Library services and indigenous peoples in Latin America: Reviewing concepts, gathering experiences

Abstract

There have been library services for indigenous peoples in Latin America since at least the 1980s; they are small-scale, very specific experiences that, until recent times, have been poorly systematized and scarcely discussed. Throughout their brief but intense history – a story that has been replicated in many other countries around the world, from Canada to New Zealand – these services have faced a series of crossroads, contradictions and conflicts that they have not always been able to resolve, from the controversial label ‘indigenous libraries’ to their scope and the categories and methodologies they use. From a first-person perspective (the author was among the first library and information science professionals to work with this topic in Latin America and has been active in the field for the last 20 years), this article briefly reviews the state of affairs in South America, pointing out the main milestones in the history of these services in the region. It identifies some concepts and ideas that require urgent discussion from both a library and information science and interdisciplinary framework, and suggests some paths to explore in the near future.