Inclusive Collections, Inclusive Libraries is an RLUK programme of events that aims to foster conversation around decolonisation and inclusive practice in collecting, describing, presenting, and engaging with content in research library collections. It seeks to raise awareness about the opportunities and challenges of dealing with, contextualising, and engaging with offensive collections while also identifying and sharing examples of
Repairing and Restoring Cultural Memory: The Library of Congress’s Ancestral Voices Initiative a Decade Later
4 March 2025, 15:00 – 16:00 (GMT), 17:00 – 18:00 (SAST/EET), 16:00 – 17:00 (CET), 10:00 – 11:00 (EST), 07:00 – 08:00 (PST)
This presentation by Guha Shankar surveys an initiative of the US national library to collaborate with a Native American community and developers of cutting-edge digital technology to address critical issues in cultural representation, co-curation, intellectual access, knowledge repatriation and preservation. On the one hand, the initiative foregrounds native communities as authorities over their cultural histories and heritage materials by integrating their own representations and cultural knowledge into library catalog records. On the other hand, the repatriation efforts provide the community with the materials necessary to revitalise dormant traditional cultural expressions by re-incorporating them into contemporary practice.