To Support and Model Native American Library Services
by Loriene Roy
Nearly two million Americans identified themselves as Native American on the 1990 United States census. One third of those reside on over 300 Indian reservations, and the remaining two thirds live in urban or rural settings. When compared to the total population in the United States, there are more young Indians, under 10 years old, and fewer older Indians, 70 years and older. More Indian families are headed by a female head of household. Fewer Indians 16 years and older are likely to be employed; and, if employed, Indians are more apt to work in service areas, farming, forestry, fishing, production, or as operators/laborers. For every $100 that a family in the general U.S. population receives as income, Indian families will receive $62. Almost one out of three (31 percent) American Indians live below the poverty level. Fewer American Indians graduate from high school; fewer hold bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees. Yet, while many in the Indian population are facing socioeconomic stresses, currently there is a growing cultural and educational renaissance underway.
Indians are rediscovering or retaining their culture by establishing genealogy,
reading and inventing literature, reclaiming their Native languages, and becoming
involved with political and social issues such as natural resource management,
reclamation and reburial of human remains, and protection of treaty rights.
This renaissance
is built partially by the work of the American Indian library community, which
has labored for many years to find support for Native American educational needs.
This article highlights an association and a federal agency involved in promoting
library services to Native people and two culturally-based reading initiatives.
The American Indian Library Association (AILA) was created in 1979 as a result of the 1978 White House Pre-Conference on Indian Library and Information Services On or Near Reservations. AILA is an affiliate of the American Library Association (ALA) and conducts its biannual business meetings in conjunction with the ALA Midwinter Meeting and the ALA Annual Conference. Like the other four ethnic organizations affiliated with ALA, AILA works in close cooperation with ALA's Office of Literacy and Outreach Services (OLOS), the office that serves ALA "by supporting and promoting literacy and equity of information access initiatives for traditionally underserved populations." AILA members also maintain close ties with ALA diversity initiatives such as the activities of the Council Committee on Minority Concerns and Cultural Diversity (CCMCCD) and the Spectrum Initiative, ALA's three-year scholarship program aimed at increasing the number of librarians from four underrepresented groups.
AILA supports the establishment, continuance, and improvement of libraries on or near reservations through a variety of mechanisms. It brings together people interested in the library/information needs of Indian peoples through its business meetings and at ALA Annual Conference programs. AILA members are extending their participation internationally through work with Te Ropu Whakahua, the Maori Library and Information Workers (New Zealand), on the deliberation of indigenous intellectual property rights. In addition, AILA serves as a conduit of communication on Native American library development through its members-only electronic discussion list. Further information about AILA is available on its web page at http://www.pitt.edu/~lmitten/aila.html.
In 1984, six years after the White House Pre-Conference, the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA) added Title IV, the Library Services for Indian Tribes and Hawaiian Natives Program. Centered in the U.S. Department of Education, LSCA provided grants for basic and special services for libraries serving Native people. Federal assistance supporting Native American Library Services underwent some changes with the establishment of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in 1996 and the passage of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). The grant program is now administered under the IMLS's Office of Library Services (http://www.imls.gov/).
Indian tribes or Alaska Native villages may apply for three types of grants. Basic Library Services Grants provide small awards in equal amounts. In 1998, 233 tribes, including the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas and the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, received Basic Grants averaging $4,000. A second grant is the $2,000 Technical Services Grant that provides financial support to hire a consultant. Both the Basic Library Services Grants and the Technical Assistance Grants are noncompetitive: all eligible tribes that apply receive funding. The third type of grant is the Enhancement Grant that provides funding for up to $150,000 for projects that last one to two years. Priority areas of assistance include establishing linkages between libraries, assisting libraries with electronic access, enabling acquisition of computer and telecommunications systems, and supporting projects that target underserved populations.
In 1995, the Pueblo of Laguna (New Mexico) received one of nineteen five-year U. S. Department of Education Technology Innovation Challenge Grants to fund Four Directions, a national project to support the development of learning environments for young Native people in rural areas.
The goals of Four Directions are to:
Four Directions enables educators of Native children to develop curricula based on Native learning styles and heritage. Four Directions is a consortium or network of partners on reservation schools and a number of supporting institutions and agencies. Nine Bureau of Indian Affairs-supported schools were selected as initial sites and schools were added in 1996 and in 1997, bringing the total of participating schools to 19.
The schools interpret the mission and goals of Four Directions according to local needs. Each school forms an educational team of up to eight people including teachers, librarians, staff, administrators, children, and community members. Teams are led by one or more facilitators. A Leadership Team, consisting of four representatives from different schools as well as lead partners at the participating universities, assists the Laguna Department of Education Four Directions management staff in decision-making.
The Four Directions Partners are educational institutions, businesses, and cultural institutions. Educational partners provide site-specific support. Haskell Indian Nations University hosts the Four Directions Summer Institute, a seven to ten-day technology camp and cultural exchange. The University of Kansas maintains the Four Directions web page (http://4directions.org) as well as the resource database. The University of New Mexico provides technology support, especially in networking. The University of Texas at Austin team supports curriculum development, delivers two for-credit web-based courses, is responsible for an electronic mentoring project, assists in library development, and is the lead institution in the development of a national virtual museum of the American Indian. Individuals at these educational institutions also serve as liaisons to individual schools. Extended partners include Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, the Sandia National Laboratories, the Heard Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian.
Use of technology in Four Directions is based on Native traditions of sharing, mentoring, and collaborating. Most schools are connected to First Class, a groupware system. First Class provides electronic mail, access to archived collections of software, technical and curricular support documentation, and educational chat-rooms. In addition, teams of educational partners visit schools to provide onsite training. The electronic mentoring project within Four Directions provides a link between individual students, entire classes, and teachers to adult Native mentors who have volunteered to share their expertise. Schools currently use such technology as web page editors, digital audio and video, video editing, and presentation software.
As Four Directions approaches its final year of funding, 1999-2000, the emphasis is on developing collaborative contacts between the participating schools that can be sustained after the funding period. Schools have identified seven subject-area strands: language, history, and story; clothing, shelter, and food; ethnobotany; drum, dance, and song; ethnoastronomy; curriculum; arts, crafts, and games. One example of such collaboration is the Virtual Museum Project.
In 1999, students, teachers, and community members from two schools Santa Clara Day School and Hannahville Indian School traveled to the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in New York City. There, the children created photographic panoramas of the museum exterior, interior, and exhibit area as well as movies of artifacts from exhibits. These panoramas and object movies are linked together, creating a virtual tour that simulates real navigation through the Museum's physical space. When object movies are viewed on the World Wide Web, the viewer has the sensation of picking up an object and turning it. The children who created the movies also wrote accompanying text that is based on research they conducted in the Museum's Resource Center and that reflects their own cultural perspective. When completed, this virtual tour will be available on the NMAI web site at http://www.conexus.si.edu/main.htm. The tour will present to the world cultural objects through the eyes of Native American children. The second phase of the virtual museum project is to develop virtual museums for community use, thus returning to the Indian communities images of their cultural artifacts that have been dispersed to museums.
Many schools serving Native children on reservations are combating issues of low funding and substandard housing and equipment. Many schools function without the guidance and expertise of professionally trained library and information workers. Children may not have access to new, high-quality materials. Children may travel long distances to their schools. These settings are ripe for testing a model that provides children and their adult caregivers with access to reading materials.
Sarah Ann Long, ALA President 1999-2000, selected "Libraries Build Community" as her presidential theme. She voiced her support for both diversity and literacy by providing financial support for testing a community-based literacy project in Indian country. The mission of this program is to assist the Indian community in increasing literacy skills while preserving Native American identity through a transferable model for a school-year-long reading incentive program. Laguna (New Mexico) Elementary School is the test site for year one of the project.
This reading initiative has outlined several fundamental goals. The program's mission includes encouraging children and community members to read for pleasure, fostering inter-generational reading support by providing opportunities to communicate about reading, and promoting library usage. The program also seeks to offer children flexible reading choices that complement and/or extend collections and to improve reading skills within this age group as well as in the larger community. Other stated goals include documenting the impact of a culturally-based reading program and exploring reading and reading-related activities. The project directors hope to achieve these goals by implementing the following objectives:
"If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything" is currently seeking partners who will help ensure that the program expands to other schools on reservations. For ongoing information about this project, see the project web site at http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/~skj/literacy.html.
There is opportunity and energy afoot in Native American librarianship, but there are also great struggles and needs. Some of the factors that impede library development for Native peoples are physical isolation, poverty, high unemployment, high employee turnover, and low education levels. The organizations and projects highlighted in this article strive to make a difference. AILA continues to provide support for Native American library development and is currently involved with supporting a national gathering of tribal librarians and a second international indigenous librarians forum in 2001. Federal assistance continues to be provided through the Native American Library Services grants program, although the low funding, especially of the Basic Grants, does not ensure continuous library service for tribes. Reservation schools participating in Four Directions will soon gather to share progress in curriculum development. The Four Directions virtual museum project is expanding to include the creation of a virtual exhibit for the Heard Museum. Initial funding for Four Directions ends in early fall 2000. "If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything" is completing its test year at Laguna Elementary School with the hope that it will, someday, be a national reading incentive program for children in reservation schools. Libraries serving Native people can be sites of excitement and challenge. The greater library community is welcome to join in supporting these endeavors.
Participating Schools
Loriene Roy is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at The University of Texas at Austin.