NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area

Tags: heritage, social sciences

Objective(s): To investigate and identify the information needs and information seeking behavior of community members in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region for the development of a digital library of information resources.

Project Description: Specific objectives: Investigate and identify the information needs and information seeking behavior of community members in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR); develop a digital library of information resources; explore appropriate methodologies for treatment of cultural heritage information; create a culturally appropriate metadata framework as a basis for resource description and discovery; develop requirements for multilingual user interfaces that support the dominant languages; conduct a user-centered evaluation of the digital library; develop a sustainability strategy for the digital library to ensure long-term access to digital information; and, provide training in information management to local project participants. The ethnographic methodology will be employed to conduct observation and interviews, review documentation, and immerse in the community's culture and the worldviews of members of the community. Surveys, focus groups and interviews will be used to gather information about the information needs and seeking behaviors, the use of metadata standards and practices suitable for the ISR community and resources and physical materials to be digitized and incorporated into the digital library. Grounded theory will be used to analyze the qualitative data gathered in order to derive dominant themes that represent information needs, behaviors and practices of the participants. Finally, a user-centered evaluation of the digital library and metadata framework will be conducted to ensure its usability and usefulness. This project will make significant contribution to the development of a digital library platform and a community-driven metadata standard to support information organization, access and retrieval, which can function as a model for northern, remote, and/or rural regions, eventually forming a pan-Canadian system. The project will have wider social benefit by contributing to: a) the enhancement of Canada's digital content advantage, especially for a sector of society that currently experiences barriers to participate in digital economy; b) the engagement with partners in the North in exploring opportunities to impact lives and cultures in a positive way, and c) the development of a digital library infrastructure to support widespread dissemination of digital content and media. The research team plans to communicate research results broadly to academic, practitioner and northern communities. The team will use various venues for the dissemination of results, including conferences, journals, teaching, workshops, institutional repositories and websites. Targeted workshops include: Community-level information and training sessions In order to inform aboriginal and First Nations communities, the results of this research will be published in the Canadian Journal of Native studies and Aboriginal Policy Studies. Findings and recommendations will also be communicated to northern library practitioners through such conferences as Alberta Library Association, Northern Library Association, and Polar Libraries Colloquy. Workshops and training sessions: Workshops and training sessions will be held annually for the duration of this project to engage and involve community members and to disseminate the results of the project. Teaching: The experience gained from this research project will help the research team develop and deliver a one-credit graduate- level course on information services and sources for northern communities within the School of Library and Information Studies Master’s program at the University of Alberta. This course will be available for graduate students as well as practitioners for professional development. Websites: The team will purchase a domain name to host the project website and the resulting digital library. Specifically, the website will disseminate information on the progress of the project and will be used as a community engagement tool. The website will provide social media functionalities to reach out to a wider audience. Open archiving: In order to ensure open access to the findings and knowledge created within this project, the research team will deposit preprints of journal articles and conference publications and presentation in the University of Alberta’s Institutional Repository known as Education and Research Archive (ERA) as well as in the European repository of library and Information science research known as E-LIS. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015.