Indigenous Notions of Ownership and Libraries, Archives and Museums

by Camille Callison (Editor), Loriene Roy (Editor), Gretchen Alice Lecheminant (Editor)

Tangible and intangible forms of indigenous knowledges and cultural expressions are often found in libraries, archives or museums. Often the "legal" copyright is not held by the indigenous people's group from which the knowledge or cultural expression originates. Indigenous peoples regard unauthorized use of their cultural expressions as theft and believe that the true expression of that knowledge can only be sustained, transformed, and remain dynamic in its proper cultural context. Readers will begin to understand how to respect and preserve these ways of knowing while appreciating the cultural memory institutions' attempts to transfer the knowledges to the next generation.

Genres: Indigenous

387 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 15, 2015

Reviews

[Gretchen Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent three years working on this as a grad student project so, yeah, I'm gonna mark it as "read." The finished copy arrived today and while it's mostly a relief to have it the project completed, there's still a high degree of satisfaction.
Most Indigenous groups have their own specific views of copyright and ownership and it's often very difficult for their preferences to be respected in light of the dominant culture's views on ownership. (Where the dominant culture is typically white. Surprise, surprise.) This comes into play especially where museums, archives, and libraries are concerned. We received submissions from all over the globe discussing how Indigenous cultures from Australia to Zimbabwe arrange their museums, contend with their country's copyright laws, and digitize oral tradition.
While I did not write any of the chapters myself, I did have a hand in editing every single one of them. This is a reference tool that works best for academic librarians & archivists, but I'm glad that I could learn more about Indigenous culture and ownership in my quest to be a better librarian.
(Also, it's pretty freaking cool to search for my name in Amazon and have a real book come up. Here's hoping for more of that someday.)

[zack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Educational and interesting. I really recommend it.

[Kristen Suagee-beauduy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Preface p. 1 "Part of the indigenous notions of copyright and patent is that understanding and preservation of ways of knowing can only be truly upheld with the ultimate aim to transfer the knowledge to the next generation in the proper cultural context."