Indigenous Historical Publications Working Group
Purpose
The Indigenous Historical Publications Working Group is responsible for guiding efforts to improve discovery of, access to, and preservation of publications by and about Indigenous communities on whose lands COPPUL members live and work. These publications may include newspapers, newsletters and various forms of grey literature. Initial work will focus on identifying publications held by member academic libraries and archives, expanding to include born-digital publications and those held by allied organizations across the national cultural heritage sector as applicable.
Membership
6-8 members from full COPPUL member institutions. The group will include a minimum of 2 Indigenous members.
The initial round of member nominations will be managed through an invitation process, primarily through an expression of interest process from COPPUL Library Directors. We are seeking working group members from COPPUL libraries that have strong Indigenous materials in their newspaper collections. These COPPUL libraries will be responsible for inviting non-librarian stakeholders who have relevant relationships with communities. These
stakeholders will be asked to communicate with communities and determine their interest in being involved with the project. Subsequent membership is subject to nomination by the committee members and approval by the Board.
Member experience and/or interest in any of the following areas is encouraged:
- Indigenous collections and community engagement
- Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights
- Print and/or digital collections management
- Digitization project planning
When possible, membership will consist of a balance of experts and those who wish to expand their knowledge. Representation from each province is also preferred but not mandatory.
The term of service is 2 years (renewable), and will be posted on the COPPUL website by the
Executive Director. Some initial terms of service may be 1 year to allow the members’ terms to
be staggered.
The COPPUL SPAN Coordinator, CDSN Coordinator and Indigenous Knowledge Coordinator
will serve as ex officio members.
Members
- Chair: Kathryn Ruddock, University of Calgary (June 2022 – 2024)
- Jenna Walsh, Simon Fraser University (June 2022 – 2024
- Roxy Garstad, Grant MacEwan University (May 2023 – 2025)
- Sarah Severson, University of Alberta (May 2023 – 2025)
- Tina Bebbington, University of Victoria (June 2023 – 2025)
- Lyle Ford, University of Manitoba (June 2023 – 2025)
- Laura Reid, University of Calgary (August 2023 – 2025)
- Y. G. Rancourt, Digital Stewardship Network (CDSN) Coordinator (ex-officio)
- COPPUL Shared Print Archive Network (SPAN) Coordinator (ex-officio)
- COPPUL Indigenous Knowledge Coordinator (ex-officio)
Call for Support: Help Improve the Indigenous Historical Periodicals Dataset
The Indigenous Historical Publications Working Group, working on behalf of the Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL) needs help from Indigenous folks, communities, organizations, publishers, and all researchers, libraries, archives, and museums.
We’re librarians. We listed Indigenous publications (newspapers, newsletters, magazines, and journals) held in libraries, archives, and museums, published from coast to coast. Most come from what’s now known as Canada, but we also caught some from over the border, recognizing its arbitrary and colonial nature. We include publications by Indigenous communities and organizations and leave out material produced by governments and non-Indigenous organizations. We’ve done our best, but welcome any and all corrections. You can see the list at https://borealisdata.ca/
Some of the people involved are Indigenous; some are non-Indigenous. We’re all trying hard to work in a good way, and we know and appreciate that there are many, many world views, nations, languages, cultures, communities, clans, families, and individuals represented by the list. We’ve made mistakes. We really need assistance finding them. We also aren’t sure if the work is useful, wanted, or something that will interest people.
Get in touch:
Any guidance will help figure out next steps and directions.To get in touch with the Indigenous Historical Publications Working Group, contact us at coppul_ihpwg@coppul.ca.
New Version of the Indigenous Historical Publications Dataset is Now Available
The latest version of the Indigenous Historical Periodicals Dataset is now available for viewing and download via Borealis (https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/
What is the Dataset?
This dataset includes periodicals (newspapers, newsletters, magazines, and journals) created by Indigenous communities and organizations, primarily from Canada, with some from bordering U.S. states. The dataset is an inventory of titles, not a content search tool, and the materials are held in Canadian libraries, archives, and museums. This version expands the list across Canada.
Why is this Important?
Indigenous historical publications enhance understanding of how Indigenous peoples have communicated about their communities through print media, capturing regional histories, changes, and celebrations. Preserving and making these publications digitally accessible supports the preservation of fragile physical formats.
Organizations can use this list to cross-reference against their collections and prioritize digitization strategies. We encourage institutions to localize their outreach and engagement and consult with Indigenous groups, prior to digitization.This list can also be used to track what is being digitized and where it is available.
Call for Contributions:
The data gathered is not perfect. The Working Group asks for assistance from Indigenous individuals, communities, organizations, and researchers to make this dataset better. If a periodical should not be on this list, if a periodical is missing, or if there is a mistake, let us know. Guidance and feedback are essential to ensure the dataset’s relevance and accuracy.
If you are from the GLAM community and would like to use this list to guide your digitization efforts, let us know. We would love to know what you are working on and how we can make this dataset more useful to you for your local efforts.
Next Steps:
Our primary goal is to promote this dataset beyond COPPUL, encourage further participation and track usage of this dataset locally. We plan to post a series of blog posts, describing how this data was compiled, call for support from the Indigenous community, describe the challenges and issues in this data, how to compile similar datasets, and ideas for mobilizing this dataset including a future pilot project. We’ll also host a webinar to talk more about these elements.
North/Nord is planning to use the dataset to guide shared print selection efforts and supplement with holding information.
Get in touch:
To get in touch with the Indigenous Historical Publications Working Group, contact us at coppul_ihpwg@coppul.ca.