Image (clockwise from top left): Lesley Acres presenting at the 2020 AIATSIS symposium; Blakforce members recording collections resources videos at SLNSW (photo by Joy Lai); a 'black gloves' experience at SLQ's collections workshop; Lesley with SLWA's workshop facilitators and CEO Margaret Allen.
After three years, the Culturally Safe Libraries Program (CSLP) has reached its official end. Intended to set NSLA libraries on a consistent path towards becoming culturally safe spaces for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visitors, researchers and staff, the project has resulted in:
- endorsement of Indigenous cultural competency principles for Australian NSLA libraries
- almost 2000 staff completing AIATSIS’s Core cultural competency training
- around 150 staff participating in workshops to embed the ATSILIRN Protocols in their library’s approaches to collection management, description, access and use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection materials
- the Working with Indigenous Collections online resources have received over 20,000 pageviews
- an ongoing annual audit for NSLA libraries to track and transparently report their progress in cultural capability, including governance.
Leading these efforts has been a steering group of representatives from each library who have met monthly to develop and manage the program’s delivery, and guided its rollout in their libraries. We asked some of them to reflect on the program and its outcomes.
Remember that you are not alone on this journey. Seek out the intelligence of those who have gone before. Embrace the challenges and know that – in good time – the unfamiliar will become familiar and the uncomfortable will become safe. The most important thing is to take the first step. Marcus Hughes, NLA
Which moment or experience in CSLP had the greatest personal impact on you?
Lesley Acres, Program Officer, Indigenous Services, State Library of Queensland (and CSLP Project Officer): The changes and feedback received from participants who attended the Working with Indigenous Collection Workshops: to receive emails about the work that has been happening since the workshop was delivered in their library or changes overnight to catalogue records has been remarkable to witness. Seeing staff connect their learnings to action has been rewarding.
Also, learning from members of the Steering Group and other First Nations colleagues across the country has really helped me professionally and personally.
Susan McEwan, Director Library Services, State Library of WA: Participation in the pilot group doing Core at SLWA; much of the historical content highlighted to me how much wasn’t taught in school.
Damien Webb, Manager, Indigenous Engagement, State Library of NSW: It's difficult to pinpoint a single moment in this project as it's been a huge part of my work life for so many years. What I've noticed above all else is how this project gave me and my First Nations colleagues a real framework to bring our long-standing concerns to our non-First Nations colleagues – in a way that did not allow for us to be gaslit or told that we were just angry blaks.
Seeing terms like cultural safety and decolonisation become part of the library's professional lexicon so quickly has made it much easier to tackle what we know are systemic issues of racism and white supremacy which our institutions have both inherited and perpetuated. Giving our non-First Nations colleagues the tools and language to tackle these issues is a vital step and one that this project has unquestionably helped us all to take.
Giving our non-First Nations colleagues the tools and language to tackle these issues is a vital step and one that this project has unquestionably helped us all to take. Damien Webb, SLNSW
What has been the most marked change in your library as a result of CSLP?
Antoinette Buchanan, Assistant Director, Libraries ACT: The realisation that libraries have a real role in dismantling systemic racism. That while we are part of the problem, we must be part of the solution.
Marcus Hughes, Director, Indigenous Engagement, NLA: At the National Library of Australia I see the conversations growing. We go into meetings and we talk about proppa busines and proppa ways of knowing, doing and being – and this is becoming part of our business-as-usual. It’s not an occasional kumbaya moment – it’s an embedded consideration that emerges from the library’s growing cultural grounding.
Ross Latham, A/Executive Director, Libraries Tasmania: CSLP has provided Libraries Tasmania with the moment and confidence needed to reach out and connect broader and more effectively with our Tasmanian Aboriginal community. Having established and strengthened our connections we must, and will, continue as there is much to do to make our spaces, services and collections culturally safe.
Jeremy Sibbald, Indigenous Collections Coordinator, State Library of SA: I came a little late to the CSLP so can’t compare the difference between before and after our participation, although one thing I have noticed about my colleagues at SLSA is their genuine ability to consider the beliefs and cultural practices of Indigenous cultures with the respect and sanctity they would their own. Our library has developed the confidence to translate thought into actions; an awareness that there is material we should be consulting with knowledge keepers on has developed into plans on how we should go about this consultation, and the creation of our Aboriginal Reference Group (in conjunction with State Records of SA).
Damien Webb: The level of genuine compassion and hunger for real change I've witnessed growing among staff from all levels of our library has been deeply heartening. In two years we've moved away from rhetoric and towards action, and we are seeing critical librarianship and a nuanced understanding of the library's position and role becoming more common across all work areas. The appetite for change seems to be replacing the fear of stuffing up, which is removing at least one of the major barriers to undertaking this critical work myself and other First Nations staff have engaged in for decades. Not having to fight for every inch of ground has freed us up to focus on communities and inclusion in a way I have not experienced before.
[We have realised] that libraries have a real role in dismantling systemic racism. That while we are part of the problem, we must be part of the solution. Antoinette Buchanan, Libraries ACT
What actions do you hope your library will take in the next 12 months to become a more culturally safe space (physically and virtually)?
Marcus Hughes: There is much to be done. We need to consider the structures and the frameworks that build our cultural grounding. The cultural literacies of the workforce have been invested in. Now we need to secure the ways of working that support culturally safe practices for all – and that is happening.
Susan McEwan: We’re already in the planning phase for a culturally safe/appropriate space within the library for First Nations peoples to access records, archives, collections and services, and continuing to interrogate catalogue records and identify and rectify issues with inappropriate data. A Collection Development Policy and Interpretation Strategy are in development and will specifically address priorities for collecting WA Aboriginal stories, truth-telling and broadening perspectives within heritage collections, and how we engage and share collections with the WA community.
Jeremy Sibbald: Over the next twelve months we want to ensure Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) rights are considered and documented as much as copyright is, copyright is protected by legislation, recognition of ICIP has no legislative basis but is vital to culturally safe collecting practice. Our library has included specific goals in our strategic plan with cultural safety in mind, including goals around appropriate engagement and consultation, appropriate management of collections and Aboriginal employment.
Ania Tait, Assistant Director Education Services, Library & Archives NT: We have begun uncomfortable conversations to work to introduce and to embed culturally safe places, practices and programs in our current work, and in our planning for the library’s physical relocation in 2024. I hope that as a staff we have the courage and the tenacity to continue the uncomfortable conversations that will culminate in new actions and interactions that are respectful and ongoing.
I hope that as a staff we have the courage and the tenacity to continue the uncomfortable conversations that will culminate in new actions and interactions that are respectful and ongoing. Ania Tait, LANT
What would you like to see NSLA libraries do next, as a collective?
Antoinette Buchanan: Commit to ongoing cultural safety training for all staff and volunteers, collaborate to improve our descriptive standards and work together to create employment strategies for First Nations staff at all levels of our libraries.
Marcus Hughes: Finding the structures that enable the voice of First Nations Australians to inform every part of what we do and how we do it is the thing – and this is where the real challenges lie. Being prepared to sit with the discomfort of structural change is difficult – even just to consider it. But the thinking needs to happen and the conversations need to continue and the understandings need to be embraced without fear. That’s what will lay the foundations for change.
Ania Tait: First Nations staff development, mentoring, secondment, exchange. For me, staff exchange would be an amazing and challenging learning opportunity for individual First Nations staff and their libraries.
Damien Webb: I'm really excited at the prospect of a First Nations advisory body for NSLA and I genuinely hope that the member libraries give it the authority it deserves. It would be wonderful to start seeing more First Nations development, mentoring and secondment opportunities too – as one of the few First Nations staff at a management level, I crave mentorship and hope to see this in the coming years.
Our library has developed the confidence to translate thought into actions; an awareness that there is material we should be consulting with knowledge keepers on has developed into plans on how we should go about this consultation, and the creation of our Aboriginal Reference Group. Jeremy Sibbald, SLSA
What advice would you give to a library about to embark on a program like CSLP?
Lesley Acres: Be prepared for a long road ahead, for change does not occur in a comfort zone. The journey will be most rewarding if you focus on the process.
Marcus Hughes: Remember that you are not alone on this journey. Seek out the intelligence of those who have gone before. Embrace the challenges and know that – in good time – the unfamiliar will become familiar and the uncomfortable will become safe. The most important thing is to take the first step.
Ross Latham: My advice is to not be hesitant or overly cautious and accept that you are on an important and sometimes difficult journey that will be so much worth the investment of time and effort.
Susan McEwan: Don’t expect changes to happen overnight, and listen to and take on feedback from First Nations staff, even if it makes you uncomfortable.
Liz Pye, Manager Talent and Capability, State Library Victoria: To recognise that there is a difference between cultural competency and cultural safety, and while cultural competency may be increased by the program there is likely to need to be significantly more work needed for that competency to translate into cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees. Like all training programs it is a beginning not an end in itself.
Be prepared for a long road ahead, for change does not occur in a comfort zone. The journey will be most rewarding if you focus on the process. Lesley Acres, SLQ