Adetoun Adebisi Oyelude Indigenous or traditional knowledge (IK) holders face a lack of respect and appreciation for such knowledge. Respect for culture means following protocols, accepting diversity, and recognizing indigenous cultures as living and continuously evolving. This article advances understandings to allow libraries, archives and museums to respect, affirm, and recognize indigenous ownership of traditional and living indigenous knowledges and respect protocols for their use. Preserving IK in academic libraries, using new technologies and how to respect indigenous culture in the preservation process will be explored. Intellectual property rights of knowledge holders, respect for the rights and adopted procedures will be described, with IK preservation activities assessed. Recommendations for more efficiently handling IK preservation as respect for culture are made.

1. Indigenous Knowledge Preservation as a
Sign of Respect for Culture: Concerns of
Libraries, Archives and Museums
By
Adetoun Adebisi OYELUDE
University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria,
toyelude@yahoo.com
aa.oyelude@mail.ui.edu.ng
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland

2. An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland
Introduction
 “In one of the great tragedies of our age,
indigenous traditions, stories, cultures
and knowledge are winking out across
the world. Whole languages and
mythologies are vanishing, and in some
cases, even entire indigenous groups are
falling into extinction.”
– Hance, 2015.

3. Indigenous Knowledge (IK) is a basic input to sustainable
development, perhaps due to its distinctive nature in the
knowledge economy.
Benefits of IK
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland
Introduction
sustainable livelihood
within local
communities all over
the world
SDG 2, 7, 8, 9
basic input to
sustainable
development
SDG 1, 6, 11, 12
Facilitates the
design and
implementation of
culturally
appropriate
development
programmes
SDG 13, 16, 17

4. Regrettably ...
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland
Indigenous
knowledge is not
always properly
preserved due
to its oral nature.
Inadequate attention is paid by
heritage institutions in
ensuring that IK is preserved
properly and respected as
culture.
Knowledge owners or
holders are disrespected
and their knowledge
inappropriately used.
(Tapfuma & Hoskin 2016)

5. Literature Review
 Callison, C. 2014.
 Hance. 2015.
 Kotut and McCrickard. 2022.
 Callison, Roy and LeCheminant.
2016.
 Callison, Ludbrook, Owen and
Nayyer. 2021.
 UNESCO. 2020.
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland

6. What’s the Argument in Literature?
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland
Different conception of
authorship or ownership,
resulting in barriers to
access by even those very
indigenous community
members.
Indigenous knowledges and
cultural expressions include
tangible and intangible
expressions .. These are
morphing into new forms
like indigenous comics,
musical fusions, tweets etc.
Cultural memory
institutions bear an ethical
responsibility to respect and
protect Indigenous
knowledge, irrespective of
whether copyright questions
are answered or answerable
IK is constantly evolving, as
community members re-interpret
what it means to them given the
time, their context, and their
need, making it challenging to
design technologies to interact
with the IK.

7. The Here and Now
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland

8. Ways of Ensuring Respect for Culture
 Documentation of IK;
 Using technology responsibly considering the
wishes of the knowledge holders;
 Training those literate & with smart phones to use
social media for IK information dissemination.
➢ “There is a need for librarians, archivists and
curators to go out on the field to collect indigenous
knowledge through Interview or Focus Group
Discussions in order to document the information.”
(- Nakata and Langton, 2005; Ngulube, 2002)
➢ Libraries, archives and museums have to ensure the
implementation of intellectual property right laws.
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland

9. Concerns of LAMs
Enforce
Monitor
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland

10. Dialogue, Collaboration
• Collaborating with
stakeholders and
partnering with
funders.
• Linking up with similar
researchers to avoid
duplication of effort or
overlapping.
• Taking decisions on
what to leave in the
public domain (Open
Access concerns).
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland

11.  Develop personal skills to
handle ICT devices for
preservation of IK.
 Prioritize Policy development,
implementation, monitoring
and evaluation in cultural
heritage institutions.
 Linkages and collaborations
with multinational
organisations and public-
spirited individuals should be
formed to seek for funding
for Preservation Studies.
 Key persons in the indigenous
communities and traditional
institutions should be
persuaded to work with
libraries, archives and
museums to preserve IK for
the present and future
generations.
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland
Recommendations

12. Conclusion
• People bound by their culture will respect each
other and others as well.
• Unity of purpose is ensured when culture is
preserved and observed.
• Cultural heritage institutions and their staff have a
huge stake in the preservation of IK for future
generations.
• What they do or leave undone, how they do what
needs to be done and the maintenance of respect
for culture is in their domain.
• A lot depends on them, especially in the digital era.
• The sky is the beginning!
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland

13. Questions
An Opening Plenary at the UKSG 2023 Conference, 13-15 April, Glasgow, Scotland
Thank you for listening!