Visions and Metaphors for First Nations Information Management

Knowledge systems Some of the ways in which First Nations and non-First Nations people "know" the world are profoundly different. The term "First Nations knowledge systems" refers to the ways in which knowledge, records, ideas and information are generated, disseminated and maintained within First Nations communities and nations. These systems are ancient and rooted in complex oral cultures, and are often called "oral traditions" or "oral histories". Human memory and 'realtime' interpersonal communication is the basis for First Nations information systems instead of physical recording objects and written languages (1). This is the most obvious difference between First Nations and Western information systems. They also differ in the ways through which they authenticate and validate information and records -the ways they become meaningful and reliable. The bodies of knowledge they hold and to which they have access -what library studies usually talks about as the "content" -are different. Accordingly, the ways they manage, organize, use and develop these knowledges differ. While there have been dramatic changes to First Nations knowledge systems since European colonization, I use the term to encompass both pre-contact and contemporary ways of maintaining knowledge. First Nations information systems today as in the past depend upon traditional values, protocols, principles and ways of maintaining knowledge.