Kula: Library Futures Academy

Hello Fediverse! 👋

We are the Kula: Library Futures Academy, a transdisciplinary collider space and incubator at the University of Victoria Libraries.
We explore the changing nature of knowledge creation, preservation, and dissemination—asking what the "library of the future" truly looks like. 🔮

📍We acknowledge and respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Xʷsepsəm/Esquimalt) Peoples on whose territory the University of Victoria stands, and the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.

Follow us for updates on:
🔹 Open Knowledge & Scholarship
🔹 Knowledge Resilience
🔹 Knowledge Democracy
🔹 Our Open Access KULA Journal

#Introduction #Libraries #CdnLib #UVic #AcademicMastodon #KnowledgeDemocracy #OpenKnowledge #OpenScholarship

Trauma-informed archiving asks what responsibility an archive holds toward survivors.

On April 22 at 10 AM PDT, Dr. Ajnura Akbaš of the War Childhood Museum joins the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives project and UBC's Public Humanities Hub to discuss community-engaged approaches to archiving the 1992–1995 Bosnian War.

Part of the Archiving with Care Webinar Series. Moderators: Matt Huculak & Olivia Kozlovic (UVic).

Register: https://ubc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Bby9Y_aZTBiP7hhJ4x2P-Q

@Libraries@fedigroups.social

#Archives #GLAM #TraumaInformed #PublicHumanities #DigitalHumanities #HumanRights #AcademicMastodon #CdnLib #BosnianWar

Books about race, gender, sexuality, colonial history—these are among the most challenged titles in Canadian schools and libraries. 🚫📚

This week is Freedom to Read Week (Feb 22–28), and our colleagues at UVic Libraries have created a display that puts those books front and centre—because the best response to a challenge is to read the challenged books! ✊

Stop by McPherson Library to have a look. 👀

📷 Photos by: @Dieter_Boolean@openbiblio.social

@LibrarianshipCA@mstdn.ca
@bookstodon@fedigroups.social
@books@newsmast.community

#FreedomToReadWeek #IntellectualFreedom #CdnLib #Libraries #UVic #Kula #KnowledgeDemocracy #yyj

What can a century of mountain photographs tell us about a rapidly changing world? 🏔️

The Mountain Legacy Project has spent nearly 30 years combining Library and Archives Canada collections, provincial archives, museum records, and repeat photography from historical vantage points to find out—and now it's a book.

Join us this Thursday (Feb 12, 7 PM) at UVic Libraries (Room A308, DSC) for the launch of Mountain Voices and a panel on why mountains matter and how awe can become action.

Free event, open to everyone. No expertise required - only curiosity. Stay for the reception after!

Register 👇
https://kulaacademy.ca/mountain/

#MountainLegacyProject #GLAM #UVic #Kula #EnvironmentalStudies #CdnLib
#photography #rephotography #VictoriaBC #yyj

We talk a lot about threats to libraries—book bans, political intimidation, budget cuts—as a threat to democracy itself.

But what happens when these institutions built to safeguard democracy become vulnerable to undermining it from within — including through their own budgets funding surveillance capitalism?

That question is raised in "Save Troy: Liberate The Library," a provocative micro-essay by Kula's own @Dieter_Boolean@openbiblio.social, to be published in the new, participative book series 'Bibliothek & Gesellschaft' (Libraries and Society).

📖Read the full argument on our blog 👇
https://kulaacademy.ca/trojanhorse/

📚 Book series link: https://www.bibliothekundgesellschaft.de

#Libraries #Democracy #SurveillanceCapitalism #humanrights #OpenKnowledge #KnowledgeDemocracy #CdnLib #GLAM #Kula

Researchers, educators, students, staff—if open scholarship has ever crossed your mind, this one is for you. 🌱

The Open Science Community Victoria (a Kula seed-funded initiative) is hosting an inter-siciplinary panel on integrating open research practices into teaching:

- Tuesday, March 10 | 3:00–4:30 PM
- UVic McPherson Library (DSC) + online
- Featuring speakers Michael Paskevicius (UVic EdTech), Steve Lindsay (UVic Psychology), and Michelle Harrison (Instructional Designer, Thompson Rivers University).

Register here: 👇
https://libcal.uvic.ca/calendar/dsc/oscv_integrateos

This event offers a welcoming, inclusive space to connect, share, and learn. Everyone is welcome.

Refreshments included!

#OpenScience #OpenScholarship #AcademicMastodon #UVic #TRU #Kula #OSCV #CdnLib #HigherEd #GLAM #yyj

Wonder what Kula is all about? Here's a good place to start. 👇

In an interview with EurekAlert, Kula Director @jmhuculak@mastodon.social talks about what happens when libraries become spaces of collaboration, creativity, and shared inquiry — from reflecting about 'the university being an agreement the past has with the present', to building AI tools for research, to growing flax in a community garden and making paper. Kula is working on connecting the dots (and creating new ones).

Read the full interview ⬇️
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1108762

#libraries #openKnowledge #uvic #GLAM #kula #academicmastodon #knowledgedemocracy #CdnLib

RE: @tibosl@openbiblio.social

We are just as excited about being part of this year's @bibliocon@openbiblio.social as our German friends and colleagues at @tibosl@openbiblio.social – what better time to join forces across the Atlantic and tackle thrilling projects together?

#bibliocon26 #GLAM #bibliotheken #libraries #culturalHeritage

RE: @kula@mstdn.ca

Reminder: This is happening today!
#DigitalPreservation #GLAM #Archives #CulturalHeritage #AcademicMastodon #UPenn

@edwiebe@mstdn.ca SDG = Sustainable Development Goal → an ambitious global framework by United Nations to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity and peace around the world. There a 17 distinct goals. See here → https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Kula and CIFAL Victoria are co-hosting a UN SDG Month Mixer on Friday, March 27: a lunchtime conversation for UVic faculty, staff, and students whose work relates to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Come join us and connect across disciplines, dig into UVic's SDG commitments, and find collaborators.

📅 12–1 pm | 📍 Kula Lounge, Mearns Centre for Learning – McPherson Library

Register ⬇️
https://lib.uvic.ca/sdgmonth2026

Light lunch, coffee, and tea provided.

#SDGs #UVic #Sustainability #AcademicMastodon #VictoriaBC #Kula

In the 1930s, an archaeological team at the Penn Museum captured nearly 300 photographs of Yezidi life in northern Iraq — weddings, pilgrimages, laughing children. After the 2014 genocide destroyed homes, shrines, and local archives, those images took on new meaning.

Our postdoctoral fellow Nathaniel Brunt co-leads the Sersal Project with Penn PhD candidate Marc Marín Webb.

They present on their work at Penn's Middle East Center on April 23, 5:30–7:00 pm ET.

https://mec.sas.upenn.edu/events/2026/04/23/sersal-project-digital-preservation-resistance-after-yezidi-genocide

#DigitalPreservation #GLAM #Archives #CulturalHeritage #AcademicMastodon #UVic #Kula