Sites of resistance in the digital age
VALA2024 KEYNOTE SESSION 03
Wednesday 10th July 2024, 9.10 – 10.10am
Tui Raven
- Senior Manager Indigenous Programs
- Deakin Library
Hero Macdonald
- University Librarian
- Deakin University
Presentation: (coming soon)
Link
Abstract
This presentation will explore the function of knowledge organisation systems, including libraries, as powerful apparatuses that not only reflect dominant cultural norms and power dynamics but also actively construct and perpetuate them. In the context of an increasingly privatised information landscape, and new forms of digital colonialism being led by Big Tech, biases are not only entrenched but also magnified in numerous ways. By critically interrogating and addressing the deeply embedded biases within the library profession itself, this discussion will explore both the possibility and the imperative for libraries to actively reconceptualise themselves as important sites of resistance in the digital age.
Biography
Hero Macdonald is a dynamic and future-focused leader in the library sector. Their diverse career has included senior roles at three major universities – University of Melbourne, University of New South Wales, and Deakin. Hero has an extensive range of interests in information science and librarian practice, but when pushed to commit, is primarily drawn to critical librarianship, information socialism, and libraries as community building third spaces. Hero is passionate about strategic and inclusive leadership and, as University Librarian, are leading Deakin Library on a large-scale transformation project to reposition it for the future. Demonstrating Hero’s commitment to a progressive and systemic change in libraries is their contribution to industry bodies; ALIA Board Director, Chair of the CAUL Content Procurement Committee, and the Trove Strategic Advisory Committee.
Tui Raven (Yamaji Nyungar) is the Senior Manager Indigenous Programs, Deakin Library and a consultant art curator, researcher, and cultural advisor. In 2023 Tui authored the Guidelines for First Nations Collection Description for the Australian library sector, as a collaboration between the Australian Library & Information Association (ALIA), National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA), the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) and CAVAL. Tui is also a Member of the Attorney-General’s Department, Copyright and AI Reference Group (February 2024-). From 2020 to 2022, Tui worked on The First Inventors documentary as a remote and on-Country advisor, associate producer, and on-screen investigator. Tui’s interest in reparative description comes from working at the State Library of Western Australia – in her roles as an Indigenous Literacy Officer and as Project Coordinator for the From Another View project, a reimagining of exploration history from Aboriginal perspectives and knowledge systems.
This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International.