I am ashamed to say that I am not very knowledgeable about Indigenous people. My family cares little about its ancestry so I do not have any information from relatives, if there even are any indigenous traces in my family history. I have not lived anywhere with a significant Indigenous population, either. While growing up in Florida, I was surrounded by places with Native American names—but I never gave a second thought to those. 

Truthfully, I want to say that any information I know about Indigenous people comes from what I see in the media. I’ve always known that the on-screen portrayal of Indigenous people has been biased and skewed but it wasn’t until I read The Inconvenient Indian that I realized just how inaccurate those portrayals have become. I am hoping that by taking this class I will become more aware of good sources of information about Indigenous peoples. 

I have never connected colonial histories and cultural rights to library practice before reading this week’s materials. It does make a lot of sense, especially when also taking museums into consideration. Libraries are clearly the product of a dominant culture—with the occasional small collection or display that showcase what are considered to be the lesser cultures. 

I found the discussion in the article “Balancing Access to Knowledge and Respect for Cultural Knowledge” to be a very interesting perspective on the concept of cultural rights. The author states that “the lack of support for indigenous authorship partnered with appropriation of stories and other cultural materials results in the practice of cultural imperialism by information specialists”. This section really made me pause and think because I had not considered before that libraries could be negative by its current nature. (I cannot help but think back to displays I’ve seen on other cultures and now wonder if those were imperialistic, also.)

As someone without Indigenous ancestry or knowledge, I think that the main challenge for providing information services is not knowing enough about an Indigenous community’s practices and beliefs. The traditional librarian would not be enough to provide adequate services for such a community. For this reason, I think that the pamphlet for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders has a particularly beneficial protocol: that the library will “facilitate the entry of [Indigenous] staff members in management positions” and “develop and implement cross cultural awareness programs”. By having such insight within the staff itself through hiring and training, this challenge would not be an issue. 
