University Libraries increases support for Indigenous scholars on campus

Librarian Katie Randall recently attended the first powwow in 13 years on the CU Boulder campus by invitation of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies (CNAIS), one of the organizers. This invitation, which was extended to all of the University Libraries, came about because of the relationships Randall is building as a part of her Libraries residency program, Librarians of the Future. Randall is using her time in the three-year residency to develop and create a foundation of sustainable support in the Libraries for Indigenous communities.

The Libraries Communications Team spoke with Randall about her goals, her work so far as a resident and her plans for the rest of her time with the Libraries.

First, tell me about the powwow?

“I was thrilled that the Libraries were invited to attend the powwow. This was a phenomenal opportunity for us to demonstrate our commitment to historically marginalized and underserved students across the CU Boulder campus, specifically, Indigenous students.”

“It was very exciting to have Libraries leadership, Dean of Libraries Robert H. McDonald and Assistant Dean of Organizational Development & Inclusive Practice Vanessa Seals attend. But we had an outpouring of support from the Libraries from all areas, not just subject librarians, but also those from more technical roles like cataloging and collections management. We connected with so many students, faculty and staff. I had a wonderful time.”

Let’s back up a bit, when you started your Librarians of the Future residency, what drew you to this project in particular?

“This project, the Indigenous knowledges project, as it was presented to me, was just one of many projects that were offered when I started, as part of a choose your own adventure style residency. I wanted this project for a couple of reasons, the first being that I, as a fellow person of color, understand how overwhelming a very large and predominantly white institution CU Boulder can be and I wanted to offer my support to those students.”

“I also saw a real opportunity to work on a project that had a broad scope, that is, touched many different aspects of librarianship, from collection development to cataloging to Indigenous-informed information literacies. I decided to structure my residency into three projects that build on each other in their support for Indigenous students, faculty and researchers. Or just people interested in researching these topics.”

You’ve recently completed the first year of your residency, what was the scope of your project and the results?

“The way subject librarianship works now in the libraries is that, if you have a traditionally-defined academic unit or discipline, you have a subject librarian assigned to you. Subject librarians are not typically assigned to centers and there is not an academic department for Indigenous studies. I wanted to develop a model of what subject librarianship would look like in support of a center, in this case, CNAIS.

“That looks like developing relationships with faculty at the center who can come from all different areas of campus, history, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, art, music and even law, to name a few. Then building awareness of what the Libraries have to offer them in terms of collections and resources and learning from them the gaps that we have in those areas. I was also able to meet with the director of CNAIS, Andrew Cowell and their program coordinator, Lila Crank. It was because of these relationships that the Libraries was able to attend events like the powwow and Native Welcome. We’re also collaborating on future programming for the spring semester.

You’ve also been working on a research project, can you tell me about that?

“Yes, thanks for asking! I’ve been doing a survey of freely available information from university websites about what kind of resources their academic libraries are offering for Indigenous scholarship. This is to see where we, the Libraries, stand in relation to our peer institutions and hopefully uncover gaps. I have a big data set published in CU Scholar and an article in the works. This research will also help inform future projects I am working on.”

What’s next for year two and beyond?

“Now that we’ve built relationships with CNAIS, I want to build off that foundation by developing collection development plans that focus on integrating Indigenous authors and Indigenous knowledge. It’s not at all that our collections are deficient, our acquisitions team is so incredibly thorough it can be hard to comprehend, honestly. I want to take the great work they are doing and build into it resources that prioritize Indigenous authors, Indigenous knowledge, even Indigenous-owned publishers. My research project will really help compliment this phase of my residency.”

“This is important work because we want our Indigenous patrons to see themselves reflected in our collections. Also, for our non-Indigenous patrons, we want them to understand that diverse perspectives and ways of knowing are absolutely integral to a comprehensive working knowledge of whatever field of study you are in. This is what college is for, exposing people to new ideas.”

“For year three, I’m hoping to develop resources that will support Indigenous-informed pedagogies and information literacies that can be implemented in instruction.”

“My hope is that, as my residency comes to a close in 2 years, that all of this work will lay the foundation of continuing support from the Libraries for CNAIS and Indigenous students, faculty and scholars at CU Boulder, for collection development, instruction, research and overall community support. I’d really like it if this project serves as a model for peer institutions on how to build up resources and services for their Indigenous scholars.”