UBC Reports | Vol. 52 | No. 2 | Feb. 2, 2006
Xwi7xwa Library Gains Full Branch Status
What began as a dream of Indigenous scholarship 30 years
ago came to fruition recently when the Xwi7xwa (pronounced
whei-wha, for the word “echo” in Squamish language)
Library became a full branch of the UBC library system.
Housed for decades in an old war hut in the Faculty of Education’s
parking lot, the small collection of curriculum resources
maintained by the Native Indian Teacher Education Program
(NITEP) was transferred to its current location when the First
Nations House of Learning and Xwi7xwa Library opened in May
1993.
Relying on donations and volunteers, the collection of 12,000
books, videos, journals, newspapers, maps, theses and dissertations
is one of only a handful of publicly accessible Aboriginal
libraries in the world. The materials are organized according
to the Brian Deer Classification System, which includes terminology
for First Nations concepts such as self-government, and uses
First Nations names rather than the European ones assigned
by anthropologists.
“As Xwi7xwa becomes stabilized with core funding, it’s
in a position to develop a leadership role in Canada as a
centre of -- and for -- Indigenous scholarship, and a place
where Aboriginal students can see their own experiences and
history reflected -- or echoed, if you will -- from Aboriginal
perspectives,” says Ann Doyle, Acting Head of Xwi7xwa
Library.
|
 |
|
|
|
