Today was my day of multicultural sessions. My morning session was sponsored by the Indigenous Cultures Special Interest Group, and my afternoon one by the Multicultural Libraries one. I had been looking forward to today's sessions more than any of my others, I think. Between moving to Hawaii in the spring, and a long running half-joke, half-plan to move to New Zealand when Zach gets out of the Army, I was definitely curious. I was also pretty sure there was a lot I could take home from these sessions.
The morning one was by far my favorite. There's just so much potential from the projects these presenters are working on, and so much need for them. It's just a great opportunity.
The project that intrigued me the most was out of Western Australia, called Storylines. It works with Aboriginal groups in WA, uploading pictures and using the community knowledge to add names, dates, places, and tags to them. And the tagging goes beyond just basic metadata; users can add whole stories to the pictures (or recordings or videos, whatever was uploaded). The portal is available in several Aboriginal languages, and they aim to eventually have it available in all languages in that state. The project returns materials to the Aboriginal families if possible, once everything's uploaded, so there is a restoration component to the project too. And there is a culturally sensitive aspect; pictures can be marked as private or sacred or secret, so that something that should be treated with a great deal of respect doesn't end up as 'just another picture' going viral on the Internet. There's a little bit more restriction in dealing with those, so that they can indeed remain private. It's a great platform with a lot of potential applications. I can think of several historical libraries I've researched in which would benefit from being able to collect local, personal history like that. And even the college I work for has boxes of old pictures from the 1960s and 1970s which would be such a resource, if only they could be properly labeled. A portal like Storylines would be really be useful for libraries and archives like these!
And there are so many stories coming out of Storylines so far! A man from the Lost Generation was helping with the project, and actually identified some of his own family members, and was able to reunite with his mother. And in another area, children were asking about a dance shown in pictures, one they hadn't seen before. It sparked the elders to remember the dance and teach it to the younger generation. And the presenter said that's an added benefit, how it's helping to bridge generations as they share stories; the children hear stories from the past, and the older generation learns computer skills working with the portal. It's a really, really impressive project.
I think that is becoming one of my favorite topics this week. Not indigenous populations necessarily, but inclusion. Yesterday I had a session on LGBTQ materials in the library, and today had the two multicultural sessions. I'm a knowledge junkie, and curious. I want to know everything I can. And one of the things that boggles my mind utterly is the conscious decision to deny someone access to information. It's one of the reasons that Banned Books Week can get me riled up - if you don't agree with something, fine, but don't try to tell me it's something that I'm not allowed to read. Let me decide for myself. If there's an unconscious block to information access, or an institutional hurdle rather than an actual policy or rule, then it's something that can be overcome. We just have to figure out how. So I have really enjoyed my sessions which discuss inclusion within a library, how best to provide information to all audiences, to meet the needs of more than just the majority. Sometimes it's because you're in that minority that you need the resources a little more. Seeing people all over the world tackling the same (or very similar) problems, it makes you think. At what point is this a reflection of human nature, dominance of the majority and all, but is it also part of human nature to work together, to share ideas on how to address the balance?
I had a nice long chat with the Indigenous Population SIG chair after the morning session. Lots of good advice for someone starting out in the profession, and possibly thinking about this aspect of a library. Volunteer volunteer volunteer! Get involved, both professionally and in the community. Especially if I'm thinking about working with multicultural or indigenous library services, being active in the community will definitely help build those connections. And she had a great line about native cultures and the more relaxed way many of them look at life, that "things just bloom in their own time, when they are meant to." I know it's a cliche, but when you're looking at finishing your degree and moving a quarter of the way around the world in the same month... well, the reminder that things will happen when they happen, and sometimes the best opportunities are the ones that come upon us unexpectedly, can be very comforting.
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