The humble kūmara. In the right hands, a taste sensation. Even in the wrong hands, hands like mine, the sweet and luscious kumara flavour is still difficult to destroy.
So, when I spotted a poster on display featuring a picture of a kumara at a LIANZA Conference I attended last year, I promised myself I would revisit that poster. I did, but not till much later after the Conference had concluded. And I’m glad I did.
The subject of the poster, “How do you find kumara in the library?” highlights an issue for Māori users of libraries – the ability to locate information and resources in the library using terms familiar to Māori. And kumara, believe it or not, was a subject term that didn’t exist up until quite recently.
Intrigued, I contacted the author and invited her to contribute to the K.I.N blog.
Her response: “But I don’t have a PhD.”
My response: “Neither do I!”
Once we got that initial hurdle out of the way, her enthusiasm took over and before I knew it, I had a blog post in 3 parts. A trilogy if you will. As a result, I will be posting my thoughts on who would win in a Superman vs Batman battle (Spoiler alert: Batman) or my contribution to The Altar of Gratitude, at a later date.
Instead, starting from tomorrow, I will let Melissa’s journey of discovery take centre stage over the course of the week. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
The Kumara image is courtesy of Llez licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
