Scholars and practitioners have exposed the limitations of traditional Euro-American approaches to knowledge organization (KO) when it comes to Indigenous topics. To develop more effective KO practices, there is a need for KO practitioners to understand Indigenous perspectives at an epistemological level. A theoretically-informed model of Indigenous systems of knowledge serves as a pedagogical tool to support the labor of boundary-spanning and code-switching between Euro-American KO practices and Indigenous KO practices.
This article discusses the development of Knowledge River, a program at the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science established through several Institute of Museum and Library Services grants designed to recruit Latino and Native American students to the library and information science (LIS) profession. Knowledge River (KR) was designed as a national model for increasing diversity in information organizations and LIS programs. The article describes the KR model and elements of the program that have increased its success. Included are participation in a residential cohort, real-world library work experiences, and formal mentoring by KR graduates and other ethnic minorities in the field. Knowledge River has served as a catalyst for increasing awareness of diversity issues and multiple perspectives in addressing issues in the LIS field. Knowledge River has also resulted in a requirement that all LIS students enroll in at least one diversity course. This article also provides a retrospective analysis of the KR model and presents a theoretical framework for developing future LIS diversity programs such as KR.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.