Cyril George Indigenous Knowledge Center

Since its inception, there has been a desire to move the Cyril George Indigenous Knowledge Collection out of Library of Congress Classification and into an Indigenous Knowledge Organization system. The one that came up most frequently and is close to home - developed in British Columbia - is the Brian Deer Classification System (BDCS). More information on Brian Deer and the development of the BDCS can be found from the X̱wi7x̱wa Library at the University of British Columbia, and for a really deep dive, the articles and links below. 

There are a number of reasons to move away from the Library of Congress Classification System for the Cyril George Collection, but the most obvious is that it places the majority of items in a small call number range in the E's - for History of America. Indigenous peoples are part of living, thriving cultures that are active today and not a part of history - and their knowledge should be treated as such.

Thanks to former Egan Library employees Caroline Hassler and Ciaran Purdome for their work in exploring this option and pointing the way.

After receiving the American Rescue Plan: Humanities Grants for Libraries grant, work began on adapting the BDCS to the Cyril George Collection, Alaska, and to a United States context as separate and different from a Canadian context. The BDCS is designed to be localized to a place and to a collection, which makes it perfect for the Cyril George Collection. It is also meant to be a changing and updating system, which matches how the Cyril George Collection has functioned so far - with items constantly being added from the library collection, and with call numbers shifting around.

Working through the Indigenous action topics covered in the BDCS plans for other libraries, as well as the topics in the UAS Indigenous Studies B.A., led to discovering a number of additional relevant titles throughout the Egan Library. Additionally, it has helped show weak parts of the collection, and purchasing (and wish listing) are ongoing to increase coverage of these topics. 

With the grant project, we recruited two individuals to work directly with the collection, applying new call numbers to materials and helping to jump-start the transition away from Library of Congress. 

X̱wi7x̱wa Library

Union of BC Indian Chiefs

Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute