Background
Nā Maewa Kaihau
The International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum is held every two years for the purpose of providing a “focused exploration of the significant issues facing libraries and institutions that care for indigenous and cultural information” (International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum Proceedings, Te Rōpū Whakahau, 2001). It allows a meeting place for indigenous librarians and information management workers to discuss, debate and describe their experience of working within the industry and their visions, hopes and expectations for the future.
The forum arose from a network of indigenous library professionals from Aotearoa, Australia and America in recognition of a commonality of ‘indigenous’ experience within the profession and a vision to articulate indigenous viewpoints in all aspects of information management.
The first forum was held in Auckland, New Zealand and hosted by Te Rōpū Whakahau (an affiliation of Māori professionals within the information management industry) in 1999.
Proceedings of the International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum (IILF) Hawaiʻi 2023 is now available online.
The volume is hosted on Pressbooks and can be accessed here: Proceedings from the 12th International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum (Hawaiʻi 2023).
It is a companion to the IILF Hawaiʻi 2023 White Paper Report, Indigenous Librarianship: Practices of Indigenous Agency and Abundance.
The proceedings bring together the transformative dialogues, shared knowledge, and critical reflections that emerged from IILF Hawaiʻi 2023. It highlights ongoing collective efforts to advance Indigenous librarianship and strengthen Indigenous agency, abundance, and self-determination within libraries and the wider information profession.
Guided by the theme Ea, understood as sovereignty, to breathe, and to rise, the contributions in this volume reflect how Indigenous librarians and their allies are enacting meaningful change within their institutions and communities.
Across the proceedings, contributors demonstrate how ea is lived and practiced through work that revitalizes Indigenous knowledge systems, supports community self-determination, and reimagines libraries as spaces of care, resistance, and possibility. Together, these reflections continue to expand an evolving body of Indigenous librarianship scholarship grounded in lived experience, collective responsibility, and innovation.
International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum (IILF) guide
This guide was originally created by Amy Griffin (MSIS, University of Texas at Austin) for her final capstone project in 2023, with supervision from Hauʻolihiwahiwa Moniz and Kapena Shim, co-chairs of the 2023 IILF. This guide is intended to serve as a finding aid for the IILF digital archive.