Tribal Library Location: Shawnee, Oklahoma
Year Opened: 2006
Service Area Size: 18,000 patrons/year
Square Footage: 800 square feet
Point of Contact: Blake Norton, director of the Cultural Heritage Center
Project Description:
The Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s (CPN) Tribal Library, located in the CPN’s Cultural Heritage Center, developed a digital inclusion lab that focuses on preserving family archival artifacts via digitization and creating communally accessible digital records that contribute to the overall Tribal archive and history. With more than 39,000 Tribal citizens residing in all states and many countries worldwide, the Tribal library wanted its digital inclusion lab to feature both physical and virtual components for all their constituents to be able to access.
To complement the Nation’s existing online genealogical and content management database, Ngetzimek (Ancestors), the library staff plan to develop virtual tutorials that will educate and allow community members to digitize their genealogical historical records. Open access to these community collections for citizens creates a greater sense of inclusiveness, along with cultural and communal connections that are central and necessary to their Indigenous way of life. Knowing who they are helps bind them as a community and as Bodéwadmi.
The Tribal library used its budget to purchase two new large-format document scanners, which will expand their digitization efforts of Tribal records. This will provide access to Tribal citizens to capture, preserve, and document family history and genealogical collections. The associated scanner software will create and catalog high-quality, oversized scans. Common oversized collections that are expected to be scanned include family trees, maps, allotments, and other oversized records. Through scanners and virtual tutorials, this digital inclusion lab equips the community with technological tools and innovative programming to preserve their history and culture through digital mediums.
Best Practices & Lessons Learned:
- Elevate your current resources through digital mediums: CPN’s Tribal library chose not to reinvent the wheel with this project. They had a current resource with their Ancestors database that they wanted to elevate through the digital inclusion lab. By focusing on a resource already available, the library was able to hone its efforts on a specific digital need that could help many of its Tribal citizens, rather than split its budget on various niche resources.
- Create virtual options for your Tribal citizens to participate in their community: CPN’s Tribal library was keenly aware that many of its Tribal citizens lived far from the library’s physical location. It wanted to create a digital inclusion lab that brought Tribal citizens closer to home and their community through the digitization efforts and education of their family history. By creating a virtual component through online tutorials of their digital Ancestors database, CPN was able to make their lab accessible beyond those who were living in Shawnee, OK.