Building Spiritually Inclusive Cultural Collections: Paganism in Utah - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Building Spiritually Inclusive Cultural Collections: Paganism in Utah

Daniel Cureton

Library Administrator

Utah Pride Center

What is Diversity and Why is it Necessary?

Diversity is the inclusion of various individuals, groups of individuals, and communities which represent a varied background, origin, culture, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious belief, standpoint, ethnicity or other variance that is not considered part of the dominant structure (i.e. non Mormons in a predominantly Mormon community) (Totten, 2013 pg. 205).

Shilton

and

Srinivasin

(2007) “Leaving marginal voices out of the historical record creates what

Mitra

describes as systematic disenfranchisement. ‘Instead of speaking, the dispossessed are often spoken for, where the existing systems of expression have unquestionably constructed the marginal.’” (pg. 89)

It is not enough to have a collection “about” a community. The objective standpoint is also a disservice

as this does not include the various perspectives and cultural ontologies/identities.

Voicing Collections from the Narrative

Much knowledge about a community is based on the context of items. Understanding of contextual knowledge.

Using local and indigenous forms of recordkeeping and memory preservation to preserve cultural identity. (

Shilton

and

Srinivasin

, 2007, pg

.

91). Subjects headings will want to be identified as community based in origin or inclusive of the range of possibilities to identify and keep record according to the various communities’ ontology and epistemology (Boast, Bravo, Srinivasan, 2007,

pg

396

).

What is Paganism?

Paganism is usually centered on Nature reverence and Pre-Christian ideas. Broadly anything non Abrahamic.

My Work at the University of Utah Marriott Library Special Collections Western Americana 2010-2016

I started with the U of U Pagan Society Papers, which later became the Salt Lake Pagan Society and built up from there as I was involved in the community. I managed to capture many ephemeral items, serials, and artifacts for the archive that otherwise would have been lost of thrown out. I also collected on the West.

The last items I input were the collections of

Ár

nDraíocht

Féin

: A Druid

Fellowship

,

Santeria,

and OCCAM, the Orange County Circle of Ancient Magic which included extremely rare documents from the Golden Dawn.

Salt Lake Pagan Society

Salt Lake Pagan Society Exhibition “A Look at Paganism: Beliefs and Culture of the

Neopagan

Community” at the Marriot Jan-March 2014

Paganism Utah

The Goddess!

Santeria and Voodoo artifacts

Items from the West

Serials

Occam sample from finding aid

1. Ancient Keltic Church

2. Coven of Danu, Book of Shadows

3. Covenant of the Goddess

4. Fellowship of Isis

5. Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

6.

Odinist

(Norse-

Asatrù

)

7. Order of the Pillars of Light

8. O.T.A. (Ordo

Templi

Astarte), Church of Hermetic Sciences

9. O.T.O (Ordo

Templi

Orientis

)

Ár

nDraíocht

Féin

: A Druid Fellowship

Difficulties and Issues

Many Pagans fear identity theft or lack of privacy, so would not donate business records or their group documents. Many burn items upon death. I helped them understand that even though today their traditions may be alive, they could easily be gone tomorrow and were in serious need of archiving.

Discrimination at the Marriott. Threatened with termination, marginalized and labeled. People (mainly the manuscripts division) in other divisions got into turf wars when printing was necessary. They would say I was using the printers for “personal use” solely because it was known I was associated with the community. They would go up the hierarchy and create problems. They failed to realize how unprofessional the behavior was and how they were censoring a minority community, leaving them out of the historical record. Sometimes it was even over printing in color vs black and white. They liked diversity, the wanted LGBT material, they had extensive masonic collections, but did not want Paganism.

Continuing the Work

No one at the Marriott in that collection area.

You can collect on the local level in your archives. Seek out groups and events, bring in material, create a vertical file section or serials. The LOCKSS principal applies (Lots of copies keeps stuff safe).

Collect in your personal collections

Having these documents helps provide evidence about the community, about its culture, for history and research. It helps legitimize Paganism as a field of study and a serious area of critical inquiry and research, which often goes unnoticed.

Could use moving film and photographs, as this was an area I wasn’t about to capture.

Digital archive is another area in need.

Wayback

Machine captures

some content

References

Ár

nDraíocht

Féin

: A Druid

Fellowship-reports, vertical files, University of Utah Print and Journal Division. April 16, 2016.

Boast

, R., Bravo, M., Srinivasan, R. (2007). Return to Babel: emergent diversity, digital resources, and local knowledge.

The Information Society, 23,

396

.

Cureton, D. (2015).

Diversity collections in archives: Capturing local minority cultural history through vertical file

[Power Point Slides]. Utah Library Association Annual Conference 2015.

Mitra

, A. (2001). Marginal voices in cyberspace.

New Media and Society, 3

(1),

33

OCCAM Papers, vertical files, University of

Utah Special Collections

Print and Journal Division, April 16, 2016

Salt

Lake Pagan Society, vertical files, University of Utah

Special Collections Print

and Journal Division. April 16, 2016

Shilton

, K., Srinivasan, R. (2007). Counterpoint: participatory appraisal and arrangement for multicultural archival collections.

Archivaria

, 61,

89, 91.

Totten

, H. (2013). The advantages of diversity.

Library Quarterly, 83

(3),

205