Indigenous Peoples

Table of Contents

Best Practices in Authority Work Relating to Indigenous Nations in the U.S. / Latin American and Indigenous Peoples of the American (LAIPA) Funnel 

May 2023

best practices

Best Practices in Authority Work Relating to Indigenous Nations in the U.S. is intended for settlers and other non-Indigenous people with limited experience and knowledge about the complexity around Indigenous sovereignty and group names. For Indigenous peoples, groups include nations, tribes, and distinct native communities which may or may not be recognized by the federal government, but exclude groups with vague claims to native identity for the purpose of misrepresentation. To recognize the distinct identity of Indigenous nations as sovereign entities, and for the ease of reading within this document, we refer to these groups as nations.

This document is specifically constrained to discussing authority work relating to Indigenous nations in the U.S. There are Indigenous peoples throughout the world and while the overarching principles outlined here may apply broadly, different contexts will necessitate different practices. Terminology relating to Indigenous peoples is ever-changing; the members of LAIPA consider this an initial version of this document and publish it with the intention that it will continue to be revised in the future. 

Creating subject headings for Indigenous topics : a culturally respectful guide / Richard Sapon-White, Pamela Louderback, and Sara Levinson

March 2023

Guidance Document / Manual

“This manual provides guidance on creating subject heading proposals for Indigenous topics that can be submitted to the Subject Authority Cooperative Program (SACO) for addition to the Library of Congress Subject Headings.”

Improving Subject Headings for Iowa Indigenous Peoples / Heather M. Campbell, Christopher S. Dieckman, Wesley Teal, Harriet E. Wintermute

in Library Resources & Technical Services. Vol. 66, no. 1

article

As part of a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiative at Iowa State University Library, a working group in the Metadata Services department undertook a project to build, publish, and use a controlled vocabulary of preferred terms for Indigenous communities with ties to land that is now part of the state of Iowa. This paper describes the working group’s research, outreach efforts, published vocabulary, and process for adding the preferred subject headings to library metadata.

Land Acknowledgement and Indigenous Metadata Resources / PCC Advisory Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ACDEI)

May 2023

resource list

List of resources to aid PCC members in developing greater awareness of Indigenous peoples and an understanding of the issues involved in making land acknowledgement statements, as well as Indigenous issues within metadata contexts.  The list is not intended to be comprehensive nor exhaustive.  PCC members are actively encouraged to seek out additional resources, and the PCC ACDEI welcomes additions to the list.

Metadata to Support Indigenous Knowledge & Non-Traditional Outputs / Stacy Allison-Cassin, Melissa Stoner

NISO DEIA Webinars, Workshop #3, December 6, 2021

recording & slides

• Recording

• Slides

• Resources & Websites

Misrepresentation in the Surrogate: Author Critiques of “Indians of North America” Subject Headings / Julia Bullard, Brian Watson, Caitlin Purdome

in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly. Vol. 60, issue 6-7 (2022)

article

The surrogate record for a book in the library catalog contains subject headings applied on the basis of literary warrant. To assess the extent to which terms like “Indians of North America” are accurate to the content of the items with that label, we invited the items’ creators to critique their surrogate records. In interviews with 38 creators we found consensus against the term “Indians of North America” and identified a periphery of related terms that misrepresent the content of the work, are out of alignment with their scholarly communities, and reproduce settler colonial biases in our library systems.

Open access institutional repository version: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0416394

Recording Creator Characteristics for Native American Authors: An Analysis of Bibliographic Records / Elizabeth Hobart 

in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly. Vol. 58, issue 1 (2020).

article

The MARC 21 field 386 in bibliographic records allows catalogers to record demographic terms for creator and contributors. In 2015, the Library of Congress published the first terms in the Library of Congress Demographic Group Terms (LCDGT). The MARC 21 field 386 and LCDGT are promising tools for providing better access to works by Indigenous authors. Currently, however, lack of appropriate terminology in LCDGT can be a barrier to implementation and discovery. This article examines how the MARC 21 field 386 is being used to describe Indigenous authors by finding records using this field, studying terminology used, and considering its efficacy.

Open access institutional repository version: https://scholarsphere.psu.edu/resources/75380f89-1aca-49e0-8a85-e8158c93368e

Subject Headings for Indigenous Peoples / Library of Congress

Last updated: 7/26/2023

Guidance Document / Manual

The Library of Congress is committed to updating the Indigenous names of the United States in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). The announcement for Evaluation of Headings for Indigenous Peoples states the foundational principle for this work. In the meantime, this webpage offers guidance on how to handle proposals related to ethnic groups.

Unsettling the Library Catalog: A Case Study in Reducing the Presence of “Indians of North America” and Similar Subject Headings / Karl Pettitt, Erin Elzi

in Library Resources & Technical Services. Vol. 67, no. 2

article

As the University of Denver (DU) has begun to accept and wrestle with its history, the DU Libraries have looked for ways it may be perpetuating the harms done to Indigenous populations. An example of this work can be seen in the libraries’ work on changing the displayed terminology used in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to more current and appropriate headings that respect and correspond to the terminology used by the populations they are meant to represent. This article provides background for this work through a literature review and a more detailed account of how this topic is directly related to the institutional history of DU. A discussion of the specific steps and procedures taken to implement this change is followed by the obstacles encountered along the way and how they were overcome.