Paper Talk: A History of Libraries, Print Culture, and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada before 1960

The pre-1960 history of print culture and libraries, as they relate to the First Peoples of Canada, has gone largely untold. Paper Talk explores the relationship between the introduction of western print culture to Aboriginal peoples by missionaries, the development of libraries in the Indian schools in the nineteenth century, and the establishment of community-accessible collections in the twentieth century. While missionaries and the Department of Indian Affairs envisioned books and libraries as assimilative and civilizing tools, Edwards shows that some Aboriginal peoples articulated western ideas of print culture, literacy, books, and libraries as tools to assist their own cultural, social, and political aspirations. This text also serves to illustrate that the contemporary struggle of Aboriginal peoples in Canada to establish libraries in communities has a historical basis and that many of the obstacles faced today are remarkably similar to those encountered by earlier generations.