From Collections to Classrooms: The Unfinished Business of Critical Librarianship
In the April 2024 Blak Focus, we introduced Critical Librarianship as an unfinished practice that challenges colonial power in collections, archives and information systems by centring Indigenous voices and knowledge sovereignty. This edition extends that conversation, from collections to classrooms, through our guest speakers, the library staff authors of UQ Has a Blak History. Their work demonstrates what happens when critical librarianship moves beyond custody of records into teaching, learning and truth‑telling. Together, these conversations highlight the ongoing responsibility of libraries to activate Indigenous histories in ways that are ethical, accountable and relational.
This work builds on a long lineage of Indigenous, critical and decolonial scholarship that has challenged claims of neutrality in libraries and higher education, and foregrounds political ethical and relational dimensions of knowledge work. It is shaped by Indigenous scholars working at the intersection of librarianship, archives and knowledge sovereignty, including Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Martin Nakata and Kirsten Thorpe, amongst many others.
Critical Librarianship has been effective at exposing the bias in classification systems, information systems and across the policies, infrastructures and professional norms that shape how knowledge is created, circulated and authorised. It has challenged the neutrality of library and information institutions, making visible the ways institutional systems reproduce colonial hierarchies and exclusion. Much of this work has centred on the archive, on how knowledge is organised, described and assessed. What remains less developed is what happens next.
How critical librarianship is enacted through teaching, learning, community engagement and everyday professional practice
UQ has a Blak History, provides one response to this question, not as theory but as a practice. Developed by the University of Queensland Library’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Collections and Services team, the resource is an open, digital learning module that introduces the history of UQ in relation to First Nations peoples. It brings together collections, archives, places and institutional histories into the curriculum, positioning the library as an active participant in teaching and learning rather than a supporting service.
The shift matters. It moves critical librarianship beyond identifying bias in systems and towards enacting change. It demonstrates what it looks like when librarians engage directly in how knowledge is taught, not just how it is described or accessed.
Truth-telling as library practice
Critical librarianship has long asked how institutions organise knowledge and decide what is made visible. UQ has a Blak History, extends this work by asking what it means for libraries to participate in truth-telling. Drawing on institutional collections, the resource surfaces histories that have not always been visible within dominant university narratives. In doing so, it positions the library within a broader process of institutional reflection, responsibility and accountability.
What UQ has a Blak History makes clear is that the movement from archives and collections to classrooms is not a one-way process. Collections inform teaching and teaching reshapes how collections are understood, contextualised, and valued. This translation of knowledge into curriculum is not neutral; it involves negotiation, interpretation and at times, acknowledgement of loss. This is where critical librarianship becomes lived practice. It is enacted in systems and policies about:
- how knowledge is taught
- how students encounter institutional histories; and
- how universities understand their own role in those histories.
What this means for higher education
The significance of this work extends beyond a single resource. Across higher education Indigenous perspectives and knowledges are increasingly embedded into curriculum. However, all too often this takes the form of adding content without changing how knowledge is understood, governed and taught.
UQ has a Blak History, demonstrates a different approach by:
- reframing the institution itself as the subject of inquiry
- centring Indigenous authority in how knowledge is presented and used
- connecting collections, curriculum and student engagement;
- and positioning truth-telling as an ongoing institutional responsibility.
To continue this conversation, join us for an online session with Lesley Acres and Raelee Lancaster, two of the co-authors of UQ has a Blak History.
Critical Librarianship: UQ has a Blak History event
What: Critical Librarianship: UQ has a Blak History event
When: 11:30am, 21 July 2026
Where: Online
Register to attend Critical Librarianship: UQ has a Blak History