Traditional knowledge management and preservation: Intersections with Library and Information Science

The African proverb “When an elder dies, a library burns down” clearly sums up the importance of traditional knowledge preservation and cultural continuity, which the study found to be a key need and concern amongst First Nations communities in Ontario, Canada. To follow-up on elders’ suggestions that libraries are potential custodians of traditional knowledge, this paper explores how traditional knowledge preservation intersects with Library and Information Science (LIS) practices of knowledge classification, organization, and dissemination and establishes the various challenges that this intersection poses to these LIS practices. The paper concludes that libraries and other information institutions need to re-examine and reconstruct themselves in ways that take into account non-western epistemologies and worldviews and develop much needed cultural competency in order to undertake traditional knowledge custodianship.

► Explores how traditional knowledge preservation intersects with LIS practices. ► Questions whether the traditional knowledge protection debate considers non-western views. ► IFLA challenges libraries to take a leading role in traditional knowledge. ► Addresses whether LIS is prepared for leading role. ► Argues that current tools present many challenges.