Contact Ashley Edwards, Indigenous Initiatives and Instruction Librarian, with any questions.
The Indigenous Curriculum Resource Centre uses the Brian Deer Classification Scheme (BDCS) to organize its print collection. This organizational system was developed in the 1970s by Kahnawake Mohawk librarian, Brian Deer, for the National Indian Brotherhood Library (now the Assembly of First Nations). His system places Indigenous knowledge and communities at the centre, deviating from the Euro-centric systems used by most libraries (the Library of Congress Classification System, and the Dewey Decimal Classification System). The BDCS uses a relational way of organizing information, in line with Indigenous ways of knowing and worldviews.
In British Columbia, librarian Gene Joseph (Wet’suwet’en – Nadleh Whut’en) modified the BDCS first for the Union of BC Indian Chiefs library and then for UBC’s Xwi7xwa branch. The Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute (located in Quebec) uses another revised version of the BDCS. These three revisions are all publicly accessible, and will be the foundation of the version used at SFU.
If you would like a Word version, please email lib-indigenous@sfu.ca
For an introduction to the BDC system, check out these resources created for as "Crash Course on the Brian Deer Classification" workshop, developed for the University of Toronto iSkills.
Slides
Handout
References and further reading