Native Libraries: Cross-Cultural Conditions in the Circumpolar Countries

by Gordon H. Hills

Overview

Based on the growing interest in heritage preservation and Native information management as expressed by Native library users and managers, this monograph is a one-of-a-kind effort at consolidating the current information on this subject, previously only available scattered through periodical and other literature. Hills identifies the need for cross-cultural orientation for non-Native field workers, for libraries and librarians to become more community-minded, and for library education to be more field-responsive and active in researching future trends in library and information science management and provision. Contains three appendixes, which further elaborate on village libraries, provide examples of surveys to graduate library schools, and give notes on the Saami of Northern Scandinavia. In addition, a selectively annotated bibliography gives information on articles and resources through 1995. With index.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810831384
Publisher:	The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Publication date:	01/08/1998
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	5.76(w) x 8.72(h) x 1.18(d)

About the Author

Gordon H. Hills has worked for the past twelve years in and for Native/Indian communities in Washington state, Montana, and Alaska as a prison librarian, in library development, and as manager of a small regional museum specializing in Native heritage.

Editorial Reviews

...a scholarly work written in a personal style, which makes it a pleasure to read...library schools should be encouraged to purchase it...a timely purchase for any library with a Native Studies collection.

Feliciter

Especially valuable are sixty pages of source notes and references, many with annotations, that have been updated through 1995...The theme that emerges throughout the book is the need for libraries that service Native populations to be fully integrated into the community so that the information sources they create will be relevant and appropriate for the users.

College & Research Libraries

I would highly recommend this book as a "must read" for those interested in global library development and for those who want to remain "in touch" with the increasing gaps that exist in library services all over the world.

International Leads

[Hills] has not only thought deeply about his subject, but studied it deeply and felt it deeply; and this is what makes his book of much greater importance than [it] at first appears, for it stimulates the reader to think and feel too. Anyone interested in the international aspects of librarianship, or indeed in what libraries mean in different and changing societies, would find the book rewarding.

Journal Of Documentation

This has to be one of the most sensitive and insightful volumes written on the challenges facing the North...I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Arctic Journal

...insightful...well-documented...

Lisca

Especially valuable are sixty pages of source notes and references, many with annotations, that have been updated through 1995...The theme that emerges throughout the book is the need for libraries that service Native populations to be fully integrated into the community so that the information sources they create will be relevant and appropriate for the users.

College & Research Libraries (C&RL)

...insightful...well-documented....

LISCA

Reports on the author's work in library development among Yupik Eskimo villages of western Alaska for a regional community college in the early 1980s and reflects on links among libraries, library education, multicultural librarianship, and Native librarianship. Stresses the importance of cross-cultural and multicultural librarianship and services by and for Native peoples, with discussion of subsistence vs. capitalist culture, oral and written traditions, and Native library progress in Canada and Greenland. Includes b&w photos. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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