http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/westernarchives/vol6/iss1/
Here is the link to articles to the new issue of Journal Of Western Archives. This is an online publicly accessible journal where I serve on the Editorial board. The issue published yesterday is a special issue, the Native American Archives Special Issue, with all articles related to Tribal Archives and collections. This issue brings together the unique conditions, histories, issues, and situations that concern tribes and archivists that manage tribally themed collections. I have contributed to or written three of the articles in this issue. More about this process later, but for now please find the articles using this link.
http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/westernarchives/vol6/iss1/
The project evolved over the course of the last year and a half as an idea advanced at the editorial board meeting in 2013. Aided greatly by Jennifer O’Neal (Grand Ronde), UO University Archivist, and Natalia Fernandez, Oregon Multicultural Librarian at OSU, we developed the themes of the first special Issue around an introduction of the various issues and contexts of Native American archival collections. We planned a second issue related to case studies of tribal collections or Native American collection in repositories. This project is still only in the planning stage. The present special issue of the Journal brings issues of Tribal and Native American collections to the foreground and establishes them as an important subset to be analyzed and developed further. As tribes grow and develop their resources the issues of archival development and tribes will become more complex and important to the field. With 500+ tribes in the US alone, and hundreds of Native American collections in universities and archival and collections institutions, the issues related to Native American archival collections will become more important in the future. I hope that this is a good foundation that publicizes what until now has been mainly a subject of conference discussion, of a few sub-groups and subcommittees within the archival field. This set of papers also comes on the tail of the Oregon Tribal Archives Institution workshop at Oregon State University (2012), which added significant energy to the need for this type of publication, and for it to be publicly accessible.
Thank you to all involved in the various efforts, institutions who have trusted us and valued our efforts through the years, and for all those we will work with in the next era of the discussion and development of Tribal Archives issues and protocols.
