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. 2023 Jul 10;111(3):630-656.
doi: 10.5195/jmla.2023.1616.

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

Allison Cruise  1 , Alexis Ellsworth-Kopkowski  2 , A Nydia Villezcas  3 , Jonathan Eldredge  4 , Melissa L Rethlefsen  5
Affiliations

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

Allison Cruise et al. J Med Libr Assoc. .

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Indigenous populations; Scoping review; academic health sciences libraries; community engagement; outreach; public participation.

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Conflict of interest statement

At the time this work was completed, AC, AEK, ANV, JE, and MLR were employees of the Health Sciences Library & Informatics Center at the University of New Mexico, which was part of the TC4C project. JE was directly involved with the TC4C project until 2005. AEK is a former employee of the University of Arizona, and MLR is a former employee of the University of Utah Eccles Health Sciences Library, both TC4C sites. Neither were involved in TC4C. MLR is a former Director of the NNLM MidContinental Region, which partially funded TC4C prior to her directorship. AC, ANV, JE, and MLR were all funded by NNLM Region 4 for this project. AC, JE, and MLR have all received other funding from NNLM. AC was an NLM 2nd year Associate Fellow at the Health Sciences Library & Informatics Center at the University of New Mexico; MLR and JE were her preceptors. All have received funding from ORISE/NLM/DOE for the fellowship. MLR and JE have received other funding from NLM previously.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA 2020 Flow Diagram [17] of Program Identification Process
Figure 2
Figure 2
Number of Reports by Year of Publication
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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