A Review of the Culturally Responsive Guidelines of Alaska Public Libraries

By exploring its origin, history, and revisions, this chapter discusses the Culturally Responsive Guidelines for Alaska Public Libraries, a 2006 document sponsored by the Alaska State Library. The Guidelines are unique in that they were passed and accepted by the Alaskan library community at a time when similar culturally responsive guidelines were voted down by both the American Library Association and the Society of American Archivists. However, Alaskans approved the Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools more than a decade prior to the public library guidelines. The processes of the initial development and subsequent 2010 and 2018 revisions of the Guidelines are examined, as are the larger library, archival, and educational implications of them. Anecdotal evidence of the Guidelines being utilized to guide library actions in the state of Alaska is also discussed. The four areas of the Guidelines—Library Environment, Services and Programs, Collections, and Library Staff—are each examined with regards to libraries that serve Alaska Native communities. The history of culturally responsive library, archival, and educational policy work in Alaska is trailblazing: Information professionals in Alaska were ahead of their time, creating professional guidelines around the topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion, all while national organizations in the United States were pushing back against this shift.