Soutron Social and Community Building Capabilities Cited
San Diego, CA
International library transformation company Soutron Global announces that Maskwacis Cultural College has selected Soutron for their indigenous collection development and librarian training program. Maskwacis is an Indigenous People’s Cultural College based in Alberta, Canada. The college bases their philosophy, process and functioning on the values, wisdom, teachings and beliefs of the Plains Cree Culture.
“Soutron Global provides us with not just a standard ILS software product,” states Manisha Khetarpal, MLIS, MA, Chair of Library Studies and Scholarly Research, Maskwacis Cultural College. “Soutron worked with us to develop the catalog for more than an access point. The Maskwacis catalog is a single window to the world of books, content creation, language learning and content sharing. Soutron is a social and community creating tool with real people conversations.”
At the behest of the respected Keyta-Ayak (Elders) of the community, the college focuses its work on the realization of self-determination for native people through cultural-academic instruction and skill development. The Soutron library solution will provide students attending the Librarian Training Program hands-on training associated with the pillars of the program, one of which is the Culture Keepers role, whose lessons include the Cree indigenous language, reference service, and Indigenous Intellectual property copyright
Since as part of their mission, the college must act in a way that is true to the native way of human development by “seeking harmony with the environment, self and others”, Tony Saadat, the President & CEO of Soutron Global, believes that “the ability of the Soutron solution to build harmonious Social Knowledge Networks around indigenous resources will help the Maskwacis meet their mission and retain their cultural knowledge while providing the community social cultural proof via tagging, rating, blogging.”