Abstract
Abstract
 Introduction: In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action 22 called upon “those who can effect change within the Canadian health-care system to recognize the value of Aboriginal healing practices” 1. Given that research has shown that health librarians have this ability to help affect change in the healthcare system, how does the health library literature reflect shifting professional practice that make space for Indigenous peoples and knowledge?
 Methods: In this literature review, we searched for keywords and controlled terms, or subject headings, on Indigenous topics within three key North American health library journals: the Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association (JCHLA) (indexed in CINAHL); the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) (Ovid MEDLINE); and Medical Reference Services Quarterly (MSRQ) (Ovid MEDLINE). A modified version of Smylie et al’s2 model of critical self-reflection guided by Indigenous knowledge translation principles was then used to analyse the papers and suggest potential avenues for future research.
 Results: Our initial search retrieved 8 articles from JMLA, 2 from MRSQ, and 14 from JCHLA which our exclusion criteria reduced to 5 articles that were then qualitatively analyzed. Of these only two articles reflected a more substantial engagement with Indigenous knowledge translation practices.
 Discussion: Most of the articles did not explicitly engage in self-reflection about how their personal, professional or systemic privileges and biases impact their work with Indigenous health topics.
Highlights
IntroductionThe Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) Call to Action 22 recommends that “those who can effect change within the Canadian health-care system [should] recognize the value of Aboriginal healing practices” [1]
In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action 22 called upon “those who can effect change within the Canadian health-care system to recognize the value of Aboriginal healing practices” [1]
“worldview.” While we acknowledge the importance of recognizing the diversity of specific Indigenous cultures and knowledge systems, for the purposes of this paper we will use the broader term “Indigenous.” By using the phrase “making space,” we introduce the possibility that there can be multiple ways of knowing beyond the evidence-based traditions of Western medical science and that the Indigenous ways of knowing that underpin Indigenous healing practices deserve to be respected and considered alongside Western medicine, as per Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) Call to Action 22
Summary
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) Call to Action 22 recommends that “those who can effect change within the Canadian health-care system [should] recognize the value of Aboriginal healing practices” [1]. Smylie et al use a critical question-posing approach to explore the application of Indigenous KT principles into health library practice [2] Key to this approach is the concept of cultural safety, which calls on health care professionals to reflect on personal, institutional, and systemic power imbalances and biases in order to effect change that is aimed at creating a more respectful health care system for all [11]. We excluded articles that primarily focused on the provision of services to Indigenous peoples; this maintained our focus on articles which explicitly or implicitly discussed practice changes that have the potential to make health libraries culturally safer for Indigenous people and more inclusive of Indigenous knowledge We recognize that these criteria did rule out some historically significant papers such as Tribal connection health information outreach: results, evaluation, and challenges [15]. The detailed results of our analysis are available in Appendix C
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