFT: Librarianship and Traditional Cultural Expressions: Nurturing Understanding and Respect
The draft below represents librarian principles concerning the management and protection of traditional cultural expressions. Its purpose is to help librarians appreciate the unique nature of indigenous culture and to highlight ways that librarians can better manage traditional cultural expressions in their collections and share expertise with cultures that choose to self manage their own cultural heritage. This document has been developed through a participatory process of collaboration among librarians, archivists and representatives from indigenous communities within the United States. Our intent is to solicit feedback from all interested parties to improve the document and to continue to build a broader shared understanding. Ultimately the principles will be brought to ALA Council for endorsement as ALA policy.
We welcome your feedback and suggestions for improvement. Please use the comment box within the blog post to leave feedback on the draft, or send an email to OITP’s Carrie Russell at crussell {at} alawash.org. We’d like to have initial comments by the end of June, so that we may incorporate and iterate a new draft for review at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago in July 2009. An open hearing to review the latest draft has been scheduled for 3:30pm – 5:30pm on Sunday, July 12th.
Members of the Drafting Team:
Peggy Bulgar (American Folklife Center)
Lori Driscoll (International Copyright Advocate)
Carlene Engstrom (American Indian Library Association)
Jonathan Franklin (International Copyright Advocate)
Eric Kansa (Executive Director, Information and Service Design Program, School of Information, UC-Berkeley)
Kay Mathieson (Assistant Professor, School of Information Resources and Library Science, University of Arizona)
Michael Miller (Coordinator of Access Services, Queens College-CUNY)
Jennifer O’Neal (National Museum of the American Indian)
Janice Pilch (International Copyright Advocate)
Loriene Roy (ALA Past President and Professor, School of Information, University of Texas)
Barbara Stripling (Intellectual Freedom Round Table)
Winston Tabb (International Federation of Library Associations, IFLA)
Linda Wynne (Alaska State Library Association)
OITP Staff: Carrie Russell, Jennifer Hendrix, Timothy Vollmer
TCE Library Principles DRAFT (download PDF)
TCE Library Principles DRAFT (open in Scribd)
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Having many years of experience in implementing similar consultative programmes in museums, I was very happy to see this draft of Librarianship and TCEs. However, I felt that I should share with you some bits of experience that are important in this context.
It is important to realize that however good a set of guidelines are, the one-size fits all model of guidelines creates many problems. Of course we all know this, but it is extremely important in this context.
First of all, every point that you have made in your draft, right from the very first claim that “The five concept areas addressed in this document are central to the topic of collecting, preserving, organizing and accessing TCEs.” are contentious. Not only are they contentious between the many different traditional knowledge communities – including our own, but they are more often than not contentious within knowledge communities. In every context of application, these points will have to be negotiated and re-negotiated.
This leads to the second problem. Such guidelines may work well for smaller local libraries, where they will be able to create a good working relationship with a few local knowledge communities. Where these long-term relationships can be successfully maintained and developed to positive ends. For larger institutions, such as regional, national or international libraries, creating such relationships across literally thousands of communities, relationships so necessary to the negotiations that will achieve the goals of your guidelines, are impossible. This does not mean, of course, that we should not strive for the principles stated in your guidelines, but I would recommend that you also consider these necessary mechanisms as part of your deliberations.
On the whole, I think this is an excellent document.
I have very strong feelings about two bullet points, though.
“Librarians must recognize that such materials do not exist separately from the living peoples whose cultures they reflect.”
This is true, but incomplete. TCE’s recorded in fixed form *do* also have an existence separate from their originating cultures.
“Librarians have a responsibility for developing policies and protocols for preservation and use of traditional cultural expressions according to the cultural values of indigenous and local communities.”
It is entirely appropriate for particular librarians to determine that their particular libraries should not hold materials that have particular (or any) access restrictions. If that means they cannot ethically acquire–or, possibly, continue to hold– particular materials, then so be it.