Reactions to the fourth panel of the Traditional Cultural Expression Conference, “Challenges to Libraries and Archives in the Management of Works of Indigenous Communities”, are available at ALA Inside Scoop.
Of particular interest is discussion of ‘knowledge management system[s]‘ that conserve and organize the creations of indigenous peoples within a framework that honors the communities’ practices for access to knowledge.
Groups of people deemed ‘indigenous’, ‘ethnic’, or ‘traditional’ are not the only societies that have rules for who is allowed to know, and what information can be known. In his essay ‘The Google Dilemma,’ James Grimmelmann outlines five cases in which Google’s homegrown page ranking system determines how users come to know things, and what things they come to know. In many cases, Google is working in partnership with State agencies to organize information and to determine what kinds of information people can access.
I think that librarians and archivists participating in discussions of how to responsibly collect, conserve, and manage the creations of indigenous communities is a very positive development; I also recognize that there are challenges and concerns relating to these materials that are unique from the other materials with which librarians, archivists, and their patrons work.
However, let’s not, by any means, assume that indigenous communities are the only groups who ‘limit’ access to their materials based on traditionally held values.
Access to information is the cumbersome, loaded phrase that it has become because it means something different in every instance it is used -
from searching Google,
to accessing the tapes of the Zunni storytelling collection.
