| 'The library' of the West was made manifest in Micronesia (formerly the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands) largely through the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA) in 1966 and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) a year earlier. The historical analysis of the American administrative and colonial era in Micronesia and the appearance of LSCA funds during this time period provides an 'outsider' context by which to examine the actions of transferring the western model and values of "library" into a massive ocean area occupied by peoples rich in oral heritages. Using relatively recent directions in library science concerned with the profession's comprehension of and response to the phenomenology and anomalies of individual reactions to 'the library', this project considers their application to the communal contexts to be found in Micronesia. In the process, the lack of social forces for the development of public library services in Micronesia makes indigenous knowledge, its sources, and its means of transference a problematic, conceptual framework that functions in conflict with librarianship's values in objectivity, literacy, and its concern with the social role of 'the library'. The literature of African librarianship and the increasing importance of indigenous knowledge in agricultural development in the third world is used to further examine the dilemmas evoked by what Schoenhoff (1993) refers to as the "jagged edges" between technology transfer and indigenous contexts. Interviews with political and educational leaders as well as "commoners" in the Marshall Islands and on the island of Pohnpei suggest, however, that the development of a theory of knowledge in Micronesia involves the elements of an oral heritage embodied in traditional, secretive skills related to the sea and land as well as in the forces of acculturation. |
