Review Assignment

A significant challenge to library accessibility has to do with cross-cultural usability. In our multi-cultural society, libraries do well to recognize that different cultural segments of society have different needs when it comes to the library setting. Many initiatives have dealt specifically with this challenge. Larsen and Roy (2002), in their article, “Oksale: An Indigenous Approach to Creating a Virtual Library of Education Resources”, in the online magazine, D-Lib, documents one such program.

Their article summarizes the process whereby students in the “Library Instruction and Information Literacy” class in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Texas at Austin constructed a virtual library to meet the needs of a marginalized cultural group. The emphasis was on a service-based model drawing on indigenous learning styles to create a virtual library for the Northwest Indian College teacher training program, Oksale. While the intention of creating a virtual library from a culturally aware and sensitive viewpoint is commendable, the Oksale project is hampered by its problematic appropriation of Indigenous knowledge.

The motivation behind the Oksale virtual library was to provide a culturally appropriate portal for Indigenous students and teachers alike. However, the way in which the project was carried out was problematic. As will be shown, the students involved in the Oksale project participated in the cultural appropriation of Indigenous knowledge through many stages of their work.

Cultural appropriation has been defined as the adoption of elements of cultural expression of one societal group by an external group, who often ignore the underlying purpose and intent of the expression (Cultural appropriation, 2005). The term has a negative connotation, and generally is applied when the subject culture is a minority culture or somehow subordinate in social, political, economic, or military status to the appropriating culture. Furthermore, the term implies the theft of something considered precious or proprietary to the subject group without respect on the part of the external culture for, or an understanding of, either the subject culture or the people who practice it (Cultural appropriation, 2005). Much of Roy and Larson’s (2002) article is spent describing how the actions the students, all of whom were non-Native, took in developing the Oksale virtual library were based on a native educational process. This is problematic because they have taken this indigenous knowledge, used and created a product from it, and then repackaged the whole for Native consumption. Unintentionally, this process has meant that Indigenous peoples have not had any role in the control of the project. I believe that this is a strong argument to support the claim that cultural appropriation has taken place.

Another problem linked to appropriation in cross-cultural studies is that of homogenization. When an outside culture looks at another culture, often many of the viewed society’s complexities are ignored. The students involved in this project are guilty of this as well. The Indigenous educational framework used to guide the whole project was the work of one Native author and educator who does not even belong to the same cultural group as the individuals at the Northwest Indian College. Indigenous culture has been presumed to be homogenous across the continent, which significantly undermines the usability and effectiveness of the end product.

In addressing cultural accessibility, the end does not justify the means. While the intention of creating a culturally sensitive portal for Indigenous people is a positive step towards equitable library access, we must be careful that we do not close our eyes to our own involvement in the construction and support of unequal power dynamics between different groups in our society.

References

Cultural appropriation. (2005). Retrieved November 14, 2005 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation

Roy, L. & Larson, P. (2002). Oksale: An Indigenous approach to creating a virtual library of education resources. D-Lib Magazine, 8,3. Retrieved November 14, 2005 from http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march02/roy/03roy.html

CHIN Project Profile

The Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) is a massive on-line project for the collection and dissemination of metadata. CHIN is a Special Operating Agency of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and was created in 1972 with the aim of fostering reliable management of the knowledge and collections developed by Canadian museums, and to provide public access to these through a national inventory (About CHIN, 2005).

Vision and Mission

CHIN’s vision is to connect Canadians and worldwide audiences to Canada’s heritage by promoting the development, presentation and preservation of Canada’s digital heritage content for current and future generations of Canadians (About CHIN, 2005). More specifically, CHIN’s aim is to create a computerized national inventory of Canadian cultural and scientific collections, to facilitate the sharing of collections information, to conduct applied research and development on information management standards and technology, and to advise museums and the heritage community in these areas (Carey, 2004). These goals are accomplished through a large number of services and information offered by CHIN online.

CHIN Content

CHIN provides information and links on a number of topics relevant to its stated goals. These include sections on creating and managing digital content, intellectual property, collections management, standards, Artefacts Canada, a reference library, and conservation.

The section on creating and managing digital content provides articles and examples for information specialists on a number of topics. These include digitization, digital preservation, web site development, and cutting edge research such as “Podcasting and the Museum Experience” (Creating and Managing, 2005).

The intellectual property section deals with rights management, licensing issues and guidelines, protecting digital images, virtual exhibition agreements, partnerships, and provides a links page with over eighty outside resources (Intellectual Property, 2004).

The collections management section contains software reviews, software selection guidelines and a course on the topic, cataloguing procedures, and a page of related resources (Collections Management, 2004).

The standards section provides a detailed outline of all standard systems relevant to museum and other cultural heritage workers. CHIN is involved in the promotion, production, and analysis of standards for museum information (Standards, 2004).

The Artefacts Canada section provides links to two separate collections. The humanities link contains art objects, social history artifacts, and more (What’s Here, 2002). The Natural Sciences link provides examples from the natural world, such as Botany and Earth Sciences (Artefacts Canada, 2004).

The reference library section provides a number of links of interest to diverse heritage specialists above and beyond what is encompassed by CHIN (Reference Library, 2004).

CHIN’s conservation section directs the user to both the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) and the Conservation Information Network (CIN). CCI provides information about the proper care and preservation of museum collections from a Canadian source, while CIN is an international collaboration which provides information on the conservation and restoration of cultural property (Conservation, 2002).

CHIN in its Wider Context

CHIN is a huge project encompassing all aspects of heritage management. The Artefacts Canada section alone contains millions of collection records and thousands of images from hundreds of museums across the country (Artefacts Canada, 2004). This resource provides a gateway to both national and international heritage professionals to research and discover Canadian cultural and natural collections. That this is available at the click of an internet browser is a major achievement in free and open-access knowledge dissemination. While the information and services CHIN provides are a major part of its value, another important aspect of CHIN is its collections functions.

In a lecture given at Canadian Metadata Forum in 2003, Sheila Carey (2004) discussed the dynamic and innovative collecting function of CHIN. The database has been structured so that outside cultural institutions can add their collections to the CHIN repository. In this way, CHIN can be seen as an ever changing and expanding database for heritage specialists and the wider public. Carey (2004) also stressed the innovation CHIN has achieved in metadata collection and dissemination. Since different institutions can add data to CHIN’s repositories it was important to ensure the coherence of its information resources by providing access to data in a standard format. CHIN met this challenge through the construction of its MetaCollector toolkit (Carey, 2004). This enabled ease of data entry, accuracy of information presented, and standardization of diverse entries. CHIN has accomplished these objectives and stands as an example of a successful metadata source for all information specialists both within and outside the heritage field. The CHIN project stands as an excellent example of the utility of digital information for information specialists in our increasingly wired world.

References

About CHIN. (2005). Retrieved October 2, 2005, from http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/About_Chin/about_chin.html.

Artefacts Canada. (2004). Retrieved October 2, 2005, from http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Artefacts_Canada/index.html.

Carey, S. (2004). Canadian Heritage Information Network. Retrieved October 2, 2005, from http://www.collectionscanada.ca/metaforum/014005-03215-e.html.

Collections Management. (2004). Retrieved October 2, 2005, from http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Collections_Management/index.html.

Conservation. (2002). Retrieved October 2, 2005, from http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Conservation/index.html.

Creating and Managing Digital Content. (2005). Retrieved October 2, 2005, from http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Digital_Content/index.html.

Intellectual Property. (2004). Retrieved October 2, 2005 from, http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Intellectual_Property/index.html.

Reference Library. (2004). Retrieved October 2, 2005, from http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Reference_Library/index.html.

Standards. (2004). Retrieved October 2, 2005, from http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Standards/index.html.

What’s Here. (2002) Retrieved October 2, 2005, from http://www.chin.gc.ca/Artefacts/Info/e_HumanitiesInfoHead.html.

Welcome All

Hi Guys!

Welcome to my blog.

I am a student in the FIS department at the University of Toronto. I am specializing in the archives stream. Academically, my background is also from U of T. I have Honours BA with a major in Prehistoric Archaeology and minors in Aboriginal Studies and Women's Studies. I had originally planned on becoming a professional archaeologist, however, after many moral, theoretical, and practical impasses I began to explore the world of archives as a better fit for me. I plan to maintain my focus on Canada's history, aimed more towards how we can learn from the past to make our society more equitable and just in the here and now. Lofty goals I know!

So that's me academically. But also it stands for a lot of who I am personally. I am a very politically minded and vocal individual. But I can have more mainstream fun as well. Mainly I do that through music, computer games (I am currently addicted to World of Warcraft), and spending time with my friends and family.

Now on to the purpose of this blog. I will mainly be using it to post assignments for my FIS 1311 course and to communicate with fellow class-mates. For those visiting from outside of FIS, 1311 is a course on Information Technology Applications. We will be learning things like different database systems, systems development, XML, UML, and a whole bunch of other three letter acronyms.

I think I will leave it at that for now. Since this is my first attempt at a blog I welcome all feedback and advice and look forward to hearing from you!

Bye for now.