HIST 499: Travelers in Colonial Southeast Asia

An exploration into the relationship between libraries and institutional oppression. It begins with with an examination at how the enlightenment provides the ideological foundation and framework for public libraries and the historical processes that created the library as institution. It then examines this institution using the three logics of white supremacy: slavery, Indigenous genocide, and Orientalism.

The knowledge organization system prepared by the Library of Con-gress (LC) and widely used in academic libraries has some disadvan-tages for researchers in the fields of African American studies and LGBTQIA studies. The interdisciplinary nature of those fields means that browsing in stacks or shelflists organized by LC Classification requires looking in numerous locations. As well, persistent bias in the language used for subject headings, as well as the hierarchy of clas-sification for books in these fields, continues to “other” the peoples and topics that populate these titles. This paper offers tools to help researchers have a holistic view of applicable titles across library shelves and hopes to become part of a larger conversation regarding social responsibility and diversity in the library community.

Knowledge organization systems (KOSs) are social constructs that represent the needs and knowledge of specific communities at specific times and places (Olsen, 1998; Svenonius, 2000; Hunter, 2009). Libraries use knowledge organization systems like cataloging codes, classification schemes, and languages of aboutness to describe the information objects they hold. These structures are central to library cataloging (Farnel, 2017). Because library KOSs reflect the biases of the time periods and places they werecreated, applications of these systems outside of those contexts are potentially problematic in terms of gender, culture, and ethnic exclusion (Olsen, 1998; Alemu & Stevens, 2015). Many of the systems used in libraries throughout the world originated inthe United States or Europe. It is time to consider the impact that these systems have outside of their designated contexts and how to integrate other perspectives.

From a problematization of the representations about the indigenous peoples present in didactic collections used in the teaching of History, this article has the objective to analyze the social place of knowledge production on the history of the Indians. It questions the hegemony of narratives on indigenous history, of colonial character and constructed from non-indigenous versions, present in the didactic books of History. Alongside this, the most up-to-date bibliographical researches and productions are sought, which seek to understand the colonial process through indigenous versions, not only from the field of History, but also from the fields of Archeology, Ethnology and literature of indigenous authorship. The research methodology consisted in the survey and critical analysis of recent academic studies in the fields of History and indigenous education, as well as of the narratives that approach indigenous histories present in the didactic collections of the second segment of Elementary Education approved by the National Program of Didactic Books of the year 2017 (PNLD / 2017). Through criticism of a colonialist history of indigenous peoples, ways of overcoming them are pointed out, using researches and narratives constructed from the perspectives of the Indians themselves. In this way, it is intended to contribute to the training of History, Pedagogy, Field Education and Indigenous Education.

This work examines the historic and current policies regarding Native American archives, detailing the broader historic landscape of information services for tribal communities, the initiative to develop tribal archives in Indian Country, and the activism surrounding the proper care and management of Native American archive collections at non-Native repositories. Utilizing Vine Deloria's "Right to Know" call to action, the paper analyzes major activities and achievements of the national indigenous archives movement with a specific focus on archival activists and tribal communities in the American West who were at the forefront of a grassroots movement to establish and develop tribal archives, return and secure tribal history and rights during the restoration era, and establish training and best practices for the respectful care of indigenous collections. Possible next steps are suggested for decolonizing Native American archives within the context of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.