This post was originally published by the University of British Columbia Library.
Xwi7xwa Library has launched a new Canvas course for students in NITEP, the Indigenous Teacher Education Program in the Faculty of Education at UBC. Students can self-enrol in the course to access a comprehensive introduction to UBC Library prepared for Indigenous teacher candidates, with five modules that cover topics like library resource searching, citing sources, and using research guides.
“One of our main goals was to establish a connection between the branch and supports for Indigenous teacher candidates specifically,” says Karleen Delaurier-Lyle, Information Services Librarian at Xwi7xwa Library, who led the project, working in collaboration with Alexis Okabe, Indigenous Education Program Advisor at NITEP. “We’ve noticed quite a few of [the students] would come in just looking for basic help around not only research, but library skills, tutorials, and citations.”
Planning for the project started in the summer of 2019, with the intent to create a print resource that could be distributed to students in-person on campus.
“We envisioned being able to be there in person… to break down that intimidation factor that I think a lot of students face with libraries,” says Delaurier-Lyle. “For me, personally, that’s something that I really care about doing with our Indigenous teacher candidates, because they have such a huge role in transforming education for us as a whole.”
But with the switch to remote work due to the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020, everything needed to shift.
“[O]ur students were not able to access Xwi7xwa’s physical space,” says Okabe. “Not being able to ask a friendly face your question meant that UBC Library was nearly inaccessible—until Karleen came up with the brilliant idea to bring accessibility, and friendliness, into the virtual space with this project.”
Read the full story on the UBC Library website.