The trip began early and by noon the class had arrived at Lac Courte Oreilles Community College.  Following a hearty lunch in the dining area and a quick tour of the Pipe Moustache auditorium, Janice and Omar visited Jerry Smith.  By 3 pm the group had reconvened and final preparation of the conference space began.  As planned, a visit was made to the Wadookodaading Ojibwe Language Family Learning Night and not only did the class get to join in on a tour of the classrooms, but was also generously invited to stay for the evening’s meal.  Needless to say, class reviews of the school tour were enthusiastic.

The night did not end here, however.  Joining several other conference attendees the class ventured back over to the community college to view a photo slideshow jointly presented by Wisconsin Heritage Online and the Langlade County Historical Society.  The Historical Society is currently collaborating with Wisconsin Heritage Online to place a collection of photographer Arthur Kingsbury’s photographs online and both organizations, along with several members of the TLAM class, have been working diligently to identify many of the Native Wisconsin individuals portrayed in this collection.  Conference attendees were asked to chime in with any knowledge they had of people, places, or events portrayed in the slideshow presentation.

The following day began bright and early with coffee, donuts, and a morning prayer lead by Jerry Smith in the auditorium.  The first session of the day was lead by UW-Madison School of Library and Information Studies’ Professor Louise Robbins.  “Starting a Tribal Cultural Institution: Brainstorming Session to Help Communities without a Library, Archive or Museum” asked for advice and discussion of issues from conference attendees.  A variety of questions were asked including where to look for funding in the beginning stages of such a project, possible tribal partnerships, and what solutions others had employed to sustain the institution and its staffing levels.

The conference then segued to two other presentations: Emily Pfotenhauer’s “Going Digital with Wisconsin Heritage Online” and the College of Menominee Nation Library’s  “Digitizing Special Menominee Collections.”  Giving her second presentation in just 24 hours, Emily Pfotenhauer offered several reasons for digitizing items including protection from wear and tear and the added presence of these items online for new audiences like schoolchildren, homebound Elders, and tourists.  She also shared the organization’s goals and offered training and support to organizations interested in digitization projects.

Monique Tyndall along with several of her College of Menominee Nation colleagues then presented a description of their team’s experiences with simultaneously cataloging and digitizing their special collections.  Focused on termination and restoration of the Menominee’s federal sovereignty, many of the relevant papers were stored in a former morgue and were often victims of brittleness, mold, and water damage. Descriptions of the team’s process and 10-year plan were inspiring.

Following a short break, the group reconvened to take part in an activity lead by UW-Madison School of Education’s Ryan Comfort.  After an introduction, Ryan asked the eight groups to complete four tasks:
1)    Identify a resource that tells an indigenous story well
2)    Describe why this resource came to mind
3)    Tell why makes it a “good” resource
4)    Detail how culture was reflected in the reasons for selection

Groups quickly delved into this task and when asked a variety of resources were brought up in response.  Two groups referenced Edward Benton-Banai’s “The Mishomis Book: The Voice of the Ojibway” and it was praised for its clear and vivid illustrations for youth.  Other groups identified indigenous artifacts, photographs, technology, and Elders, themselves, as resources that ‘tell an indigenous story well.’  There was no shying away from the fact that many felt a level of discomfort as well as pride in certain items.  By sharing or publishing resources, one person pointed out, cultures open themselves up to plagiarism and “skewing” of their ideas and traditions.

At this point, the conference attendees broke into two separate groups to attend Nicolette Meister’s “Preserving Cultural Collections” and David Benjamin’s “Care Handling, and Accessing Visual Materials in Archival Collections.”  Nicolette Meister’s presentation was held in one of the college’s biology classrooms and was a great descriptive and hands-on learning opportunity.  The Curator of Collections for the Logan Museum of Anthropology at Beloit College in Wisconsin, Meister described some of her work with cultural collections and the challenges that preservation brings.  Not only did she pass around samples of relevant preservation materials, Nicollete also had prepared an annotated bibliography with a resource list, packing and rehousing supplies, archival storage materials, and book box construction instructions.

David Benjamin led an equally informative workshop detailing the care of visual materials in archival collections.  His first piece of advice for those beginning photo projects was “Don’t panic; avoid becoming overwhelmed.  Just dig in.”  He then dug into the many details surrounding digital photography, daguerreotypes, silver nitrate images, card photos, and stereographs.  Several questions were posed by attendees concerning the preservation of these images; answers to these questions were sometimes deceptively simple or nuanced due to the fragility of the items.  In the end, Benjamin offered several pieces of advice, the strongest of these being to have in place a disaster preparation plan, stay current on technology, and not view digitization as actual permanent preservation.

The LCO Elders Association generously provided lunch to all the attendees.  On the menu was meatloaf, gravy, vegetables, cake, and frybread, as well as to-go boxes for anyone that so desired.  Following lunch and the switch to alternate workshops, attendees were asked to fill out evaluations as the conference wound to an end.  Without a doubt, it was a jam-packed two days and the information discussed and presented will continue to be remembered and mulled over by attendees for the next several weeks and months!

-Hannah Gray

I became interested in native Americans very early because I have always identified myself very strongly with this state: my sister said to me recently that I am “100 percent Wisconsin”, which I take as a compliment. I chose the project of doing these pictures because the pictures come from Langlade County, my ancestral soil

Native peoples originally had these touristic photographs taken of them for an economic purpose, but by their participation in such an economy they subverted the photographic intent to depict them as “primitives” Nancy Mithlow, a professor of Apache descent from Oklahoma, described how the capacity of images allowed Native people to subversively claim power, despite dire circumstance. I was also fascinated to learn about the history of tourism in the Wisconsin Dells and how closely this was correlated with the closing of the frontier and a changing way of life for native communities.. As always, images and narratives convey and confer power. It is the task of Native people, and hopefully yours truly, as an ally in sympathy, to repossess these narratives for their own use.

I saw the Stockbridge-Munsee reservation and museum as an attempt by the Stockbridge Mohicans to do just that; reclaim their own history for their own purposes. Sn exhibit described Mohican traditional ways and boldly, bluntly declared that the “spiritual journey of the Mohican people” was “interrupted” by the arrival of missionaries. I was also mindful of the bi-linguality of the museum’s signs, and its attempt to preserve the Stockbridge and Munsee languages The director of the museum showed us basketry, beadwork and other historical artifacts in the archives downstairs, including medals given by the President to one of their notable chiefs, John Quinney, and a copy of his heartrending speech, given upon the occasion of the tribe’s removal from New York to Wisconsin.

It is a good place, although it could use more funding and space, as all such institutions could.. All library school students must do an unpaid practicum in a library prior to graduation. Why not enroll them as a practicum site, especially if we have distance students who may already be local to the area?

At the Menominee Reservation, we were shown around the library there by Monique Tyndall. Their collections were unique and extensive. This library was geothermal and ecologically sound, and it too was doing its part for language preservation, with English and Menominee words for everything being listed up front. This gave me a great insight into the Menominee world-view, which seems descriptive of totally different things and has a totally different emphasis.

The Menominee cultural museum talked about the sturgeon and showed artifacts related to that. It also was designed in a round shape, like a medicine lodge, for people to hold ceremonies. Chief Oshkosh’s portrait was there, in his colorful top hat.  My group and I were pulled into a back room and got the rare, amazing opportunity to talk to the current Menominee Elders, including a man named John G. John G. showed us how various Menominee clothes were made, and showed us the eagle-feather belt, otter-fur staff and tobacco pouches that represent the life and health of the whole Menominee Nation and its four clans. We were also invited to a Sturgeon Feast. We saw the Wolf River, which was lovely, I want to say that I am grateful for the opportunities this class has thrown my way. I’m really happy to be participating in Native communities and I hope that one day I can be doing the kind of work that makes a difference, both to them and to me. With that objective, sorting the Langlade County photo collection and my work there will enable family members to identify ancestors and kin, and reclaim them from the colonizer’s gaze, as simply people allowed to be people.

-Mark Langenfeld

At 5 am on a Sunday morning in early April, a small band of TLAM-ers (Instructor Omar Poler, and students Hannah Gray, Sarah Morris, and myself) left Madison to visit the Bad River and Red Cliff Ojibwe reservations and learn more about their current library projects. In particular, we were scheduled to attend the meeting of the Red Cliff Library board as part of the ongoing TLAM partnership with Red Cliff.

This being Wisconsin in spring, the weather was appropriately unpredictable as we made our way north. Snow, sleet, fog, and a little thunder and lightning in Wausau nearly undid the trip before it had barely begun. But after propping up our spirits with breakfast and coffee, we ventured forth in our little university-owned hybrid, albeit cautiously. I have to point out, in case you don’t already know, how beautiful this part of Wisconsin is.  The forests seem to stretch on forever, and the moisture heavy atmosphere hanging low over the trees lent a gentle sleepy feel to the landscape despite the bracingly cold rain that continued to fall throughout the day.

Finally, we made it past the bad weather up to the Bad River reservation to meet with tribal chairman Mike Wiggens Jr., librarian Norma Soulier, and the Rural Libraries Project team of Dan White and Sarah Wynn. The Bad River reservation is in the midst of an attempt to convert a fire-damaged former health clinic into a new library facility for the tribe. They are rapidly running out of space at their current library location nearby and are hoping the clinic can be renovated to suit their needs. We initially met with Norma, Dan and Sarah inside the old clinic as they inspected the now gutted building and talked about possible uses for the space. The building looked like it could be new construction, a small patch of charred support beams laced underneath an opening in the roof the only indication of the fire that forced the building to be abandoned. Dan and Sarah, who are based in Atlanta, GA took pictures and measurements. Afterward we returned to the current library where we met with tribal chairman Mike Wiggins and more plans were discussed.

After leaving the reservation we ate dinner with Dan and Sarah in Ashland. Dan White and Sarah Wynn created the Rural Libraries Project, a nonprofit dedicated to helping rural communities build sustainable library facilities. Although most of their work so far has been in the southern United States, they are currently building relationships with tribal communities here in Wisconsin and are proving to be an excellent resource as the tribes move forward with their library plans.

The following day we met up with them again in Bayfield and made our way just out of town to the Red Cliff reservation casino for a meeting with the newly formed Red Cliff Library Board. The board is in the midst of a project to build a new library and community center. Red Cliff has not has a library in many years and the community is eager to bring a new and improved library to the community. Plans are in the works to request a piece of land from the tribal council for the purposes of building the library, as well as other cultural buildings in the future. The meeting reflected an energetic and optimistic mood amongst the attendees. Library Board chairwomen Beth Paap led the meeting and Dan and Sarah discussed their ideas on how they can help the Red Cliff project. On our end, we discussed the grant opportunities we are researching for the library, including funds for both construction and programming. After the meeting wrapped, the TLAM group joined Dan and Sarah on a short fieldtrip out to the tentative future library site. Afterward we piled back into the car for the long trip back to Madison. It was a whirlwind two days, and we met with many great people and learned  much that will help us with our piece of the Red Cliff project and beyond.

A week after our group returned from Red Cliff I, along with fellow TLAM-er Emma Zoch, had the opportunity to attend the State of the Tribes address at the state capitol. Representatives from Wisconsin’s 11 recognized tribes were present for the address. This year the address was given by Mike Wiggins Jr., tribal chairman for the Bad River reservation, whom I had the pleasure to meet during our visit to the Bad River library. The morning event started with an opening ceremony at the east entrance of the capitol. There was a procession around the building after which we were ushered through security lines to the Assembly Chamber gallery, where members of the public we allowed to watch the address along with members of the legislature. This event provided me with a unique opportunity to observe both the State Assembly in session as well as a highly important and symbolic communication between the tribes and the state political body.

Mr. Wiggins took the opportunity to speak about the economic contributions of our state’s tribes and to talk about environmental stewardship of our natural resources for the benefit of all Wisconsin residents and their descendents. After his speech the Assembly recessed for a reception and refreshments. The event was very well attended; the gallery was filled to capacity with tribal members, state and local government employees, members of university administration, university students, school children and the general public.

-Kaitlin Dunn

Our topic this week focused on Knowledge Organization concerning tribal libraries and museums.  To give a base knowledge of this issue we read Ann Doyle’s “Naming and Reclaiming Indigenous Knowledge: Intersections of Landscape and Experience” (2006) and Holly Tomern’s “Classification, Bias and American Indian Materails” (2003) which I think gave our class a lot of background on why classification systems create a gap between our typical thoughts on organizing information and the Indigenous populations access to that information.

What really inspired us was that there are systems out there that can help bridge this gap.  The Brian Deer Classification System is a system that was created to tailor to the needs of tribal libraries and museums to better serve their users.  What was really interesting was our discussion on the FCP Library classification system which sort of melds both types of classification systems.  Using categories like Oral Traditions/Legends along with typical categories like History and Literature they’ve devised a system that best suites their users.

Our class then discussed issues about how history affects cataloging and how online cataloging has vastly changed how people find items using keyword searches.  And while there is some flexibility in the system to tailor to your needs there are concerns about ILL and other cataloging issues that librarians and museums have to be watchful of.  Most importantly though is that we feel there is an obligation to apply native world views and perspectives to reclaim and revitalize the culture when talking about tribal libraries and museums, and even those libraries outside of those systems.

Finally, our class discussed the various projects we’re working on with tribal libraries and museums around Wisconsin.  We all agreed that the relationships we’re building with these tribes and the University are relationships that will continue long into the future, and are really the most exciting part of the class so far.  Overall, everyone has a lot of enthusiasm about our group projects which is pretty inspiring to see.

-Kristen Erickson

TLAM 2011 at the Arvid E. Miller Library/Museum with Betty and Nathalee

“To be an Indian is having non-Indians control the documents from which other non-Indians write their version of your history.” --William T. Hagan, “Archival Captive—The American Indian.”

Although the sheer volume of American Indian archival materials in non-native collections is overwhelming, and Indians will necessarily continue to be dependent “upon the collections over which non-Indians preside,” there is, according to William Hagan, a growing movement among tribes to take an active interest in their own histories, and in the development of their own tribal archives. This movement became palpable to the nine TLAM students who traveled to northern Wisconsin for a visit to two tribal libraries/archives earlier this Spring. Below is an account of their trip.

Our first TLAM class field trip began at the College Library cul-de-sac on Thursday afternoon, March 24, where our two-vehicle caravan set off for Bowler, Wisconsin, home of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. Three hours later, we arrived at Konkapot Lodge, a tribal business located on the 22,139-acre reservation. After settling into our rooms and admiring the hand-hewn log construction of the great room, we eleven intrepid travelers piled back into our vehicles and headed for the North Star Mohican Casino Resort, a mile up the road. After a dinner of Indian Tacos and other quasi-native fare at the Longhouse restaurant, we took our chances on the casino floor, using the $15 gift cards provided by the lodge and the casino itself. The big winner of the night was Troy, who dominated the Blackjack table for the short amount of time allotted to us for gambling. Hopefully, his windfall provided adequate compensation for his having to shoe-horn himself into the rear seat of the van with Hannah and Kaitlin for the duration of the trip!

After a quick breakfast at the lodge on Friday morning, we made our way to the Arvid E. Miller Library and Museum, the official depository for the public records of the Mohican Nation, Stockbridge-Munsee Band. Nathalee Kristiansen, manager of the library and museum, greeted us with a warmth and good humor that would characterize many of our interactions with the various tribal members we would encounter on our trip. Seated at a round conference table surrounded by photographs of tribal elders on the walls, we first watched a short film on the history of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe, “We Are Still Here,” as told by a handful of the tribal Elders. As the film concluded, a tall, gregarious man named Joe Miller, a Tribal Council member, entered the building and proceeded to tell us all how very much he appreciated our visit to the museum, and to offer whatever help he could to make our brief stay more enjoyable and meaningful. Mr. Miller’s courtesy, graciousness, and sense of humor typified our group’s experience as a whole during our all-too-brief sojourn in northern Wisconsin.

The displays of artifacts at the Arvid A. Miller Library and Museum were the focus of our attention after the film, and included a wigwam; stone and wood tools and weapons; ceremonial objects; lacrosse sticks; a map showing the Stockbridge-Munsee’s migrations over the last three centuries; photographs from the mission school period; a model of a former logging community; and a collection of tribal bibles, including the very famous Vinegar Bible, originally a gift to the New York Mohicans from the Prince of Wales’ prelate in the 18^th century, that became lost for a time and was eventually repatriated to its present tribal home in the 1990s. Betty Groh, the museum tour guide and Elder, kindly answered our questions, and humorously volunteered that she didn’t look much like an Indian because, “My grandfather made the mistake of marrying a Swede.”

The library/museum’s collection has outgrown its home, but our group was privileged to visit its archives in the basement, where new storage units were opened for us and revealed a variety of baskets, tools, textiles, etc. Larger items, including several drums, sat atop shelves and file cabinets holding maps and written materials. There was so much to take in, in that cramped space, and we felt some disappointment that we didn’t have more time to explore the archive’s treasures.

Leaving Bowler, we headed northeast to the reservation of the Menominee Nation, 235,523 wooded acres straddling the Wolf River, 45 miles northwest of Green Bay. With 8,551 tribal members, the Menominee are, unlike the Stockbridge-Munsee, native to Wisconsin. After lunch at the Forest Island restaurant (featuring a corn-less Indian corn stew) in the Menominee Casino Resort Complex, our TLAM tribe visited the stunning new library building on the campus of the College of Menominee Nation, next door to the resort. A “green” building with geothermal heating and cooling system and electric power, the library felt warm and inviting, with honey-colored woodwork, a stone fireplace, large plate-glass windows on every floor looking out on the surrounding forest, and that inimitable fresh, clean smell of a barely-used-because-it’s-so-new edifice. Continuing our VIP treatment, the director of the library archives, Maria Escalante, wel-comed us on the main floor and led us to the library’s lower level, where her staff waited to greet us. After a brief talk about the library and the archival collection, we were free to examine a table of stunning black-and-white photographs taken by National Geographic magazine, for a 1974 story on the Menominee of Wisconsin. Hoping to add the photographs to its collection and display them, Monique Tyndall expressed frustration that she could not get a response from NG. Eventually, we were led to the archive itself; on the way, several of us noticed a whiteboard in a small office, with an outline of the plan for our visit written on it: Yet another example of the respect, courtesy, and focused attention we received throughout the day. In contrast to the Stockbridge-Munsee archives, the Menominee’s were housed in the state-of-the-art library building, with much more generous space for its automated track shelving, conservation area, storage, etc.

After a relatively brief tour of the library’s upper floors, including a chat with the children’s librarian, we drove a short distance to the Menominee Cultural Museum, another brand-new building whose main exhibition area was unfinished and largely empty (save for an enormous model of a sturgeon, a primordial fish held sacred by both the Stockbridge-Munsee and the Menominee; a birchbark canoe; and a motley assortment of other artifacts.) Again, we were warmly greeted (even though we weren’t expected) and allowed to poke around. While a tribal Elder lured a few of our group into a back room for a private viewing of more historical objects and personal stories, the rest of us walked across the road to the logging camp museum. There we watched a tall, muscular gentleman work on a deer hide that was stretched across a vertical pole frame, close to the wood stove that kept the 100’ long log structure, a replica of the camp’s bunkhouse, relatively warm. With its walls, rafters, and just about every other surface covered with antique tools—mostly axes—I think most of us were anxious to move on to the cookhouse next door, with its less menacing artifacts (super-sized pots, pans, utensils, etc., cast-iron stove, and inconceivably long plank dining tables.)

As Shawano County had been blessed with 18” of new snow a few days before our visit, most of the authentic buildings at the camp were inaccessible, we ended up taking a short car trip to scenic Keshena Falls on the Wolf River, itself the heart of the Menominee reservation.

Although we only got to scratch the surface of the tribal libraries and archives we visited, the visit left an indelible impression on all of us, one that I believe will lead many in our group to make the trip to Shawano County again in the future.

-Becky Brumder

Jennifer gave us an overview of how the Wisconsin Historical Museum functions and the services it provides to the public, particularly programs aimed at education and children.  She explained how the ongoing protests across the street at the state Capitol have affected the daily work of Museum employees and the financial side of things at the site.  Due to numerous school field trip cancellations over the fear of non-existent violence at the protests, the Museum has not experienced the same financial uptick that many area restaurants have experienced in the past few weeks.  While this did not relate directly to TLAM’s class topic, it illustrated a way in which museums or other public education institutions in more urban areas could be affected by politics and civic unrest.  As many of us in the class may work in the management of libraries, archives, or museums someday, this point illustrated to us a problem we may encounter someday.

After a background explanation of the Museum’s permanent exhibit on Wisconsin’s Native American history, “People of the Woodlands,” our class toured the exhibit.  The exhibit has existed in a physical form for 25 years now.  However, factoring in the years of planning, developing, and building the exhibit, it is closer to 40 years old.  As a result, parts of the exhibit are outdated, both technologically and informationally.  The treaty section in particular needs some updating, as it portrays Wisconsin Native American tribes in a negative light and deprives them of any voice in the narrative of the Prairie du Chien treaty making.  A future project of the Museum will be to re-do this part of the exhibit and incorporate an Indian perspective.  Another update to the exhibit would be to include more contemporary parts of Wisconsin Indian life as well as give greater labels credits to artifacts and photos in the exhibit, as well as better contextual explanations for items.  We also saw an exhibit about Potawatomi Chief Kahquados and observed how museum objects, archival materials, and community input contributed to this installation.

To wrap up our visit to the Wisconsin Historical Museum, Jennifer explained to us how repatriation works and what the Museum and Historical Society has done to follow the guidelines of NAGPRA.  We heard the disheartening story of a curator of the Museum who stole from collections and how the aftermath of that both strained and strengthened ties between the Museum and Wisconsin tribes.  This week’s visit gave our class a greater understanding of repatriation and NAGPRA, as well as insight into how a museum can approach and collaborate with Native American groups to update and create exhibits in a culturally sensitive manner.

-Emma Zoch

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

Dr. Larry Nesper, an assistant professor in American Indian studies program at the University of Wisconsin, was a guest speaker Feb. 24 in the Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums class. During a PowerPoint presentation, Nesper, author of The Walleye War, chronicled government documents, treaties, and court decisions that eventually enabled American Indians to fish and hunt on ceded land.

In the 1800s, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld sovereignty for American Indians, Nesper explained. In the following century, that sovereignty was eroded in another series of laws and treaties. Treaties of 1837 and 1842 were central documents regarding American Indian hunting and fishing rights. In those treaties, the Ojibwe ceded land in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan but retained rights to hunt, fish, and gather off-reservation. When the Ojibwe attempted to exercise those rights in the 1950s, it set off another round of litigation. However, the 1983 watershed decision in Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Voigt reaffirmed American Indians’ rights to hunt, fish, and gather off-reservation. Federal Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in 1991 that the state could not interfere with Ojibwe hunting, fishing, and trapping on public lands within the ceded territory in Wisconsin. These rulings set off racist protests at boat landings during the walleye harvest.

Spearfishing continues today. However, the tradition is allowed only on certain lakes, and bag limits are enforced. State game wardens monitor the harvest, and every fish is measured and identified. The number of fish harvested during the spawn is a tiny fraction of the overall haul taken during the standard fishing season.

Mike Cross, director of public library development for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, also spoke to the class Feb. 24. He explained how state library law affects public libraries, including Wisconsin’s five tribal libraries. The law mandates that library directors attain certification, that libraries are open at least 20 hours per week, and that they spend at least $2,500 annually on materials. In return, libraries receive state services and are eligible for federal funding.

The department is considering establishing less restrictive rules for tribal libraries, but such action would require passage of legislation. These rules will be important as the class tries to help build a public library on the Red Cliff Reservation.

It seems particularly appropriate that the tensions in Madison have erupted as we have been reading about American Indian law and tribal relationships to the US government; the readings this week have made me think a lot about the relationships between the various levels and forms of government in our country.  As our focus has been on the Wisconsin State Capitol building this week, our academic minds have been examining the legal structure laid out for tribes historically and in the present.

We read two chapters from A Companion to American Indian History (eds. P.J. Deloria and N. Salisbury) to give us some background into the history of the three way relationship between Indian tribes, the US government, and individual states.  Relationships between individual tribes and the US government have been varied and complicated, employing language to be reinterpreted at the convenience of the federal government and constantly whittling down the rights of tribes to the detriment of their members.  If the relationships between tribes and the federal government are complex, the relationships between tribes and states are labyrinthine.  Disproportionate formal study has been done on state-tribe relationships compared to federal, which is interesting given the history of conflict between tribes and states as each entity tries to coexist in a complicated political environment.

In our constant goal to connect history, politics and librarianship, the last article we read for this week dealt with the complexities of law librarianship in relation to tribal collections.  Carter argues that law librarians should approach Indian law not just as another subject, but as a different paradigm; it is important to cover both the way federal law applies to tribes, as well as how internal tribal laws work.  It is also necessary to keep in mind that this information will differ depending on the specific tribe, as each individual tribe has different internal laws and sovereign status.  This segment of law has been previously neglected in law librarianship.

The take home message from this week, as far as I can see it, is this: law is complicated and history is messy.  As we all consider our political stances and constitutional understandings, we should keep these two facts in mind.

-Rebecca Karr

This week in class we spent a 2 hour and 30 minute session going over just this. There is no short answer in sight, but rather an overview of the engaging discussion that my classmates and I experienced through the insight of guest lecturer Ryan Comfort from the American Indian Curriculum Services, School of Education.  As he began his presentation, it became apparent that it would be theme based, integrative, and interactive. The skillful address of the number four as the main theme connected everyday life with the epistemology if indigenous practice.  We did four exercises, related those exercises to four elements, and explored the hidden connection that this concept of four has to our everyday lives.

The first exercise required each individual to channel a raw and unexposed part of their inner connection to a place or thing and further express this connection in the format of an ‘I Am’ poem. The poem was not limited to a scheme or a meter preference, but rather to a channeling of the senses. It went something like this:

I am the mist on a brisk autumn day
I am the sunshine peeking through the fray
I am the crisp scent of morning after a wee rain storm
I am the craggy rock beneath your feet after the dew is gone
I am the dampness on your cheeks and the salt from your tears
I am the last harvest of heather, home of the Scottish hills.

My motives for sharing this poem do not stem from vanity, but rather to express a key element of Ryan’s presentation. “Think, pair, share.” All of the exercises that we engaged in held this requirement, which was both beneficial and at times uncomfortable.

Now for the unveiling of the magic number four. Ladies and gentleman I present to you the medicine wheel!

The attributes of beliefs, values, the physical, and mental are all embodied through the medicine wheel to demonstrate the importance of connection. With the progression of Ryan’s exercises, it became clear that he was aiming to demonstrate this connection through the focused intent behind each activity. For example, where the second exercise focused on listing what we individually knew about Native Americans and where we got this information, the third exercise forced us to discern if our information came from a credible source. Of course, then the question became, what is a credible source? But this is yet another example of something that cannot be answered in a generic way as it differs greatly with each discipline.

Now we move forward to yet another connection that Ryan wove into his presentation. Being that he was catering to an audience of library school graduate students, he modified his last and fourth exercise to fit nicely with the other requirements of the TLAM course. Through this exercise, we were asked to brainstorm on ways the process of learning about indigenous culture could be incorporated in the public library setting. Sounds like an easy task, but it was full of unexpected challenges. Concerns about budget, appropriateness, receptiveness from the respective population the library serves, and accuracy of information all warred for dominance. Thankfully, this was not an answer that we needed to have that same day. However, it is an exercise that I feel Ryan hoped we would carry with us during our journey as library, archive, and possibly museum professionals.

By: Sarah Morris

Week 4: 2/10/11