Academic health sciences libraries' outreach and engagement with North American Indigenous communities: a scoping review

Objective: We sought to identify trends and themes in how academic health sciences libraries in the United States, Canada and Mexico have supported engagement and outreach with Native Americans, Alaska Natives, First Nations, and Indigenous peoples, in or from those same countries. We also sought to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Medical Library Association
Main Authors: Allison Cruise, Alexis Ellsworth-Kopkowski, A. Nydia Villezcas, Jonathan Eldredge, Melissa L. Rethlefsen
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: University Library System, University of Pittsburgh 2023
Subjects:
Scoping review
Indigenous populations
outreach
community engagement
public participation
academic health sciences libraries
Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
Z
Medicine
R
Canada
Prisma
First Nations
Alaska
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2023.1616
https://doaj.org/article/e0d388c3b7a94753b45f262dd0333fb0
Description
Summary:Objective: We sought to identify trends and themes in how academic health sciences libraries in the United States, Canada and Mexico have supported engagement and outreach with Native Americans, Alaska Natives, First Nations, and Indigenous peoples, in or from those same countries. We also sought to learn and share effective practices for libraries engaging with these communities. Methods: We conducted a scoping review utilizing Arksey and O’Malley’s framework for scoping reviews and followed principles from JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. We searched seven bibliographic databases, E-LIS (Eprints in Library and Information Science repository), and multiple sources of grey literature. Results were screened using Covidence and Google Sheets. We reported our review according to the PRISMA and PRISMA-S guidelines. We determined types of interventions used by academic health sciences libraries in engagement with our included populations, the level of public participation reached by these interventions, what partnerships were established, and what practices emerged. Results: Database searching returned 2,020 unique results. Additional searching resulted in 211 further unique results. Full text screening of relevant articles found 65 reports meeting criteria for inclusion. Data extraction was conducted on these programs to identify partners, intervention type, and evaluation method. The programs were categorized using the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation. Conclusion: Our scoping review found that many programs were health information trainings and did not move beyond informing the public with little further involvement. The need for sustained funding, greater community participation and more publishing on engagement and outreach are discussed.

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