Award-winning advocate, journalist, and Cherokee Nation citizen Rebecca Nagle opened the conference, shedding light on the lack of representation of Native Americans in media and how it affects public policy. “The stories we tell ourselves about who we are and where we come from inform our public policy,” Nagle said. Through her award-winning podcast This … Continue reading The Stories We Tell
At MPL, taking a conscious approach to diversifying our collection, staff, and services has been essential to our mission. In recent years, our programming efforts have followed a model that encourages staffers to connect with local communities and partners and amplify their voices through collaboration. Through conversations with our partners in the local Indigenous community, … Continue reading Storytellers-in-Residence
Boulley, who is 56, first got the idea for her young adult novel Firekeeper’s Daughter (Henry Holt and Co., 2021), about an 18-year-old Ojibwe girl who helps an undercover FBI investigation, when she was a senior in high school. But she didn’t start writing her debut until she was 44—and the book wasn’t published until … Continue reading ‘We Are Not Relics of the Past’
I am a health science librarian at University of Arizona’s Phoenix Biomedical Campus. I am also Akimel O’odham (Pima) from the Gila River Indian Community. From a Native perspective, the needs of the community are greater than the wishes of the individual. Mask mandates are in place on tribal lands, and colleges and universities occupy … Continue reading Fighting Medical Racism
First, American Libraries Senior Editor and Call Number host Phil Morehart speaks with Emily Florio, senior research services manager at international law firm Hogan Lovells and president of the American Association of Law Libraries, who provides a glimpse into the life and work of a law librarian. Next, Morehart talks with Anne Lucke, librarian at … Continue reading Call Number Podcast: Law Libraries
“I think of those old traditions of poetry, like African and Indigenous traditions all over the world. The poets are the truthtellers,” Harjo said. “They tell the truth that has roots in the spiritual realms and has roots in the very earth itself, in the original teachings. I always like thinking of a poem like … Continue reading “Our Songs Came Through”
Various efforts—including Northern Arizona University’s 2007 “Protocols for Native American Archival Materials,” which was endorsed by the Society of American Archivists in 2018—have sought to remedy this. Still, appropriate handling of Indigenous collections remains sporadic. As a result, institutional claims of ownership and principles of access are sometimes jeopardized. In response, a burgeoning number of … Continue reading Responsive and Responsible
Camille Callison, Indigenous strategies librarian at University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, commenced the American Indian Library Association President’s Program “Honoring and Respecting Relationship: Rethinking Library Praxis” June 25 at ALA Virtual by introducing herself as member of the Tahltan Nation and recapping some of the racist and problematic actions Canada has inflicted upon Indigenous people. … Continue reading Decolonizing Knowledge
Libraries in five states explain how they plan to put their grants to work in the coming months during the census response period. Expanding accessibility Census tract 406 in downtown Dothan, Alabama, is one of the hardest-to-count areas in the country, with a response rate of about 66% in 2010. Nearly half of residents do … Continue reading Granting Libraries’ Census Wishes
At “Perspectives on Outreach to Tribal Libraries,” a February 28 program at the Public Library Association’s 2020 Conference in Nashville, librarians from tribal libraries and the state libraries that support them offered tips for successful collaboration. Have a purpose. Are you from a state or public library that wants to reach out and network with … Continue reading Supporting Tribal Libraries
That’s the number at which literacy levels of all types significantly improve, said Anthony Chow, associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, at “Resources for Rural and Tribal Libraries,” a June 24 session at the American Library Association’s (ALA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C. Of the Blackfeet Nation individuals he … Continue reading Better Literacy for the Blackfeet Nation
But the library is reaching them using an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant. The grant provides broadband Wi-Fi service to Huron’s parks through unused parts of the television broadcast spectrum. Often called “white spaces,” these parts of the spectrum were freed up when most broadcasters switched from analog to digital signals in … Continue reading Wi-Fi in the “White Space”
