Books & Beyond celebrates the UN Decade of Indigenous Languages. 2022-2032
2022 is the first year of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. The goal of this initiative is to preserve, revitalize, and support indigenous languages globally. Here at IU Books & Beyond, we are delighted to promote this important effort, and we hope to make a contribution where we can.
IU Books & Beyond entered its second decade in 2019, and we hope to be around for a long time to come. The last few years have challenged us all, and like so many others, we have re-visioned the ways that we approach our mission. As always, our goal is to support and develop students and teachers to become literacy leaders in their chosen fields. Until 2019, we focused on a partnership with a single school in Rwanda, where we developed deep ties with teachers, parents and families committed to improving education in their community. We hope that we will be able to resume annual study abroad trips through Indiana University in 2023.
We have also decided to expand our digital and linguistic focus to include support for the creators (writers, editors, illustrators, and translators) of extensive reading materials for young readers in indigenous, minoritized or underserved languages by uploading our best The World is Our Home stories to excellent platforms such as the African Storybook, the Global Digital Library, and Storybooks Canada, where they can be downloaded, read on a laptop or tablet, or shared via open licensing so that others can translate them. We also hope to create a community of creators at Indiana University who are interested in sharing their skills to help develop more reading materials. Our first meeting of the “Multilingual Minds” collaborative is scheduled for August 6 and is open for in-person or virtual attendance. Anyone who is interested can join us to learn more about why we believe that we can make a significant contribution to the education of young readers around the world just by helping them to have more culturally relevant, high-quality books to read.
As a child I was a voracious reader. I read through whole shelves of books at the little local library. Each week I toted home as many books as I could carry. In the northern US winter, I walked through the cold. In the summer, I rode my bike. There was no stopping me, and I would have felt desperate if I had not been able to read as much as I wanted, what I wanted, and when I wanted. If the world is going to succeed at providing all children with an education that they deserve, we are going to have to provide them with more than they can read. That means libraries stuffed with culturally-relevant books in many languages, including those that have been minoritized or underserved, that they can browse through and choose according to their interests, without having to worry about how they are going to pay for these books. We have the tools to make this happen: we have digital publishing, digital platforms, reading devices, growing connectivity, open licensing. We just need to put in the work. No one should be left behind or left outside the library of knowledge without a key to the door.
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