Gene Joseph

Last updated

Gene Anne Joseph is a Wet'suwet'en Nadleh'dena First Nations librarian from Hagwilget, British Columbia. [1] She was the founding librarian of the Xwi7xwa Library at the University of British Columbia and the first librarian of First Nations descent in British Columbia. [2] In 2018, she received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Vancouver Island University. [3] The British Columbia Library Association, the First Nations Interest Group, and the University of British Columbia First Nations House of Learning created an endowed scholarship in her name.

Contents

Education

Joseph began studies at the post-secondary level in 1972 at Langara College where she was one of the only First Nations students. [2] She went on to complete her bachelors and masters of library science degrees at the University of British Columbia. [2]

Career

Joseph began her professional career at the Union of BC Indian Chiefs Resource Centre. She reportedly was at first rejected for this position, but was hired after writing a letter to Chief George Manuel, the then President. She was employed there for three years before returning to school to obtain her Masters of Library Science. [2] She went on to work at the Indian Education Resource Centre, established by the BC Native Indian Teachers Association in the early 1970s to organize the collection. She became the founding librarian of the Xwi7xwa Library when the Indian Education Resource Centre became the Xwi7xwa Library. [4]

Joseph has an abiding concern with the way First Nations people and knowledge was represented in libraries and spent her career actively creating new classification systems and subject headings to amend misrepresentation common in standard systems, such as the Library of Congress Classification system. [2] Between 1978 and 1980 she adapted the Brian Deer classification system for the lXwi7xwa Library. [5] Joseph recognized the way the materials in the library were organized was vital to the overarching culture of the library and the use of an Indigenous classification system was vital to the philosophy of Xwi7xwa. [6] [7]

In 1992, she published the Sharing the knowledge: a First Nations resource guide [8] which includes information on First Nations culture and history, issues facing First Nations and resources on future directions for achieving recognition of aboriginal rights.

She was active in creating resource libraries for First Nations seeking recognition of aboriginal title. Joseph developed the legal research library for the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en First Nations to support the Delgamuukw et al v. the Queen et al case. [1] This included the use of oral histories, which Joseph organized and provided access to through computer software and databases. Because these systems were new, Joseph adapted and developed systems to accommodate oral history documents as well as other materials. [9] Further, the use of oral histories in a case of this nature set precedent as did the extensive use of computerized documents and a detailed map documenting traditional land use, which Joseph helped to prepare. [9] Joseph worked for the Haida aboriginal title case and advises and oversees research and litigation support for the Haida Aboriginal Title Case at White Raven Law. [2]

She also worked with the EAGLE (Environmental Aboriginal Guardianship through Law and Education) organization from 2002 to 2006.

Joseph has been a mentor for Indigenous librarians in Canada, especially in connection to the School of Information Studies at the University of British Columbia. [10] Joseph is also a speaker at events, such as International Indigenous Librarians' Forum. [11] Joseph has worked on a committee developing the Library Technician Program for First Nations students at the University College of the Fraser Valley. [12]

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Reid</span> Haida carver (1920–1998)

William Ronald Reid Jr. was a Haida artist whose works include jewelry, sculpture, screen-printing, and paintings. Producing over one thousand original works during his fifty-year career, Reid is regarded as one of the most significant Northwest Coast artists of the late twentieth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Law of Canada</span>

The legal system of Canada is pluralist: its foundations lie in the English common law system, the French civil law system, and Indigenous law systems developed by the various Indigenous Nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vancouver Island University</span> Canadian public university

Vancouver Island University is a Canadian public university serving Vancouver Island and coastal British Columbia. Malaspina College began in 1969 and it has grown into a university which plays an important role in the educational, cultural, and economic life of the region. The main campus is located in Nanaimo; there are regional campuses in Duncan and Powell River as well as a centre in Parksville.

Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 provides constitutional protection to the indigenous and treaty rights of indigenous peoples in Canada. The section, while within the Constitution of Canada, falls outside the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The section does not define the term "aboriginal rights" or provide a closed list; some examples of the rights that section 35 has been found to protect are fishing, logging, hunting, the right to land and the right to enforcement of treaties. There remains a debate over whether the right to indigenous self-government is included within section 35. As of 2006 the Supreme Court of Canada has made no ruling on the matter. However, since 1995 the Government of Canada has had a policy recognizing the inherent right of self-government under section 35.

<i>Delgamuukw v British Columbia</i> 1977 Supreme Court of Canada case

Delgamuukw v British Columbia, [1997] 3 SCR 1010, also known as Delgamuukw v The Queen, Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa, or simply Delgamuukw, is a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada that contains its first comprehensive account of Aboriginal title in Canada. The Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en peoples claimed Aboriginal title and jurisdiction over 58,000 square kilometers in northwest British Columbia. The plaintiffs lost the case at trial, but the Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal in part and ordered a new trial because of deficiencies relating to the pleadings and treatment of evidence. In this decision, the Court went on to describe the "nature and scope" of the protection given to Aboriginal title under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, defined how a claimant can prove Aboriginal title, and clarified how the justification test from R v Sparrow applies when Aboriginal title is infringed. The decision is also important for its treatment of oral testimony as evidence of historic occupation.

In Canada, an Indian band, First Nation band or simply band, is the basic unit of government for those peoples subject to the Indian Act. Bands are typically small groups of people: the largest in the country, the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation had 22,294 members in September 2005, and many have a membership below 100 people. Each First Nation is typically represented by a band council chaired by an elected chief, and sometimes also a hereditary chief. As of 2013, there were 614 bands in Canada. Membership in a band is controlled in one of two ways: for most bands, membership is obtained by becoming listed on the Indian Register maintained by the government. As of 2013, there were 253 First Nations which had their own membership criteria, so that not all status Indians are members of a band.

Coast Mountain College (CMTN) is an accredited, publicly funded post-secondary educational institution that serves the communities of British Columbia's northwest region. CMTN offers field schools, college access, trades, university credit, health and human services programs. The college is a member of the University of the Arctic network, and Colleges and Institutes Canada (CiCan).

The University of British Columbia Library is the library system of the University of British Columbia (UBC). The library is one of the 124 members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). In 2017, UBC Library ranked 29th among members of the ARL for the number of volumes in library, making it the third largest Canadian academic library after the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta. However, UBC Library ranked 23rd for the titles held and second in Canada, and had a materials expenditures of $13.8 million, placing it 44th.

The following is an alphabetical list of topics related to Indigenous peoples in Canada, comprising the First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art</span> Art school in Terrace, BC, Canada

The Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art focuses on traditional First Nations Pacific Northwest Coast Art and is located on the unceded territory of the Ts'msyen Nation in Terrace, BC; Canada.

The Brian Deer Classification System (BDC) is a library classification system used to organize materials in libraries with specialized Indigenous collections. The system was created in the mid-1970s by Canadian librarian A. Brian Deer, a Kahnawake Mohawk. It has been adapted for use in a British Columbia version, and also by a small number of First Nations libraries in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xwi7xwa Library</span> Library dedicated to the Indigenous peoples in Canada

The X̱wi7x̱wa LibraryIPA:[χʷiʔχʷa] is an Indigenous library at the Vancouver campus of the University of British Columbia. The library, which draws its name from the Squamish word for echo, was named by Chief Simon Baker of the Squamish Nation. The library is notable for its approaches to organizing First Nations knowledge and major collections and holdings in a way that expresses Indigenous thought and culture. Holding some 15,000 items, it is fully integrated with the main library of UBC.

Alec Brian Deer, Tionerahtoken (Mohawk), known as Brian Deer, was a librarian from Kahnawake known for the development of a high-level, original library classification system that expresses Indigenous knowledge structures. He developed it while working in the late 1970s for the National Indian Brotherhood in Canada. He also applied the principles to other small collections, while creating new classifications. After further development, the system was revised and has been adapted for wider use, known as the Brian Deer Classification System (BDCS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian Indigenous law</span> Legal customs, and practices of Indigenous peoples in Canada

Indigenous law in Canada refers to the legal traditions, customs, and practices of Indigenous peoples and groups. Canadian aboriginal law is different from Indigenous Law. Canadian Aboriginal law provides certain constitutionally recognized rights to land and traditional practices.

Hereditary chiefs in Canada are leaders within some First Nations in Canada who represent different houses or clans and who, according to some interpretations of case law from the Supreme Court of Canada, have jurisdiction over territories that fall outside of band-controlled reservation land. Passed down intergenerationally, hereditary chieftaincies are rooted in traditional forms of Indigenous governance models which predate colonization. The Indian Act (1876), still in force today, imposed electoral systems to fill band council positions. Although recognized by and accountable to the Government of Canada, band chiefs do not hold the cultural authority of hereditary chiefs, who often serve as knowledge keepers responsible for the upholding of a First Nation's traditional customs, legal systems, and cultural practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson</span> Haida lawyer, artist, activist, and author from Canada

Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson is a Canadian First Nations lawyer, artist, activist, and author and a member of the Raven Clan from the Haida Nation. As a lawyer, Williams-Davidson specializes in Indigenous and environmental law, having represented the Haida Nation at all levels of court since 1996 and notably participating in the litigation of the Haida Nation's TFL39 Case to protect the old-growth forests of Haida Gwaii, a case that effectively altered the government's stance on the consultation and accommodation of Aboriginal Rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marianne Ignace</span> Canadian linguist and anthropologist

Marianne Boelscher Ignace is a Canadian linguist and anthropologist. Married into the Shuswap people, she is a Full professor in the departments of Linguistics and Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University (SFU), and Director of SFU's Indigenous Languages Program and First Nations Language Centre. In 2020, Ignace was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for her work in revitalizing and preserving indigenous languages.

Indigenous librarianship is a distinct field of librarianship that brings Indigenous approaches to areas such as knowledge organization, collection development, library and information services, language and cultural practices, and education. The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences states that Indigenous librarianship emerged as a "distinct field of practice and an arena for international scholarship in the late twentieth century bolstered by a global recognition of the value and vulnerability of Indigenous knowledge systems, and of the right of Indigenous peoples to control them."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camille Callison</span> Canadian librarian and indigenous knowledges activist

Camille Callison is an Indigenous librarian, archivist, academic, and cultural activist who is a member of the Tsesk iye (Crow) Clan of the Tahltan Nation in what is now known as British Columbia, Canada. She is the University Librarian at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford. Callison is an advocate for the rights of Indigenous peoples and knowledge, particularly as these rights intersect with GLAM institutions. Callison is actively involved across local, national, and international professional associations related to the library and informational needs of Indigenous peoples, including in her role as co-lead of the National Indigenous Knowledge and Language Alliance (NIKLA).

References

  1. 1 2 "The Gene Joseph Scholarship | Xwi7xwa Library". xwi7xwa.library.ubc.ca. Retrieved 2018-06-03.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "VIU Honours First Nations Advocate with Honorary Degree | News | VIU". news.viu.ca. Retrieved 2018-06-03.
  3. ↑ "VIU Honours First Nations Advocate with Honorary Degree". VIU News.
  4. ↑ Xwi7xwa Library (2017-03-17), Gene Joseph , retrieved 2018-06-03{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. ↑ Cherry, Alissa; Mukunda, Keshav (2015). "A Case Study in Indigenous Classification: Revisiting and Reviving the Brian Deer Scheme". Cataloging and Classification Quarterly. 53 (5–6): 548–567. doi:10.1080/01639374.2015.1008717. S2CID   53748787.
  6. ↑ Radical cataloging : essays at the front. Roberto, K. R. (Keller R.), 1975-, Berman, Sanford, 1933-. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. 2008. ISBN   9780786435432. OCLC   173241123.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  7. ↑ "Stubbornness kept unique library open". Ammsa.com. Retrieved 2018-06-03.
  8. ↑ Joseph, Gene; Nations, United Native; Columbia, Legal Services Society of British (1992). Sharing the Knowledge: A First Nations Resource Guide . Legal Services Society of British Columbia. ISBN   9780919736771.
  9. 1 2 Burns, Kathleen (2014). Indigenous librarianship (Thesis). University of British Columbia.
  10. ↑ Lawson, Kim (2014-06-11). Lee, L. (ed.). Academic Inquiries at an Aboriginal Reference Desk during Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission's BC National Event. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 157–170. ISBN   9781442236820.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  11. ↑ "Celebrating Indigenous Cultures | American Libraries Magazine". American Libraries Magazine. Retrieved 2018-06-03.
  12. ↑ Library and Archives Canada (2003). "Report and Recommendations of the Consultation on Aboriginal Resources and Services" (PDF). Retrieved 2 June 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.