Ngā Upoko Tukutuku and the role of cataloguing in creating equitable access
|
To celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, Auckland Museum released a wonderful resource on about how to use Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (Māori Subject Headings), and what it means for antiracism in information access.
Mātauranga Māori Advisor, Geraldine Warren, and Cataloguing Librarian, Nina Whittaker, chose ten varied books from their collections, assigned Ngā Upoko Tukutuku, and then wrote about that process of finding the right headings, and what it means. Nina and Geraldine kindly allowed us to reproduce the introduction from their blog post here and then answered some questions about the project. Nina writes: As the museum’s cataloguing librarian, I spend my days creating what I think of as ‘dating profiles’ for the books in our collections. There is nothing more exciting to me than the idea that someone, somewhere, is searching for this book with all of their soul, and that person and pukapuka might one day match through the data I create. This also leads to sadness when I see records for books where the data excludes people from finding the match of their dreams. The conventional approach to cataloguing creates a very particular ‘dating profile’ for a book - one based on the English language, and on Western ideas of information classification and hierarchy. When we describe our books from this Western perspective, we reduce the chances of anyone matching with the book using Māori ideas and language. Instead of looking for pakiwaitara, you have to search for ‘Folklore—New Zealand’; instead of mana whenua, ‘Land tenure—New Zealand’. To catalogue a book in Aotearoa New Zealand today, we must do better to create matches between each book and Māori communities, Māori language, and Māori ideas. |
Geraldine Warren, Mātauranga Māori Advisor, Auckland Museum.
Nina Whittaker, Cataloguing Librarian, Auckland Museum.
|
The Māori Subject Headings Working Party was created in 1998 to create a list of ‘Māori language terms that enables quality access and findability for te Reo Māori language users and Te Ao Māori thinkers.’1 The kaupapa was developed through the dedicated work of many people, including Rangiiria Hedley and Whina Te Whiu, who connect our museum to this vital mahi.
Officially launched in 2006, Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (Māori Subject Headings) are structured around Māori ways of knowing, Māori organisation of knowledge, and te Reo Māori. Including these keywords in our records gives our books a fighting chance at matching with an Aotearoa audience that speaks te Reo Māori and embraces Māori knowledge. Since its launch, it’s been recognised around the world for its mana.2
However, Ngā Upoko Tukutuku are often used just for materials on Māori topics. This is strange – why would a culture only want to know about itself? Judging from our bookshelves, people are curious about many things: botany, war, history, cooking, the many cultures of the world... That we don’t afford the same curiosity to those seeking information from a Māori perspective increases racial inequity in access to knowledge. As Māori information advocacy group Te Rōpū Whakahau ask, ‘if Māori youth are first-language speakers of Māori, are educated in Māori culture, why would they want to find material that only describes information by, for and about Māori?’
With this in mind, I partnered with our Māori Resources & Mātauranga Advisor, Geraldine Warren, to select ten books as broad and as varied as the Museum collections themselves. We wanted to showcase what Māori Subject Headings can look like on books about the Pacific, or Shakespeare, or illustrated birds. We wanted to showcase how these keywords not only increase access but also enhance the meaning of records – for all audiences.
And so for each of the ten books, Geraldine selected a broad range of Māori Subject Headings that explained their kaupapa. Then, in conversation with Documentary Heritage team members Te Whai Mātauranga-Smith and Leone Samu, we wrote down some whakaaro (thoughts) that arose from the pairing of each book with its headings.
It is our hope that these examples will provide inspiration to readers and cataloguers alike on how Māori Subject Headings can be used to create stronger, more accessible records. This mahi will not only increase equity in access but will also serve to hold high mātauranga and reo Māori as the indispensable heart of Aotearoa’s intellectual life.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE >
Officially launched in 2006, Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (Māori Subject Headings) are structured around Māori ways of knowing, Māori organisation of knowledge, and te Reo Māori. Including these keywords in our records gives our books a fighting chance at matching with an Aotearoa audience that speaks te Reo Māori and embraces Māori knowledge. Since its launch, it’s been recognised around the world for its mana.2
However, Ngā Upoko Tukutuku are often used just for materials on Māori topics. This is strange – why would a culture only want to know about itself? Judging from our bookshelves, people are curious about many things: botany, war, history, cooking, the many cultures of the world... That we don’t afford the same curiosity to those seeking information from a Māori perspective increases racial inequity in access to knowledge. As Māori information advocacy group Te Rōpū Whakahau ask, ‘if Māori youth are first-language speakers of Māori, are educated in Māori culture, why would they want to find material that only describes information by, for and about Māori?’
With this in mind, I partnered with our Māori Resources & Mātauranga Advisor, Geraldine Warren, to select ten books as broad and as varied as the Museum collections themselves. We wanted to showcase what Māori Subject Headings can look like on books about the Pacific, or Shakespeare, or illustrated birds. We wanted to showcase how these keywords not only increase access but also enhance the meaning of records – for all audiences.
And so for each of the ten books, Geraldine selected a broad range of Māori Subject Headings that explained their kaupapa. Then, in conversation with Documentary Heritage team members Te Whai Mātauranga-Smith and Leone Samu, we wrote down some whakaaro (thoughts) that arose from the pairing of each book with its headings.
It is our hope that these examples will provide inspiration to readers and cataloguers alike on how Māori Subject Headings can be used to create stronger, more accessible records. This mahi will not only increase equity in access but will also serve to hold high mātauranga and reo Māori as the indispensable heart of Aotearoa’s intellectual life.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE >
|
Thanks so much for expanding on your blog post for us Nina and Geraldine.
We are really curious to know which was the most challenging book to come up with Ngā Upoko Tukutuku for? Memoire sur les races de l’Oceanie (Cauvin, Imprimerie Nationale, 1882) was really difficult, as the subject headings for pseudoscience, eugenics and phrenology are still in the making. We wanted to be able to describe the content as it was intended to be read at the time (a scientific text) while also conveying the colonising and racist context of its methodology. In the end, we assigned the following subject headings: Iwi taketake (indigenous peoples and cultures), Pūtaiao (science), Whakahāwea iwi (racial discrimination), Taipūwhenuatanga (colonisation). Which title do you think had the meaning of its records most enhanced by Ngā Upoko Tukutuku? Geraldine: Land of Birds: an illustrated tribute. It shows the importance assigned to the natural world, the role of eco-systems which connect people, plants, fellow inhabitants and environment. Nina: A practical scheme for soldier settlement on cheap lands. Being able to use clear, te reo Māori words for land confiscation and colonisation allows these books to stand as testimony to the cultural and historical contexts in which they were created. |
|
Is there a way to track the use/search of Ngā Upoko Tukutuku to see trends in research?
Currently, the best way to track Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (that I’m aware of) is through OCLC Worldshare, if you have access. You can search for 650s with $2 reo, although this is clunky and doesn’t show trends for non-OCLC members.
However, the Ngā Upoko Tukutuku team at the National Library is really helpful, and have provided me with spreadsheets in the past to help me with my metadata. I’m sure they will have a better way of accessing that data set!
Can you expand a bit on how Māori ways of knowing and Māori organisation of knowledge can impact on the way people research?
Ko te manu i kai i te miro, nona te ngahere.
Ko te manu i kai i te mātauranga, nona te ao.
Māori history and culture have continued to evolve through interaction with the environment. Iwi/hapū/whanau learned conservation and stewardship because depletion of resources showed the fragility and interconnectedness of the world. They became kaitiaki and lessons they learnt are recounted in korero.
For example, Rata chopped down a tree without appropriate permission from Tane Mahuta, so the birds, lizards, insects and spiders worked together throughout the night to rebuild the tree. Rata repeated this violation until he angrily confronted those kaitiaki who informed him of his error of ways. He admitted his mistake and accepted that tikanga that must be followed, the mauri of resources must be respected, and the kaupapa of the deity who controls resources through generations acknowledged in full.
Mātauranga Māori structures empirical experience, knowledge, processes and philosophies in eco-systems of connection. It is a complex, adaptive and holistic system which cannot be understood through the sum of its individual parts. Rather than breaking down knowledge into small bits, mātauranga allows for a much broader tapestry of cause and effect. As such it has a huge strength in understanding other, complex, adaptive systems – culture, language, climate change, public health...
It also has the potential to enormously enhance documentary heritage collections in Aotearoa. For example, Te Whai Mātauranga Smith recently used a whakapapa research framework to assess the full historical significance of one of our collections, and this led to a broader, more accurate, and locally embedded assessment.
If other libraries are inspired to follow your lead, do you have any top tips for them to get started?
As Shia LaBeouf once said, just do it! Pick up a book and head to the Ngā Upoko Tukutuku site. You’ll have to search creatively (pro tip: always check both singular and plural terms!) – just like you would in a library database. Search for a range of terms, broad and narrow, to cover the topics in your pukapuka. You might start off with only one or two Ngā Upoko Tukutuku, and that’s all right. The more you practice, and get to know the database, the smoother it will get. And, if you just can’t find the word you’re looking for… let the Ngā Upoko Tukutuku committee know! It’s an ever-expanding database and this is one way we can support its growth.
Top 5 tips to up-skill at Ngā Upoko Tukutuku:
As researcher Melissa Bryant points out, the use of Ngā Upoko Tukutuku is a way for libraries to show demonstrated commitment to the principles of Te Tiriti:
‘[Ngā Upoko Tukutuku] increase the mana of libraries as well as library users. Participation in the project has provided opportunities for the National Library to take steps towards fulfilling its legislative mandate to support mātauranga Māori/indigenous knowledge systems.’
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us, tēnā rawa atu koe!
Currently, the best way to track Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (that I’m aware of) is through OCLC Worldshare, if you have access. You can search for 650s with $2 reo, although this is clunky and doesn’t show trends for non-OCLC members.
However, the Ngā Upoko Tukutuku team at the National Library is really helpful, and have provided me with spreadsheets in the past to help me with my metadata. I’m sure they will have a better way of accessing that data set!
Can you expand a bit on how Māori ways of knowing and Māori organisation of knowledge can impact on the way people research?
Ko te manu i kai i te miro, nona te ngahere.
Ko te manu i kai i te mātauranga, nona te ao.
Māori history and culture have continued to evolve through interaction with the environment. Iwi/hapū/whanau learned conservation and stewardship because depletion of resources showed the fragility and interconnectedness of the world. They became kaitiaki and lessons they learnt are recounted in korero.
For example, Rata chopped down a tree without appropriate permission from Tane Mahuta, so the birds, lizards, insects and spiders worked together throughout the night to rebuild the tree. Rata repeated this violation until he angrily confronted those kaitiaki who informed him of his error of ways. He admitted his mistake and accepted that tikanga that must be followed, the mauri of resources must be respected, and the kaupapa of the deity who controls resources through generations acknowledged in full.
Mātauranga Māori structures empirical experience, knowledge, processes and philosophies in eco-systems of connection. It is a complex, adaptive and holistic system which cannot be understood through the sum of its individual parts. Rather than breaking down knowledge into small bits, mātauranga allows for a much broader tapestry of cause and effect. As such it has a huge strength in understanding other, complex, adaptive systems – culture, language, climate change, public health...
It also has the potential to enormously enhance documentary heritage collections in Aotearoa. For example, Te Whai Mātauranga Smith recently used a whakapapa research framework to assess the full historical significance of one of our collections, and this led to a broader, more accurate, and locally embedded assessment.
If other libraries are inspired to follow your lead, do you have any top tips for them to get started?
As Shia LaBeouf once said, just do it! Pick up a book and head to the Ngā Upoko Tukutuku site. You’ll have to search creatively (pro tip: always check both singular and plural terms!) – just like you would in a library database. Search for a range of terms, broad and narrow, to cover the topics in your pukapuka. You might start off with only one or two Ngā Upoko Tukutuku, and that’s all right. The more you practice, and get to know the database, the smoother it will get. And, if you just can’t find the word you’re looking for… let the Ngā Upoko Tukutuku committee know! It’s an ever-expanding database and this is one way we can support its growth.
Top 5 tips to up-skill at Ngā Upoko Tukutuku:
- When you have five minutes to spare, wander through the alphabetical list or top terms and write down five new Ngā Upoko Tukutuku on a sticky note.
- Have a ‘tag-a-thon’ with your team. Work together and discuss results.
- Take a free tikanga class through Te Wānanga o Aotearoa or another provider. The more you understand Māori worldviews, the better you’ll get at assigning the right words.
- Learn te reo Māori – through in-person classes, or home-based study (I love Scotty Morrison’s awesome Māori Made Easy series). You’ll learn extra words by using Ngā Upoko Tukutuku, which will supplement your vocabulary!
- Check out the National Library’s Te Puna/OCLC records – they assign Ngā Upoko Tukutuku to many of their new records, and this is a great way of seeing examples of other work in this area.
As researcher Melissa Bryant points out, the use of Ngā Upoko Tukutuku is a way for libraries to show demonstrated commitment to the principles of Te Tiriti:
‘[Ngā Upoko Tukutuku] increase the mana of libraries as well as library users. Participation in the project has provided opportunities for the National Library to take steps towards fulfilling its legislative mandate to support mātauranga Māori/indigenous knowledge systems.’
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us, tēnā rawa atu koe!
Footnotes:
- Te Rōpū Whakahau (TRW). (n.d.). Ngā Ūpoko Tukutuku (MSH).
- Roy, L. & Frydman, A. (2013). Library Services to Indigenous Populations: Case Studies.