A review for LIS610: Collections Management at UNCG.
The Karuk Tribe has resided for hundreds of years in what is now modern-day California. Like most Indigenous peoples, however, they still face the struggle against colonization and the reclaiming of rights over their own cultural heritage. The tribe, along with Lisa Hillman, Leaf Hillman, Adrienne Harling, Bari Talley and Angela McLaughlin wrote of the issues they face in “Building Sípnuuk: A Digital Library, Archives, and Museum for Indigenous Peoples.”
In 2012, the Karuk were one of three tribes to receive funds from a USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative grant. One of the initial objectives was to “establish a regional food security library” (Karuk et al., 2017, p. 303). In an effort for the digital library to meet the tribal community’s needs, an advisory group was formed of potential users, “including tribal elders, tribal youth, researchers, food activist, grant stakeholders, and employees and managers of the Karuk Tribal Libraries” (Karuk et al, 2017, p. 303). The advisory committee soon uncovered a broader need than that of the limited scope of the grant. They looked for further funding that would allow them to “restore Karuk People as the rightful authorities over our cultural materials and traditional knowledge” (Karuk et al., 2017, p. 304).
On the surface, it would seem that creating a collection of culturally significant information would be easy when curated by those who initially produced the material. In the cases of America’s native tribes, however, it is incredibly complicated. As Karuk et al. point out, repatriation is a long and difficult process. Native Americans were not just pushed off of their land, children were removed from their families to be assimilated with white, European culture in boarding schools. Tribes were forced to give up their religions, narratives, rituals, and culture as a whole.
Languages were forced extinct. Generations of people were separated from their cultural legacy.
In the meantime, non-native collectors – both as scholarly researchers and novelty seekers – were able to collect native stories and items. Those things gathered were scattered among private collectors and formal institutions. These same collectors, now declare rights to this information over the tribes from which they were gathered.
As an example, Karuk et al. share the story of the 16 years it took to have the sacred White Wolf returned to the tribe from the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum at the University of California, Berkley (Karuk, 2017, pp. 296-297). The wolf was spotted in basement storage in 1999, where it had sat for almost a century, misidentified in the museum’s catalogue. Institutions such as the Hearst Museum claim “right of possession” over native born materials, despite the fact that there is no proof of sale from the tribes (or individuals) to the collectors. As Karuk et al. state:
The process of collecting stories, songs, and other information from Native sources failed to provide credible or legally reliable documentation relative to the conditions and wishes of the Natives themselves… Indigenous knowledge sharers did not realize that western copyright law had been asserted over their narratives, which privileged the person conducting interviews or taking photographs as the legal ‘creator’ … Ethnographers’ records were brought back to their home institutions, where they are still managed today by copyright law and western archival and library best practices, which continue to violate Karuk and other Indigenous cultural protocols restricting access to sacred and other kinds of special knowledge. (p. 296)
Moreover, the law goes a step farther, deeming anthropologists’ misinterpretation of tribal information as truth. “In fact, ethnographers’ records of Karuk culture are commonly perceived to be authoritative sources of information for a wide range of researchers … regardless of the tribe’s stance on their veracity … the problematic works of a few ethnographers and anthropologists continue to be looked to as authoritative sources to inform these legal battles” (Karuk et al., 2017 p.297-98). This leads to the overwhelming question of where does that leave the curators of indigenous libraries or non-native libraries with indigenous collections?
As modern managers of cultural information collections, it is up to librarians, curators, and collectors in general to re-evaluate collections of Indigenous cultures, particularly in places where those cultures still exist. “All selection decisions begin with consideration of the user community and the long-term mission, goals, and priorities of the library and its parent body” (Johnson, 2018, p. 122). One of the biggest problems with Indigenous peoples’ access to their own primary cultural heritage sources, is that they are not the focused user community of those collections. University repositories, as well as others, are geared to serve researchers and scholars. Some even require research credentials in order to access collections. This eliminates anyone simply wanting to experience their own cultural heritage through the collection.
To further complicate matters, there is a flip side to access in terms of tribal history and culture. Francis “Drury stated, ‘The high purpose of book selection is to provide the right book for the right reader at the right time’” (Johnson, 2018, p. 122). In terms of indigenous culture, the right information is not always all information. The founders of Sípnuuk were careful to choose a content management system that allowed for “highly flexible settings for providing differential access to content, designed to accommodate the many different kinds of access protocols that Indigenous communities use… For example, traditional Karuk laws differentiate between men’s and women’s knowledge around specific traditional protocols” (Karuk, 2017, p. 307). Sípnuuk’s collection was built under Karuk best practices and law not those of western culture. The tribe was to be the library’s primary audience.
Karuk practices are at the heart of the library, from controlled vocabulary choice to access protocols. “Developing Karuk-specific controlled vocabulary was an opportunity to represent culturally important and meaningful subjects in Karuk-specific terms” (Karuk et al., 2017, pp. 306-307). However, more work remains.
A collection is an evolving entity that grows and changes over time. “Librarians, archivists, curators, and museum educators, among all people, must know best that collections are not a static heritage, but rather comprise countless changing images and ideas; they require reinvention and rethinking, generation by generation” (Carr, 2002). It is time western institutions re-evaluate how Indigenous collections are managed on the whole. O’Neil found that:
Over the past decade Native American archives have witnessed a significant transformation across the United States. More than any time before tribal communities are establishing strong, growing archival collections documenting their histories; numerous non-tribal repositories are collaborating with and developing shared stewardship protocols with tribal communities regarding Native American collections … Although there still exists significant areas for improvement, including the continued development of tribal archival repositories and successful relationships between tribal and non-tribal repositories, it is imperative to examine these accomplishments within the larger historical context of Native American archival history and decolonizing framework to propose possible next steps in the continued movement to develop and sustain tribal archives. (p. 1)
And sustainability is an ongoing concern for the Karuk. In their 2019 annual report, the American Library Association pointed out that “The Museum and Library Services Act was reauthorized by Congress through 2025, sending a strong signal of support for libraries at the federal level and including improvements that give tribal libraries … greater access to IMLS funding” (ALA, 2019). Specifically, Section 8 of the bill “expands the definitions of ‘library’ and ‘museum’ to include a tribal library or museum” (Congressional Research Service, 2018). These tribal institutions are late to be supported by the government that serves them and controls much of their primary traditional information. Long-term funding is a necessity that has been difficult to find.
Tribal repositories need the financial and legal support of the government and other cultural heritage entities. Just because our institutions maintain right of ownership or copyright of an item, does not always make them the sole owner. Just because repatriation is not legally required, does not mean it should not be made. “We need to understand the work of our cultural institutions as minding the community. Perhaps it is less useful to understand cultural institutions as displays of artifacts or constructions of past lives than it is to understand them as the unspoken, continuous, unfinished parts of ourselves, and the mindful emblems of our communal intellectual strengths” (Carr, 2002).
Native collections are a part of our communal history as human beings. It is time to begin looking at our collections of the past, through the lens of the present, disregarding the racial inequalities that still linger. The preservation of cultural items should not be above the preservation of the culture itself.
References
American Library Association. The State of America’s Libraries 2019: A Report from the American Library Association. Kathy S. Rosa, ed. 2019. http://www.ala.org/news/state-americas-libraries-report-2019
Carr, David. (2002). A Community Mind. Public Libraries, 41 (5), 284-288.
Christen, Kimberly. (2017 July 13). We Have Never Been Neutral: Search, Discovery, and the Politics of Access [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.oclc.org/research/events/2017/07-13.html
Evans, G. E., & Saponaro, M. Z. (2012). Library and information science text: Collection management basics. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Johnson, P. (2018). Fundamentals of collection development and management (Fourth ed.). Chicago: ALA Editions.
Karuk Tribe, Hillman, L., Hillman, L., Harling, A., Talley, B., & McLaughlin, A. (2017). Building Sípnuuk: A digital library, archives, and museum for indigenous peoples. Collection Management, 42(3-4), 294-316. doi:10.1080/01462679.2017.1331870. https://uncg.on.worldcat.org/oclc/7173287915
O'Neal, Jennifer R. (2015) The Right to Know: Decolonizing Native American Archives, Journal of Western Archives: Vol. 6: Iss. 1, Article 2. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/westernarchives/vol6/iss1/2
Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. (2018). Summary: S.3530-115th Congress (2017-2018). Public Law No: 115-410 (12/31/2018) Museum and Library Services Act of 2018. Accessed at https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3530/all-info
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