NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area

Tags: social sciences, language

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

Project Description: Specific objectives are to: 1) investigate and identify the information needs and information seeking behaviour of community members in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR); 2) develop a digital library of information resources; 3) explore appropriate methodologies for treatment of cultural heritage information; 4) create a culturally appropriate metadata framework as a basis for resource description and discovery; 5) develop requirements for multilingual user interfaces that support the dominant languages; 6) conduct a user-centred evaluation of the digital library; 7) develop a sustainability strategy for the digital library to ensure long-term access to digital information; and, 8) provide training in information management to local project participants. An ethnographic methodology is being 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 are being used to gather information about information needs and information-seeking behaviours, 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. A combination of both deductive coding (from a predetermined structure) and inductive coding (adding in emergent themes and restructuring the codes as the data is analyzed) will be used to analyze the qualitative data gathered in order to derive dominant themes that represent information needs, behaviours and practices of the participants. Finally, a user-centred evaluation of the digital library and metadata framework is being conducted to ensure its usability and usefulness to users of the ISR. The same methods will be used in future to adapt the model for other communities in other regions. The Digital Library has been developed to serve the Inuvialuit Regional Corporations needs for improving information access for ISR members and the general public, where advised. Members of these communities have been invited to participate in all aspects of the Digital Library North (DLN) design and prototype development, including the user-interfaces. The DLN will be launched officially in 2017, and members will be invited to participate in demonstration and user-evaluation workshops, the results which will be used to improve the prototype. Designated community members (are also being trained in use, maintenance and further development of the digital infrastructure, in order that the IRC can take ownership of the system and ensure its sustainability. This project is making a 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 is having 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 communicates research results broadly to academic, practitioner, and northern communities. Various venues are used for the dissemination of results, including conferences, journals, teaching, workshops, institutional repositories and websites. Targeted workshops include: Community-level information and training sessions. Targeted conferences include: Canadian Association for Information Science; American Society for Information Science and Technology Annual Conference ; Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries ; International Conference of Indigenous Archives, Libraries, and Museums; International Federation of Library Associations ; Polar Libraries Colloquy (PLC); University of the Arctic. Targeted library and information science journals include: Journal of Documentation; Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology; Journal of Information Science; Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science; Information Research (Open access journal). In order to inform aboriginal and First Nation’s 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 us 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 has purchased a domain name to host the project website and the resulting digital library. Specifically, the website is disseminating information on the progress of the project and is being used as a community engagement tool. The website also provides 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 May 3, 2017 to December 31, 2017.