Gene Joseph

Gene Anne Joseph is a Wet'suwet'en Nadleh'dena First Nations librarian from Hagwilget, British Columbia. She was the founding librarian of the Xwi7xwa Library at the University of British Columbia and the first librarian of First Nations descent in British Columbia. In 2018, she received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Vancouver Island University. The British Columbia Library Association, the First Nations Interest Group, and the University of British Columbia First Nations House of Learning created an endowed scholarship in her name.

Education Joseph began studies at the post-secondary level in 1972 at Langara College where she was one of the only First Nations students.

Joseph has an abiding concern with the way First Nations people and knowledge was represented in libraries and spent her career actively creating new classification systems and subject headings to amend misrepresentation common in standard systems, such as the Library of Congress Classification system. Joseph recognized the way the materials in the library were organized was vital to the overarching culture of the library and the use of an Indigenous classification system was vital to the philosophy of Xwi7xwa.

In 1992, she published the Sharing the knowledge: a First Nations resource guide which includes information on First Nations culture and history, issues facing First Nations and resources on future directions for achieving recognition of aboriginal rights.

She was active in creating resource libraries for First Nations seeking recognition of aboriginal title. Joseph developed the legal research library for the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en First Nations to support the Delgamuukw et al v. the Queen et al case. Further, the use of oral histories in a case of this nature set precedent as did the extensive use of computerized documents and a detailed map documenting traditional land use, which Joseph helped to prepare. Joseph is also a speaker at events, such as International Indigenous Librarians' Forum. Joseph has worked on a committee developing the Library Technician Program for First Nations students at the University College of the Fraser Valley.

Works Joseph, Gene. Sharing the knowledge: a First Nations resource guide. Vancouver: Legal Services Society, 1992. NW016.3231 J67 1992. Burns, Kathleen, Doyle, Ann, Joseph, Gene, & Krebs, Allison. (2009). Indigenous librarianship. M. J. Bates, & M.N. Maack (Eds.), Encyclopedia of library and information sciences (3rd ed.). Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis. Joseph, Gene and Kim Lawson. 2003. "First Nations and British Columbia Public Libraries." Feliciter. 49(5): 245-247.