Responsible practice is the next step in our reconciliation journey where we consider what we can do in our day-to-day jobs that uplifts Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, establishes strong relationships with the community and gives us practical approaches to reconciliation in our daily work.
David Howard, Executive Director, Library Services
We are preparing a living document that will inform our responsible practice. We've commenced consultation and are continuing this dialogue in developing our Responsible Practices. Our resultant document will be shared here when it is ready.
Meanwhile, six guiding principles have been developed to inform our practice in the foreseeable future.
Our guiding principles
- No decisions are made about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people without Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
- We will celebrate and recognise Indigenous knowledge and ways of keeping and sharing this knowledge alongside the traditional western idea of an Academic Library.
- We will actively build Indigenous voice into our collections to counter racism and misrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by non-Indigenous peoples.
- We are committed to our spaces being culturally inclusive, welcoming and respectful to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
- We will embed concepts of Indigenous intellectual property and Indigenous knowledge into all aspects of the resources and services we develop.
- We will build real and lasting relationship with Indigenous staff and students at RMIT.
2024 Responsible Practice Project
The Collections Unit is leading a range of projects working towards the implementation of our Responsible Practice Principles. We aim to investigate, and where possible implement, the following outcomes by 30 November 2024:
Events and spaces
- Defining events needing Welcome to Country or other ceremonies.
- Native plants in spaces, including information on what the plant is and the significance.
- Events that could be hosted for Ngarara Willim.
- Connect with Library staff who run existing events.
Collections
- Scope/investigate and draft procedures for harmful content, identifying content and cataloguing.
- Cataloguing the principles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspective in Learning & Teaching into our digital collections.
Primo/LibrarySearch
- Acknowledgement of Country in Primo.
- Cultural Sensitivity banner based on keyword search.
- Identify searches that could be used to assist in Curriculum Architecture.
All Library staff
- Attendance of Introduction to Responsible Practice Principles workshop.
