Introduction

There is a growing recognition of the need for ethical and responsible handling of Indigenous material and information, and the particular need for the just recognition of Indigenous knowledge within library repositories, databases, and other information systems. Many standard techniques and practices related to information management do not appropriately handle Indigenous materials. While change is happening within the profession of librarianship at large, there needs to be more case studies, examples, and recommendations within the research literature. This special issue of the Serials Librarian, collaboratively edited by members of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Indigenous Matter Standing Committee, is intended to help fill this need by providing a varied selection of articles focused on topics and examples related to Indigenous knowledges, traditional knowledge, and digital collections from around the world. The nine papers in this special issue on the theme “Indigenous Knowledge and Data in Ethical Information Management” cover topics that include traditional knowledge, open science, and oral histories from Indigenous communities worldwide. This special issue is an effort to share information about the intersections of Indigenous-related materials, data and practice so that researchers, practitioners, policymakers and others can acquaint themselves with critical issues within Indigenous librarianship, best practices, and case studies to move toward building an inclusive society.

The IFLA Indigenous Matters Standing Committee’s primary purpose is to “support the provision of culturally responsive and effective services to Indigenous communities throughout the world.”¹ The Committee, comprised of Indigenous and non-Indigenous members, has a close relationship with the International Indigenous Librarians Forum and works within IFLA to advance the interests of Indigenous peoples and activities in areas such as intellectual and cultural property, library services, traditional knowledges, decolonization, repatriation and return of cultural materials, and the support of Indigenous languages through libraries and other cultural organizations. Creating ethical practices and workflows is crucial to ensuring services are culturally responsive and supportive of Indigenous communities and their aspirations.

Numerous critical issues related to information management and Indigenous peoples, cultural materials and practices, and Indigenous data require the attention of professionals. For example, over the years, the collecting and “gatekeeping” of Indigenous data by non-Indigenous researchers, archives, libraries, governments, and other organisations has made it difficult for Indigenous communities to access materials and data. Furthermore, many metadata and descriptive standards, database and repository structures, and other library practices embed colonial knowledge structures and concepts of intellectual property, creating further barriers and harmful environments for Indigenous data and materials. The disconnect between Indigenous peoples and their data and cultural materials due to the impacts of colonisation has meant that there is an additional need to not only provide Indigenous peoples with access to their materials but also to support and enable the control of materials by Indigenous peoples and support data stewardship by Indigenous communities themselves. Carroll et al. (2021) state, “Given the majority of Indigenous data is controlled by non-Indigenous institutions, there is a responsibility to engage respectfully with those communities to ensure the use of Indigenous data supports capacity development, increasing community data capabilities, and the strengthening of Indigenous languages and cultures.”² Changing practice enables Indigenous peoples to reclaim access to and control of Indigenous data.³ Greater access to Indigenous data by innovators, practitioners, and policymakers leads to better outcomes and collective benefits for Indigenous communities.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) provides a wide-reaching framework for the recognition of the fundamental rights of Indigenous peoples. Article 31 enshrines the rights of Indigenous peoples to control their own knowledges, including traditional knowledges, cultures, “manifestations of their sciences” and by extension, control of their data. Furthermore, Indigenous peoples have the “right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property.”⁴ This strong connection between Indigenous rights, sovereignty and knowledge, cultures, and information makes it imperative that libraries grapple with the challenges of aligning policy and practices with the needs of Indigenous peoples within intellectual property regimes that are typically hostile to Indigenous peoples.⁵ In their article, Ulia Gosart and Wend Wendland turn their attention to an investigation of the intellectual property instruments supporting Indigenous rights and point to how libraries and information professionals can take advantage of them in practice. The authors further discuss current developments at WIPO and the history of Intellectual Property (IP) policy and reflect on the possible impact on Indigenous communities.

Several articles within the special issue represent considerations of Indigenous knowledge in digital preservation and asset management. In “From Orality to Digital Assets: Managing Indigenous Knowledge in Africa in the Wake of the Open Science Movement,” Patrick Ngulube shares the outcomes of qualitative study and discusses the challenges of preserving and integrating digitized Indigenous knowledge into open science platforms. The paper also highlights the ideas of data discoverability, accessibility, interoperability, and usability and stresses that Indigenous people’s data should be used to defend their rights. Tlou Masenya explores the role of digital preservation of Indigenous knowledge in ensuring long-term access for sustainable development in the article “Revitalization and digital preservation of Indigenous Knowledge Systems for sustainable development of indigenous communities in South Africa.” The article recommends anticolonial strategies and policies in protecting Indigenous knowledge systems and advocates for training to raise awareness among community members. For Indigenous knowledge within the digital realm, cultural metadata with provenance, protocol, and permissions can be included as permanent machine-readable components in indigenous data management. Essentially, it can remain with sources in the entire life cycle of data and help in the use of Indigenous data and maintaining data ethical use.⁶

Community consultation, insight, and control are critical in developing and managing Indigenous-related collections for ethical practice. In “Ngā Matatiki Mātauranga: Tikanga, Policies and Libraries,” Banks brings a Māori perspective to an examination of the collection development policies of five significant libraries in Aotearoa/New Zealand and explores the tikanga Māori integration and Māori collection content using a modified Mead’s Tikanga Test. Banks’ analysis suggests areas where libraries need to change collective development policies to ensure libraries are culturally safe and several recommendations regarding the control and handling of collections. Giaconia, Mahar, and Collins discuss the redress process with a legacy collection of Native American oral histories curated at the University of Florida. The paper examines the information access revolution in the Internet age and how Western institutions curate Indigenous collections and collaborate with Indigenous peoples. Finally, in “Relevance of Indigenous (Local Community) Knowledge and Possibility of its Preservation, Use and Dissemination by Facilitation Centers and Libraries: Examples From India,” Goswami highlights the role of Indigenous knowledge and community-oriented knowledge resources and focuses on collecting and promoting the use of knowledge generated by local communities.

Traditional knowledge related to health, healing, and medicines forms a strong thread within this collection of articles. Health information follows many paths, from considering access to information to making space within information management to understanding how traditional knowledge is passed down through families and communities. Tlou Masenya discusses the techniques for preserving traditional medicinal knowledge in uMhlathuze in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. The author adopted a qualitative research approach to understand the techniques or strategies used to preserve traditional medicinal knowledge. Majumder and Sayantani share the Indigenous knowledge documentation relating to the ethno-orthopedic healing process in the Hooghly District of West Bengal in India and also highlight how families are providing healing through Indigenous knowledge learned from their ancestors. In their article, “Health Information Transfer in Rural India: A Study from Kangra Valley of Western Himalayas,” Akanksha Parmar, Shivarama Rao, K, Vishal and Abhinandan Kumar share the practices of health information transfer in Kangra Valley in Himachal Pradesh (India). The authors surveyed the health information providers, traditional healers, and rural communities and found a significant distribution of high-calibre medical insights by traditional healers and modern healthcare providers. Working to understand better the critical role of traditional medicine practices within communities can lead to better information practices within information organizations as well as addressing epistemic injustice where oral knowledge or knowledge from rural communities is not treated with the same regard as Western medicine.

The articles published through this special issue highlight the breadth of ethical considerations facing libraries about Indigenous data and information, from opportunities to bring knowledge equity through better understandings of traditional knowledge to the creation of frameworks and practices to safeguard Indigenous knowledge and data to the provision of culturally safe collection management to the need for redress in connection with harms related to legacy collections. Learning the vital role all professionals can play in creating a conducive environment for Indigenous people in their libraries is crucial to justice for the marginalised Indigenous people of the world.⁷ Collaboration between Indigenous cultural centres, libraries and archives provides opportunities for Indigenous knowledge systems to inform library and archives practice for a sustainable future free from the fetters of marginalisation and epistemic injustice.

Acknowledgments

All papers in this special issue share valuable information regarding Indigenous data, information and library practices and the process of editing this special issue was full of learning for the guest editors. We extend heartfelt gratitude to peer reviewers and authors for their contribution to making this a reality. We also recognize the support and contributions of the Indigenous Matters Standing Committee members throughout the preparation and planning of the special issue, particularly we recognize the sharing of knowledge and experience by Indigenous members of the Committee. We would also like to give special thanks to Sharon Dyas-Correia and Courtney McAllister for their unwavering support in the process of editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. International Federation of Library Associations, “Indigenous Matters Section – IFLA,” International Federation of Library Associations. https://www.ifla.org/units/indigenous-matters/ (accessed January 21, 2024).

2. Stephanie Russo Carroll, Edit Herczog, Maui Hudson, Keith Russell, and Shelley Stall, “Operationalizing the CARE and FAIR Principles for Indigenous Data Futures,” Scientific Data 8, no. 1 (April 16, 2021): 108. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-00892-0.

3. Neha Gupta, Andrew Martindale, Kisha Supernant, and Michael Elvidge, “The CARE Principles and the Reuse, Sharing, and Curation of Indigenous Data in Canadian Archaeology,” Advances in Archaeological Practice 11, no. 1 (2023): 76–89; Eric C. Kansa, Ethan Watrall, and Sarah Whitcher Kansa, “Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration,” Archaeology 2.0 (2011): 1–312. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1r6137tb (accessed May 28, 2022).

4. United Nations General Assembly, “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” United Nations (accessed October 2, 2007).

5. Megan. Davis, “Data and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” Indigenous data sovereignty: Toward an agenda 38 (2016): 25–38.

6. Neha Gupta, Andrew Martindale, Kisha Supernant, and Michael Elvidge, “The CARE Principles and the Reuse, Sharing, and Curation of Indigenous Data in Canadian Archaeology,” Advances in Archaeological Practice 11, no. 1 (2023): 76–89.

7. Collence Takaingenhamo Chisita and Sarah Kaddu, “Turbulences in Repackaging Traditional Knowledge in an Era of Sovereignty: Case of Uganda and Zimbabwe,” in Digital Preservation and Documentation of Global Indigenous Knowledge Systems, ed. Tlou Maggie Masenya (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2023), 196–218. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-7024-4.ch011.