Tag Archives: library services to Native Americans

Oneida Nation hosts Fifth Convening Culture Keepers

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CCK5 Group Photo
Attendees of the fifth Convening Culture Keepers at Oneida, Wisconsin

On November 8 and 9,  over thirty Wisconsin tribal librarians, archivists, and museum curators at the fifth gathering of Convening Culture Keepers (CCK) hosted by the Oneida Nation.  Eleven SLIS faculty, staff, and students helped organize and attended the event.

Louise asks a little community member a question

Louise asks a little community member a question at the library

The gathering began on Thursday afternoon, with tours of the Oneida Museum, the Oneida Community Library, and Cultural Heritage’s restored log homes.

That evening, the Longhouse provided a delicious traditional meal of squash, beans, corn, venison, and bison, with strawberry drink and dessert.  The dinner was followed by a social dance led by the Oneida Longhouse Singers.

Social Dance

Culture Keepers, LIS students, and Longhouse dancers enjoy the social.

On Friday, Culture Keepers sat in on four professional development sessions.  Shannon Martin (Ojibwe) spoke about the process of designing and maintaining the award-winning Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways, of which she is director.

Her talk, “Building a Community-Driven and Participatory Tribal Museum” was an inspiration to those in the process of building new institutions, like the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa with plans for their new community space.

Debbie Reese (Nambe), author of the blog American Indian’s in Children’s Literature, taught Culture Keepers how to evaluate children’s books in her presentation “The Role of Children’s Books in Native Nation Building”.

Culture Keepers at Parish Hall

Culture Keepers at Parish Hall

Culture Keepers learned about how to create traveling museum exhibits and tours from Mary Olson, a freelance exhibit developer.  She had previously worked with the Arvid E. Miller Library and Museum of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community.

Janice Kowemy (Laguna), president of the American Indian Library Association and director of Laguna Public Library in Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico, spoke about tribal library advocacy.  Her expertise provided Culture Keepers with ideas on promoting their own institutions to their communities and beyond.

Omar, our Presenters, and Rita pose for a picture

The conference planner, host, and speakers pose for a picture: Omar Poler, Shannon Martin, Rita Lara, Debbie Reese, Janice Kowemy, and Mary Olson

Many participants noted that they are excited about future gatherings.  The sixth gathering will be hosted by Lac Du Flambeau in Spring 2012.

Tune in next week for a reflection by SLIS student Mary Wise on her experience at Convening Culture Keepers!

For more information about our fifth Convening Culture Keepers, including the agenda and presenter materials, follow this link.

How did tribal libraries begin, anyway? – TLAM Week 7

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How did tribal libraries begin, anyway?  This week in TLAM, our co-instructor Janice Rice discussed tribal libraries and their complex roles in the communities they serve.

Tribal libraries got their start from the days of native boarding schools. In the Carlisle boarding school, each dorm had its own unofficial “librarian”; someone who kept track of the books some children would receive as gifts from their parents or other sources. Soon, these small collections of books became the dorms’ libraries, where kids could read. However, the faculty at Carlisle closed off these collections or made them accessible only to the teachers.

Tribal libraries were parts of day schools and mission schools. Today, six Wisconsin reservations have/had tribal libraries, including Oneida, Lac du Flambeau, Lac Courte Oreilles, Menominee, Bad River, and Red Cliff (which our class is trying to revive). Tribal colleges like LCO’s also serve as community centers and are often the tribe’s main resource centers, apart from the schools. The Forest County Potawatomi in Crandon, WI also have a prominent tribal center that is a library, museum, and cultural center that provides books, photos, computer classes, a gift shop, and genealogy research. http://www.fcpotawatomi.com/culture-and-history

Tribal libraries receive their funding from several sources, including federal funds through IMLS (Institute for Museum and Library Services), state funds through LSTA (Library Services and Technology Act), the tribe’s own funds, corporate funding and outside grants, and if they are able to set one up, Friends of the Library groups. We discussed the possibility of the summertime travelers possibly becoming members of Friends groups.

Janice also had some ideas about the future of native librarianship. The tribal librarians of tomorrow will need to be more collaborative, especially with museums, archives, and outside tribes, in order to access funding and become stronger. They will need to become accredited, if not at UW-Madison, then perhaps via distance-learning or through programs at their own tribal colleges. The more education and experience the librarians have, the stronger these libraries will become for their community members.

-Crystal Schmidt

Welcome to TLAM 2011!

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How many tribal libraries are there in Wisconsin?

More than three years ago, when asked this simple question, a group of UW-Madison School of Library and Information Studies students recognized a gap in LIS education.  We couldn’t answer the question.

Not only did most of our LIS coursework fail to include examples of how American Indian nations preserve and provide information within tribal communities, it overlooked the valuable contributions indigenous librarianship makes to the entire profession.

As a result, starting in fall 2008, ten students coordinated the first Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums course, the first-ever indigenous information offering at UW-Madison SLIS.  We invited experts from departments across campus to speak, reached out to professionals around the nation for guidance, and, importantly, personally met with tribal librarians, archivists, and museum curators in reservation communities throughout Wisconsin.  From a community of teachers, we learned some of the histories, practices, and concepts of tribal libraries, archives, and museums.  And through visiting, we felt the living, vital part of American Indian cultural institutions.

This year marks TLAM’s third offering.  Still an experimental topics course, it seeks to increase awareness of indigenous information issues within LIS, while creating long-term meaningful relationships with Wisconsin tribal cultural workers.

Check back with this blog weekly to read the impression of entirely new group of TLAM students.  Each week will feature a new student writer reflecting on course topics, guest speakers, relevant events, trips, and final group community projects.  TLAM’s success is the result of a community’s generosity.  We hope to share that gift with you.

Welcome to TLAM 2011!

-Omar Poler

By the way, we discovered that nearly all Wisconsin American Indian communities have cultural preservation institutions.  Here’s a partial list:

Potawatomi Trip

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TLAM student Gabe Gossett takes a look around the Potowatomi Library. Overhead is a section of the mural that wraps around the main room.

TLAM student Gabe Gossett takes a look around the Potawatomi Library. Overhead is a section of the mural that wraps around the main room.

Our second class trip was as delightful and as insightful as our first. We toured the Potawatomi Cultural Center Library and Museum which are all housed in the same building. Kim Wensaut who is the librarian on staff and the director Michael Alloway led the tour beginning in the library area.

The first thing that a visitor notices coming into the library is the enormous mural that is painted around the perimeter of the top five feet of wall to the ceiling. The mural begins with the Potawatomi creation story and goes through the history of the tribe into the modern era. The mural was created by local artists and community members. In the stacks there are approximately 1400 titles, cataloged in a system that Kim created. Although her Master’s is in English not Library Studies, she has familiarized herself with various organizational systems and has created a comprehensive catalog for the collection. The main focus for collection building is acquiring texts that are either written by Native Americans or are focused on Native American knowledge or history. One of the goals of the library is to be a center for Native American research where people can come to self-educate on specifically Indigenous Peoples issues. Kim is also a speaker/student of the Potawatomi language, so there is special interest in building a collection that supports learning/education of Native languages.

The museum part of the Cultural Center is a collection of polished displays that convey well the history and culture of the Potawatomi. The collection consists of many art related artifacts, including many cloth items embellished with intricate beadwork. There is an AV display that features storytelling in Potawatomi and English, and also another that highlights traditional dances.

From the museum we moved downstairs and looked around the archives. The archives were kept in the basement on movable shelving. Mike showed us several artifacts and discussed some of history behind the items. They are still in the process of cataloging everything in the archives, so they expect that to be an ongoing process.
Also in the basement there is a photo studio and darkroom that the newspaper uses on occasion. The final gem of the Cultural Center was the community room.

Museum director Michael Alloway describes the features of the community room at the Potowatomi Museum and Library.

Museum director Michael Alloway describes the features of the community room at the Potawatomi Museum and Library.

At one end of the basement there is a large circular room, with many windows and a kitchen. This room is used to support many community functions, including funerals and feasts. It is designed with access to an outside fire pit for ceremonies and celebrations and even has an elevator so that elders may easily get around the facilities.

After the tour of the Cultural Center, Kim gave us a driving tour of the community. We visited the health center, which is very modern and includes many services, from mental health to dental. This center supports not only tribe members, but also community members from outside the reservation. Then Kim showed us the varoius housing places and center for the elders. We talked about the ongoing tension between the tribe and the other surrounding communites. There has been a history of racism, which still somewhat persists, as well as political and social upheaval due to the casino and gaming. However, there have been many positive changes for the community, like all the places we toured, plus I think a renewed interest in cultural values, like language and heritage. Hopefully, these positive aspects of development will help smooth the road for further growth and understanding in the community.

We finished the day with dinner at the casino. We are were all very grateful to Kim and Mike for there guidance and sharing with us knowledge of their community. The programs and infastructure that have been developed to educate the population I think serve as a great example for other reservations/communites seeking to enhance cultural resources.