Information systems and digitization of traditional knowledge: Trends in cultural heritage and memory institutions and the WIPO Genetic Resources Treaty*

Abstract Understanding the role of information communication technologies (ICTs) in development, especially in relation to marginalized populations, has been the focus of many related disciplinary categories within the broader ecosystem of information sciences. Akin to a case study, the paper examines the evolving role of two institutional actor categories in the use of information systems for the design of Indigenous knowledge digitization and recordal projects. The first is the umbrella category of cultural heritage or memory institutions (libraries, museums, archives, galleries, monuments, etc.) which implicates the copyright system. The second focuses on genetic resources, and the experience arising from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)'s 2024 treaty on Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge, which implicates the patent system and the role of patent offices. The exploration of these two regimes of intellectual property rights and their associated institutional platforms contributes legal doctrinal insights to complement perspectives from communities of practice within the information sciences concerned with ICT's effects on the developmental aspiration of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs). The study finds a discernible proclivity of cultural heritage and memory institutions to role adjustment toward accommodation of IPLCs' aspirations to development in contrast to the WIPO treaty's unequivocal stance on the untampered orthodoxy of patent offices. Yet, both regimes share the imperative for strategic partnership with IPLCs for the deployment of ICTs for Development (ICT4D). The paper highlights the need for purposeful leveraging of SDG 17—partnership building. It concludes that SDG 17 is underexplored at the intersection of ICT4D, and notes that SDG 17 has potential to strengthen IPLCs in deploying ICTs tools, including digitization and information systems broadly, to the governance of their knowledge.