Canadian Health Libraries’ Responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action: A Literature Review and Content Analysis

Abstract

Introduction: As part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's (TRC) final report on the history and legacy of residential schools in Canada, 94 calls to action were identified. Of those, 7 are health-specific. The objective of this research paper is to determine how Canadian health library websites are responding to these calls to action. Methods: The authors conducted an initial literature review to gain an understanding of the context of Indigenous health in Canada. A content analysis of Canadian health library websites was conducted to track mentions of the TRC and online responses to the need for Indigenous-focused resources. Results: The results of content analysis indicated few online responses to the TRC's calls to action from Canadian health libraries. Only 33 per cent of Canadian health libraries had content that was Indigenousfocused, and only about 15 per cent of health libraries had visible content related to the TRC's calls to action. Academic and consumer health libraries were more likely to have both TRC-and Indigenous-focused content. Discussion: Nuances related to the research question resulted in some challenges to research design. For example, website content analysis is an imperfect indicator of real-world action. Limitations in research design notwithstanding, visibility is an important part of conveying commitment to the TRC, and the information available indicates the Canadian medical community is not living up to that commitment. Conclusion: Canadian health libraries need to do more to show a visible commitment to the TRC's calls to action.

Decolonization Efforts by Canadian Public Libraries

“…This paper aims to fulfill a significant gap in the literature on public libraries' decolonization and reconciliation efforts by reviewing them in the context of the CFLA-FCAB (2017) Report and Recommendations. The limitations of this study are that findings are based on website content, making it difficult to assess whether these initiatives are because of the Calls to Action or CFLA-FCAB Report as it is not explicitly stated on the websites (Maestro & Chadwick 2017), and limiting them to information available on websites at the time of data collection. This paper connects to the Congress 2020 theme of confronting colonialism.…”

“…For example, Bak, Bradford, Loyer, and Walker (2017), and Griffith (2019) discuss how Canadian archives can respond to the Calls to Action through the development of a guideline. Others focus on responses to the Calls to Action in, for example, Canadian Health Sciences libraries (Giustini 2017;Linton & Ducas 2017;Maestro & Chadwick 2017) and academic libraries (Laroque 2018, 3).…”

Review of Library Associations Websites to Learn about Decolonizing Efforts

“…A single (primary) coder mainly completed the review of websites and thematic coding of the content, with an additional reviewer who reviewed both websites as flagged by the primary coder, and thematic categories and their labels as needed. Limitations of this research include the use of website content, which is often updated and changed, and is limited to what is made publicly available (Maestro & Chadwick 2017), the use of a single coder which has implications on the identification of and categories, and the variation in number and type of associations from each country.…”

“…Chilcott (2019) reviews Australia's ATSILIRN Protocols, the State Records New South Wales (NSW) Protocols for Staff Working with Indigenous People, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Archive (ATSIDA) Protocols, and the United States' Protocols for Native American Archival Materials. In a similar Canadian study, Maestro and Chadwick (2017) analyze Canadian Health Library websites for responses to TRC Calls to Action.…”

Making space for Indigenous knowledge translation activities in Canadian health librarianship

“…Here, we argue that health librarians should take actions to effect change by considering how to advance this call. Recent research has shown that health libraries are providing more information about Indigenous health to their users [5], but it is less clear the extent to which health librarians understand and value Indigenous healing practices. It is challenging to understand Indigenous health issues without exploring how they are embedded within and impacted by Indigenous knowledge systems and ways of being.…”