Omar Poler, 2008 LAMP Scholar and associate outreach specialist at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (SLIS), will visit campus on Friday, April 26. His visit is co-sponsored by GSLIS and the Native American House at the University of Illinois.
GSLIS will hold a meet-and-greet open forum with Poler at 10:00 a.m. in the second floor lounge. Poler will then give a 12:00 p.m. talk at the Native American House, 1206 West Nevada Street, Urbana. At 2:00 p.m., he will return to GSLIS to deliver the lecture, “Convening Culture Keepers: Bringing together LIS and American Indian Communities,” in Room 109; this event also will be available for virtual attendance.
Since 2008, SLIS has participated in a growing number of mutually beneficial relationships with tribal cultural institutions throughout Wisconsin. With the goals of enriching LIS graduate education and sharing resources with tribal cultural professionals, SLIS currently offers an experimental service-learning-based course on tribal libraries, archives, and museums; with its tribal partners, SLIS co-coordinates Convening Culture Keepers, a series of professional development and networking mini-conferences for Wisconsin tribal librarians, archivists, and museum curators. As the initiative's coordinator, Poler will share his perspectives on indigenous information issues in LIS and the need for mutually-beneficial partnerships with American Indian communities.
Poler received an MA from SLIS, where he currently works as an associate outreach specialist and teaches a course on indigenous information issues. An enrolled member of the Mole Lake Sokaogon Chippewa Community in northeastern Wisconsin, he learned to love reading and libraries from his parents––especially his father, Dan, who helped start one of the state's earliest tribal libraries. His interests include Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) language revitalization, tribal histories, and regional music.