Australian Indigenous Knowledge and Libraries
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AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND LIBRARIES Dedication This work is dedicated to Loris Williams who passed away in August 2005 after a short illness. Loris Williams was an inspiration to many archivists and information professionals in Australia. She was strongly connected to the Queensland Aboriginal communities through her father to the Mulinjali people and through her mother to the Birra Gubba people. She was the first qualified Indigenous archivist in Queensland. Through her work in the State Library of Queensland and subsequently in the Community and Personal Histories section of the Queensland Government, Loris saw her role as helping people access government records in order to find their identity and connection to family and land. Loris worked actively to encourage archivists to make these records more accessible to Indigenous people as a matter of priority, and she saw education of Indigenous people to become archivists as a pathway to the empowerment of her people. Loris was the Convenor of the Australian Society of Archivists Indigenous Issues Special Interest Group. AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND LIBRARIES Edited By Martin Nakata and Marcia Langton Front cover design by Joe Gumbula UTSePress, Sydney Publisher’s Note A version of this work was originally published in 2005 as a hard copy volume as Australian and Academic Research Libraries vol 36 no 2 June 2005. All chapters were revised or rewritten for this publication and fully refereed, in accordance with Australian Academic and Research Libraries’ editorial policy. This publication had as its origin the joint Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning (University of Technology, Sydney) and State Library of New South Wales colloquium, Libraries and Indigenous Knowledge: A National Forum for Libraries, Archives and Information Services held at the State Library of New South Wales 9-10 December 2004. Licence Information This work is licensed under the Creative Commons ‘By Attribution’, ‘Non Commercial’, ‘No Derivative Works’. See http://creativecommons.org.au/licences for more details. Copyright Information This work is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of research or study, reproduction in any form by any means for public or commercial use is prohibited without the written permission of the copyright owner. Contributors retain copyright ownership of their individual works and assert their moral right to be identified as authors. © ATSILIRN First Published in 2005 Cover design © Joe Gumbula National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Australian Indigenous knowledge and libraries. ISBN 9780980284010 (web). 1. Libraries and Aboriginal Australians. 2. Libraries and Torres Strait Islanders. 3. Aboriginal Australians - Archives. 4. Torres Strait Islanders - Archives. 5. Aboriginal Australians - Genealogy. 6. Torres Strait Islanders - Genealogy. I. Nakata, Martin N. II. Langton, Marcia, 1951- . III. Title. IV. Title : Australian academic and research libraries (Online). (Series : Australian academic and research libraries, 0004-8623 ; v.36, no. 2). 021.20899915 Published by UTSePress, Sydney 2006 University Library University of Technology, Sydney PO Box 123 BROADWAY NSW 2007 AUSTRALIA Contents Foreword.................................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 3 Martin Nakata and Marcia Langton.................................................................................. 3 Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................................. 7 Indigenous Knowledge, the Library and Information Service Sector, and Protocols.. 7 Martin Nakata, Alex Byrne, Vicky Nakata and Gabrielle Gardiner................................. 7 Indigenous Knowledge ................................................................................................. 7 Indigenous Knowledge Documentation in Australia.................................................. 10 Indigenous Knowledge—LIS Intersections................................................................ 12 The Treatment of Materials .................................................................................... 12 Implications for Service Provision.......................................................................... 14 Protocols for Practice at IK-LIS Intersections............................................................ 15 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 18 Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................................... 21 Exploring the Gupapuyŋa Legacy: Strategies for Developing the Galiwin’ku Indigenous Knowledge Centre......................................................................................... 21 Joe Neparrŋa Gumbula ................................................................................................... 21 Yolŋu Knowledge Management ................................................................................. 21 Building Collections ................................................................................................... 22 Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................................... 25 Libraries and Knowledge Centres in the Northern Territory...................................... 25 Cate Richmond................................................................................................................ 25 Background................................................................................................................. 25 LKC model.................................................................................................................. 26 Indigenous Knowledge and Databases ....................................................................... 28 Implementation ........................................................................................................... 29 Galiwin’ku Knowledge Centre ................................................................................... 29 Wadeye Library and Knowledge Centre..................................................................... 30 Challenges................................................................................................................... 31 Future Directions ........................................................................................................ 32 Why Libraries?............................................................................................................ 32 Chapter 4 ............................................................................................................................... 34 Developing Indigenous Knowledge Centres ................................................................... 34 Jacob Pilot....................................................................................................................... 34 The Indigenous Knowledge Centre (IKC) Model ...................................................... 35 Challenges Implementing the IKC Model .................................................................. 35 Employment and Training ...................................................................................... 35 Technology ............................................................................................................. 36 Indigenous Knowledge Centre at the Millennium Library Project............................. 37 Other Queensland State Library Indigenous Services Initiatives ............................... 38 i Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 39 Chapter 5 ............................................................................................................................... 40 Traditional Indigenous Biodiversity-related Knowledge.............................................. 40 Marcia Langton and Zane Ma Rhea................................................................................ 40 What is Traditional or Indigenous Knowledge and Why is it Important?.................. 41 Threats to Traditional Biodiversity-Related Knowledge............................................ 43 Language Diversity and the State of Retention of Biodiversity-Related Knowledge 44 The Documentation of Traditional Biodiversity-related Knowledge ......................... 46 Libraries, Databases, Registers and Inventories ......................................................... 48 Web Portals and Web Libraries .................................................................................. 50 Indigenous Knowledge and the Fate of Indigenous Peoples in a Globalising World 51 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 57 Chapter 6 ............................................................................................................................... 62 The Politics of Indigenous Knowledge ............................................................................ 62 Arun Agrawal.................................................................................................................