Slides for the panel presentation and includes indigenous information literacy OER, little free libraries, oral history collection, National Council for Truth & Reconciliation Archives, and microlearning program. Presented at NWILL conference on September 2, 2021.
Tribal libraries and archives panel session - NWILL, September 2021
1. Tribal Library and Archives
Panel
Rachel, Aaron, Phillipa, Raymond, and Manisha
NWILL, September 2, 2 pm MT
2. Topics
● Indigenous Information literacy OER on Pressbooks by Rachel
● Little Free Libraries by Aaron
● Oral History collection by Philippa
● National Council for Truth and Reconciliation Infrastructure by Raymond
● Microlearning Program by Manisha
10. Creating an Oral History Collection
with Limited Experience and Resources
Why Oral History for Tribal Libraries and Archives?
● Subjective historical narrative that can add unique perspectives and insights to previously
published material (academic books, newsprint articles, reports, etc.)
● Oral History Methodology complements Oral Tradition that is often practiced within
Indigenous communities
In summary, I think Oral Histories allow Tribal Communities to “tell our own stories in our own
voices”
Speaker: Phillipa Rosman
Branch Librarian
Dine College Library, Shiprock NM
campus
Navajo Nation
11. Oral History process
1. Decide on a historical event, period, or subject
2. Conduct research and produce preliminary documents: timeline,
consent form, interview questions, outline for interview questions
3. Select interview candidates
4. Conduct interviews, observing Best Practices regarding:
setting, format (visual and/or audio), ethics
5. Process interviews: create time log or transcript,
determine storage and access, apply metadata
12. Online Resources for Information and Examples
International Oral History Association—a professional organization established to provide a forum for oral historians around the world. The IOHA
offers: international conferences, collaborative networks, and support for national oral history organizations.
International Oral History Association | IOHA
Oral History Association—this website provides a wide range of information related to Oral History Methodology. It offers information regarding
Principles and Best Practices; links to publications, webinars, and podcasts related to Oral History; and resources.
Oral History Association
Groundswell: Oral History for Social Change—this is a network of oral historians, activists, community organizers, documentary artists, and
cultural workers that use oral history for social change. The organization’s mission is to provide support, training, and resources in the practice of
applied, community-based oral history in order to build the creativity and power of social justice movements.
GROUNDSWELL (oralhistoryforsocialchange.org)
Oral History Society—this is an organization based in the United Kingdom. Access to some of their resources requires a subscription but some
material you can access for free.
Home - Oral History Society (ohs.org.uk)
16. Canada Foundation for
Innovation Grant
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Mandate: The CFI makes financial contributions to Canada’s universities,
colleges, research hospitals and non-profit research organizations to increase
their capability to carry out high quality research.
Objectives:
1. Increase Canada’s capability to carry out important world-class scientific research and
technology development;
2. Support economic growth and job creation, as well as health and environmental quality
through innovation;
3. Expand research and job opportunities by providing support through research
infrastructure for the development of highly qualified personnel;
4. Promote productive networks and collaboration among Canadian universities, colleges,
research hospitals, non-profit research institutions and the private sector.
17. What is Research Infrastructure
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The infrastructure funded by the CFI includes the state-of-the-art
equipment, laboratories, databases, specimens, scientific
collections, computer hardware and software, communications
linkages and buildings necessary to conduct leading-edge
research.
18. Innovative research in the Context of the NCTR: a difficult fit.
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This project implements the National Centre for Truth and
Reconciliation's (NCTR) digital architecture. It enables
advanced discovery and access of digital archival records to
promote innovative research meaningful to Indigenous
communities; it uniquely provides researchers materials to
theorize oppression and disrupt the colonial relationships
between academic researchers and Indigenous communities.
1. Reframe the Concept of Innovative
Research through Decolonization
19. Innovative research in the Context of the NCTR: a difficult fit
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2. Place Innovative research into the Residential School Experience
Access to the NCTR archives is a public good. This proposed infrastructure will enable
vital digital projects: to identify the children lost at RS; to discover the locations of
unmarked RS children's grave sites; to create a statistical analysis of the health and
welfare legacy of RS; to design collaborative and innovative health and education
programs with Indigenous communities. This digital infrastructure promotes reconciliation
through acknowledgement. It is a recognition that we are what we choose to remember;
but we are also what we choose to forget.
20. What is a Decolonizing Archives?
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1. Recognizes the embedded colonizing role played by traditional colonial archives;
2. Acknowledges the overlapping multiplicity of rights, provenance and the diverse meanings embodied in the archival
document. It recognizes that archival evidence is not a fact; it is a matrix of relationships, and like all relationships, it is
vulnerable to trust and mistrust, good faith and manipulation.
3. A living archive, a place of gathering and participation. It does not preserve static records frozen in time, but
recognizes their dynamic, evolving intergenerational meaning for communities and individuals.
4. Provide a social memory infrastructure that supports Indigenous cognitive practices, Indigenous knowledge methods
and social protocols;
5. Breaks out of the textual paradigm of archival evidence. It will build on the digital potential to interrelate diverse genres
of social memory to create a holistic centre of social memory, recognizing the spiritual and environmental in the
context of local social sanction;
6. Offer a safe and accessible space for Indigenous peoples to learn of and freely express their views of the legacy of the
RS experience, and for a settler society to listen, encounter, acknowledge and reconcile.
21. 1. Upgrade the IT infrastructure to better manage, technically and culturally, the NCTRs
digital material;
2. Collaborate with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) to preserve and make
accessible the over 7,000 Survivors’ statements;
3. Collaborate with the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP) to study the
longitudinal, adult health legacy of childhood, RS trauma; to take the evidence created
from this unprecedented study to design in partnership with Indigenous communities,
new models of health care delivery, child welfare, and education programs;
4. Design free NCTR data workshops for Indigenous researchers and community
representatives to consult the NCTR data in an Indigenous driven approach to
researching the RS archival records;
5. Design an open source IT platform to support a collaborative national register of
unmarked gravesites and a related missing children database.
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Principle Projects of the CFT Proposal
22. 1. data cleaning (i.e. verification, editing), coding, format conversion,
data entry and data transfer;
2. design, development, beta testing, piloting, commissioning and
integration of the database;
3. merge and organization of existing data that are not already in usable
reference units;
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Component One: Information Architecture:
CFI Section: 4.6.3 Databases and digital libraries
23. Component Two: NFB Collaboration
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Determine effective process to preserve and make available the TRCs
recorded public hearings.
• Transcode diverse AV file formats to preservation formats with
appropriate metadata related according to the OAIS model
• Design a process to preserve the 88 TB of b-roll recordings created
during the public hearings but not included in the final compilation of
the session file
• Create “mezzanine” versions of recordings for more sophisticated
access and discovery and interrelationhips with the greater set of
RS school records.
24. Component 3: Collaborate with the Manitoba Centre for Health
Policy to Study the Social Legacies of Residential Schools
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The Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP) will relate health, education, and social
welfare records to NCTR archival records through unique de-identifying applications
developed by the MCHP. With privacy ensured, the MCHP will apply statistical analysis
to interrelated NCTR and Manitoba Health records. The result will be longitudinal
research on seven generations of Indigenous RS survivors to better understand
downstream health, education and community histories. This is an internationally
unprecedented deep analysis of the social effects of childhood trauma. It holds the
potential of unprecedented policy and program development designed collaboratively
between settler institutions and Indigenous communities.
25. Component 4: Design free NCTR data workshops for Indigenous
researchers and community representatives to consult the NCTR data
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This project uses the open source statistics application known as R,
supported in the proposed IT Architecture. Band councils,
community members, and independent Indigenous researchers will
be able to consult the NCTR data in collaboration with DB experts.
In this unique approach to statistical analysis, Indigenous
community will drive data consultation.
26. Component 5: Design an open source IT platform to support a national
register of unmarked gravesites and a related missing children database.
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In response to TRC Calls to Action (CTA) 73–76, the NCTR is creating an unmarked
RS gravesites national register. The TRC estimates the RS program created over
400 unmarked gravesites across the country. The NCTR will engage with
Indigenous communities to ensure a trustworthy record of these unmarked
gravesites is appropriately preserved for generations. The NCTR will use the new IT
Architecture to uniquely combine an open source suite of technologies—
participatory GIS, relational database, ground penetrating radar data—to promote
Indigenous community control over the ownership, use, and access to the full
collection of gravesite data using the model of OCAP® principles.
29. How did the Microlearning get started?
Students were not allowed to physically access their practicum sites. Hence, we created
collaborative practicum opportunities. Implementing planned face to face training. We had
planned our 4th First Nations Knowledge Services Without Borders Institute Gathering in
April of 2020. This week-long event was split to once a week for five weeks.
Microlearning was started in March of 2020. From March 2020 to May 2021 we have
offered more than 225 microlearning sessions.
● Virtual practicum for students
● Instructors and staff professional development
● Implement the face to face programs planned in March of 2020
30. What is Microlearning?
Microlearning are short free learning sessions offered in the area of learning the
Cree language, developing apps, indigenous technology, communications,
academic writing skills, film poetry, Meet and Greet experts, and mental health.
Microlearning services provide lifelong learning opportunities in collaboration
with many local, regional, national and international partners.
Microlearning is delivered in synchronous, asynchronous and blended styles.
31. Vision: Making learning possible for everyone via
ethical reciprocity.
Mission: Building learning [space] circles and
networks where learners will gain knowledge and
skills which are transferable across a variety of
settings and make new connections.
Schedule: http://continuingeducationi.blogspot.com/
37. Call for Partnership
1. Add microlearning to your program calendar and increase the variety
of programs you offer to your community or organization
2. Use microlearning live or recorded sessions as professional
development for staff
3. Use microlearning videos to develop or update online courses
4. View program calendar http://continuingeducationi.blogspot.com/
To collaborate contact Manisha by email mkhetarpal@mccedu.ca