Reading African Women's Writing: The Role of Librarians in Expanding the Canon

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper will briefly review the canon debate in African literature, situating it within a wider context of debates on other non-Western, non-central or emerging disciplines. It will then examine ways in which reference services can respond to the challenge of canon expansion, and how librarians can impact the study of African women writers in universities and colleges. I will approach these topics from two perspectives. The first involves reference librarians in their traditional role as information mediators. Using the works of female writers as examples in instruction sessions and reference guides are ways in which traditional methods can be given a new twist. In so doing, reference librarians will be combining intercultural literacy with information literacy. A bibliography of selected works will also be given that will help general reference librarians strengthen their collections and educate themselves on the subject. The second will be on ways in which librarians can add a layer to traditional mediating by becoming academic activists. In other words, instead of passively waiting for courses to be created and then supporting them, librarians can market to faculty ideas for possible uses of the Africana collection and thus provide impetus for new course development. Suggested initiatives include developing theme-related guides or readers' advisory based on African women's texts, and distributing them to other Area Studies faculty–an obvious way to encourage comparative, interdisciplinary research and teaching. Librarians can also hold workshops to demonstrate how works such as Aidoo's Changes or Dangaremgba's Nervous Conditions that examine the many faces of modern Africa can be discussed in social history, politics or education courses; or Alifa Rifaat's works dealing with women in Islamic communities in a religion or comparative law course. Additionally, libraries need to go beyond in-house, library-only lectures to organizing, for example, campus-wide author lecture series. To effectively implement these initiatives, reference librarians should collaborate more closely with Africana and Area Studies bibliographers. As librarians in the 21st century, we should be more proactive in our academic communities. We can generate impetus for breaking the literary canon and broadening literary research, foster greater understanding of African culture, while still playing our time-honored roles of guide, mediator, culture-keeper, and agents of change.

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