>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ Silence ]
>> Guha Shankar: Hi, good morning,
how's everybody doing, great.
All right, thank you all so much for
coming, it's a pleasure to host you,
I'm Guha Shankar, I'm one of
the folklorists here on staff
at the American Folk Life
Center, the Library of Congress.
I wanted to thank everybody
who's made it here today,
colleagues from near and afar.
Especially you folks, you know
you have a long journey in terms
of where your communities are
and where you want
your communities to go.
We are here to help you
get as far down that road
as we possibly can,
here at the library.
In just a few minutes I'm going
to turn it over to Betsy Peterson,
my Chief who's going to welcome
you to the library officially,
so this is the off the
cuff remarks over here.
A couple housekeeping announcements,
there is some coffee back
there thanks to Rachel and Kara
and other folks from
MNMH, so help yourselves.
This side coffee, that
side collections,
just that's the dividing
line, right, so thank you.
All right well, welcome again to the
Library of Congress, I'm really glad
that you all are here, you're going
to hear some exciting presentations
and we believe we've achieved
critical mass in terms
of participants, there maybe a
few stragglers here and there
but I'm sure as part of your
homework you will fill them
in on what happened this morning,
including the visit to the bowels
of the Jefferson Building
for some of you
and the lovely electrical closet.
I can take you on later
on if you want to, okay.
And so let me turn it over right
now to my Director, Betsy Peterson
from the American Folk Life Center.
[ Applause ]
>> Betsy Peterson: I think you're
journey was made much longer this
morning by the commute
but welcome to Washington,
D.C. it wouldn't be an
authentic experience
without an adventure on the Metro.
So as Guha said my names is
Betsey Peterson I'm the Director
of the American Folk Life Center
here at the Library of Congress.
And on behalf of the
librarian, Dr. Carla Haden I want
to welcome you all here and welcome
all participants to the 2017 Breath
of Life Archival Institute
for Indigenous Languages.
Thank you for all of the
efforts you make to revitalize
and sustain the cultural heritage
traditions of your home communities.
We at the library are deeply
honored so be working with you
in the preservation
and access effort.
I know you will have many
appointments over the next week
to ten days at other archival
facilities throughout Washington.
D.C. and very shortly you're
going to learn a lot more
about the libraries research
centers and the resources
that we have housed here.
But I thought it would be
interesting for you to keep
in mind a couple of things about
the library to give you a little bit
of context and a little bit of
context about the collections here.
That our acquisitions and collection
management policies, quote,
cover virtually every
discipline and field
of study include the entire range
of different forms of publications
and media for recording
and storing knowledge.
We are a library inspired to be
a library that holds the breadth
of human knowledge here around us.
So what does that mean
in real numbers,
well as of 2016 the library
collections numbered 164
million items.
And when I say items I mean
we collect and preserve a wide
and comprehensive range of formats.
So for instance this
list includes more
than 38.6 million catalogue books,
and other printed materials
in 474 languages.
Many of which are from indigenous
communities around the world
and more than 70 million
manuscripts.
We also have the largest rare
book collection in North America.
And the world's largest collection
of legal materials, films, maps,
sheet music and sound recordings.
And since we are on this
topic of oldest and rarest
and biggest I did want to mention
that the American folk Life Center
which has nearly 6 million items
also houses the world's largest
oldest surviving recordings
of native peoples.
And that being of the
anthropologist, Jessie Walter Fuchs,
wax cylinders of the
Passamaquoddy community of Maine,
whom were recorded in 1890.
We have several thousand
such cylinders not
to mention other ancient
technologies
and over the last couple of years
using cutting edge digital sound
capture and restoration
tools we are transferring
and in some cases retransferring
some of this fragile media.
Cylinders instantaneous disks,
paper to today's digital format.
And in the case of the Passamaquoddy
we are working with the tribe
to acquire culturally based
information and description
about the songs and the stories
that were recorded so long ago
for the LC's catalog records.
This is an ongoing project
and we are already hearing
about some exciting linguistic
and cultural discoveries,
the Passamaquoddy community has
made since they began listening
to the recordings a few months ago
and it's been very exciting to watch
and engage in all of this.
I mention this project, however,
because a few of the language groups
that are represented here
will be listening to materials
at the AFC meeting room
which is on the other side
of this building on this floor.
And you will be listing to materials
that are just la few years younger
than the 1890 Passamaquoddy
materials.
Judith Gray our head of
reference, our head of reference,
our head wrangler, our head I don't
know, fountain of wisdom and chief,
she will be in the reading room
helping you and please corner her,
talk to her she is a
wealth of knowledge
about the collections that we have.
She's an incredible
resource for you all.
So, now I'm going to turn
over the program to the folks
who can really tell you much more
about the collections that are here
and that we hope you
will use and engage with.
We have with us, today Barbara
Bair from the Manuscripts Division
and Barbara Natanson and Katherine
Blood from Prints and Photographs.
Jay Sweany head of the Humanities
and Social Science Division
and Carla Davis-Castro from the Law
Library and of course Judith Gray
from the American folk Life Center.
And sincere thanks to all of these
folks for being part of this program
and for bringing some of the
materials for you all to see.
But importantly I also want
to express deep appreciation
to the Breath of Life Institute
staff and our colleagues.
Gabriela Perez-Baiz [phonetic],
Darrel Baldwin, Rachel Vogel
and especially a guiding
light Dr. Leanne Hinton,
the founding vision
behind the BOL Institute.
We've enjoyed our participation
in all of the institutes
for several years and we
look forward to meeting more
and to a continued
collaboration with all of you.
You are welcome any time here and on
that note I will thank you all again
and turn everything over to Jay,
Sweany to begin the
rest of the day, Jay.
[ Applause ]
>> James Sweany: Well, thank
you and good morning and welcome
to the Library of Congress.
My hope in the few minutes
that we have together is
to demystify using the library.
You've heard of the 164 million
items in the collections,
how do you get started and so
I wanted to share a few things
with you as you look to get started.
It's something to remember
perhaps as you go about the course
of your research especially
when you're here at the library,
is try to discern what can you only
do here at the Library of Congress?
There are offerings that we have
on the website, digital offerings,
those things when you return
home you can view and pursue
but what we're trying
to do is help you focus
on what you can only do
here to optimize your times.
I represented a vision
that is best represented
by the main reading room,
it's just upstairs to go
to the main reading room all you
need is reader registration card.
A card that if you haven't
already obtained you can do
so across the main reading room
upstairs on the first floor,
but you'll need the card to
go into the reading room.
We'll talk about the importance
of the card in a moment
in requesting materials, but
upstairs also is our microform
and electronic resource area.
The library has invested
much resources
and purchasing electronic
data bases and some
of these maybe helpful
in your research.
Again, online offerings but
again our focus here will be
on how we can help you, probably
the greatest clues that we can share
with you is involve the
reference staff in your research.
You'll probably never
know what you missed
without involving the
reference librarians.
There are collections
that are not obvious,
that are not in the catalogue,
clues that our reference
staff can provide you
on locating materials
here at the library.
Also if you find yourself
not knowing where to go
and you'll hear much about
different collections,
different areas of the library.
These areas may be very relevant
for you but if you're confused
about where to go again you can
come to the main reading room,
our reference librarians are
also expert in the resources here
at the library to be able
to point you to the area
of the library holding
those collections.
So again, a few stop maybe going
up stairs to our main reading room.
To have a conversation with our
librarians, one of the key resources
that organizes materials of
the libraries, Many Nations,
this was published about 20 years
ago but is very valuable in helping
to organize the various indigenous
collections here at the library.
Many Nations goes through
the various reading rooms,
what's in the general collections
and the various specialty
collections.
We have copies of this
in the main reading room
and I hope you've had a
chance to browse this.
As you talk to a reference staff
again we can be very helpful
in orienting you to the library.
The library is a close stack
library meaning the you'll have
to identify what you're looking
for and make a request for it
and it's brought out to
you in the reading room.
So it involves a search
to identify what's needed.
We can help you with the
subject headings, this will vary,
sometimes they're not the obvious
and they have changed over years.
And so we can help you identify
what is the controlled vocabulary.
Say, for community or for
subheadings to search further
of course searching our
periodical literature.
And also to navigate
subscription data bases.
But also what might be helpful
is our reference specialist have
specialization in many areas and
can work with you, bibliographies
and guides, other materials
that again may not be
in the online catalogue and
findable in say a cursory search.
One of the fortes of the library
is having collected materials the
history of this country,
particularly of reports,
publications, the Bureau of
American Ethnology for example.
And a variety of subject areas
that you might find useful,
very multidisciplinary.
For example, just to
identify publications
that may not be obvious,
being familiar with the Bureau
of American Ethnology, the annual
report for example the index is
up in our main reading room.
Being able to identify a specific
study, research that has been done.
This for example, focuses
on the Catawba Indians
and specialized studies
that might be relevant.
One of the advantages of searching
here at the library is that many
of the older publications
you're looking in print form.
Not on microfilm and
that is advantage
of being here at the library.
We do have web resources
that again will help you
and guide you generally but again
for your specific searching please
involve the references librarians.
A word about our microfilm reading
room, again which is upstairs,
what is very helpful is to tap
into the research of others.
And the Library of Congress has an
almost comprehensive collections
of U.S. doctoral dissertations,
thanks in great part
to the university of
microfilm and the relationship
that the library has
had for many years.
Being able to tap into the research
of other scholars might
be very helpful
in pursuing your own research.
Early state records,
pamphlets in American history,
British manuscripts projects,
also oral history collections.
Again, items that will
not be evident
in the libraries online catalogue.
And again throwing out a few key
words here, just perhaps as clues
to know what to ask the
reference librarians.
Now we don't have time
to go into detail as far
as searching the online
catalogue other
than to say our reference librarians
are experts and can work with you
as regarding the various
aspects of searching.
The best and most efficient
way is subject headings
and through the subject
headings both online and working
with our staff, these
are some examples.
Usually most specific is
searching by the community and then
under which you'll
find many subheadings.
For example just as an example here
the Chumash language you'll find
subdivisions by geography and
also the type of material.
So we have here southern California,
conversation phrase books,
dictionaries, bilingual materials.
But I also mention that we do have,
that will not be individually
catalogued materials that are part
of what we call a lesser
known language collection.
Meaning that their catalogue
collection level by language
and they consist of boxes
that simply contain materials
that had been gathered
together on a specific language.
These maybe hymnals,
pamphlets, translations
and so they're held offsite but
talk to our reference librarians
about again the collection level,
lesser known language
collection to see examples.
No appointment is necessary to
search in the main reading room,
simply present yourself
during our hours of operation.
Searching further, this is just
an example of a publication
that came us using
the subject heading,
how do you request the item.
You're able to click on that link,
request the item it will give you
the call number and you're able
to request in a reading room.
Now the advantage of
having a researchers card is
that you're able, to,
once you register,
you're able to establish an account
and then you're able to go in
and request materials even off-site
in anticipation of your looking
at this here at the library.
So if you haven't already received,
please obtain a researcher's card
and then again you can
establish and account and then
as you're browsing the
online catalog you're able
to request these materials.
So as you go back to
your hotel and what not,
being able to search what's
relevant, what might be helpful
and then go ahead and
request those materials.
Materials in this building take
about 45 minute to an hour,
if they're in another building,
probably double that time.
Some materials are held
offsite, we've run out of space
on Capitol Hill and so some
materials are held offsite
so you're looking probably
at 24, 48 hour.
The librarians again can help
you say manage times as far
as these requests but it's very
helpful knowing what you're looking
for and being able to make
these requests and then plan
for your visit when you
return to the library.
You may have questions and those
perhaps if you don't ask here
and you return home
to your communities
and ask, we have Ask a Librarian.
That you're able to ask us follow
up questions, we're not able
to independently undertake
your research
but we can give you
search strategies,
help you identify what's
here at the library.
Where you may need to
go outside the library
but a reference specialist can
guide you through Ask a Librarian.
But that's our basic search
if you have questions I have
my email there, JSWE@loc.gov,
but again please visit us
in our main reading room
so we can work with
you individually.
Now to continue I'd like
to introduce my colleague,
Barbara Bair from the
Manuscript Division.
[ Applause ]
>> Barbara Bair: I want to add
my welcome to the ones from Betsy
and Jay we're so pleased to
have you here at the Library
of Congress I hope all of
you have a very fruitful time
to doing your research
in Washington,
D.C. The manuscript
division is just one
of several special collections
divisions at the Library of Congress
that have their own readings rooms
to serve certain formats
of primary materials.
In the manuscript division over
all we have some 63 million items
in nearly 12,000 collections.
The collections are mostly
made up of personal papers
and some records of organizations.
They mainly contain hand written
or typed correspondence, journals
and diaries, account books, scrap
books, drafts and other types
of writings or records
such as field notes.
You can find out more
about conducting research
in the manuscript division
by going online
to the manuscript division web
page which you see on the screen,
which is within the Library
of Congress, loc.gov portal.
Most of our finding
aids are registers
for the larger collections
are available online
through that manuscript
division website.
And it's a good idea to plan your
research in advance by looking
at the finding aids and
jotting down what boxes
or microfilm reels you
may want to look at.
Keep in mind that some of our
collections are stored offsite
and you may need to place an
order in advance of your visit.
All you need to do is to go to
that manuscript division website,
call the number and let the
librarian who answers the phone know
that you're coming and they can let
you know if it's onsite or offsite.
And there's also the
listing on the website
that you can check for yourself.
For preservation reasons the
manu8script division requires
that if a collection
has been microfilmed
or digitized you must use the
microfilm or the digital version
for your research even when you
are here onsite in Washington,
D.C. Exceptions can sometimes be
made for viewing physical items
through consultation with a
collection curator or specialist.
When looking for first language
evidence it may be difficult
to drill down to find specific
materials you may want to pursue.
You'll also need to be prepared that
we may have little or nothing by way
of documentation, depending on
which particular tribal heritages
and language groups
you are studying.
We actively seek to
acquire new collections
that can help fill the many
gaps in linguistic evidence
for different tribal
groups and subgroups
and update older materials
in our collections.
At the same time we honor
tribal libraries and archives
and encourage those working
on language reclamation
and revitalization.
To document and preserve
locally and regionally.
For our purposes today I'm going
to highlight some examples form,
manuscript collections that deal
specifically with ethnology,
language and linguistics,
vocabularies
and materials in translation.
The manuscript division has
many materials pertaining
to Native American history.
Particularly in the period
stemming from European colonization
to the early 20th century.
The division has first
voices materials but the bulk
of materials are filtered
through non-indigenous speakers.
Almost all the materials originate
from incidents of syncretic
encounter.
Examples include bibles and prayer
books translated by missionaries
or school teachers such as this
18th century Micmac prayer book
which was written in hieroglyphics
and which was purchased
by the Library of Congress
as a single item in 1907.
There are records from religious
and educational institutions
such as this Aleut primer from 1846.
With alphabet in Aleut
Russian and church Slovanik.
From my Russian Orthodox great
Catholic church of American,
Diocese of Alaska collection.
These records stem from 1733 to
1938 and are available on microfilm.
The collection includes
documentation of the administration
of Indians schools in
Alaska, photographs
and Aleutian translations
of the gospels.
You should also look for
early printed translations
of Christian religious text into
Indian languages that are available
in the rare book and
special collections division.
Accounts of exploration,
expedition and trade routes
in the manuscript division
can include vocabulary lists
and other linguistic evidence.
An example is this vocabulary
from Joseph Ingrapham 1790
to 1792 journal of the journey
of the ship Hope form New England
to the Pacific Northwest
Washington Isles and Nootka sound.
So that's a combination of upper
Native American first nation
material in it.
The Ingrapham journal has been
published and it is also online
through the world digital
library which you can also find
through the Library
of Congress website.
The manuscripts division Henry
Rowe Schoolcraft papers include
25,000 items.
Among these are writings
of the Chippewa poet
and writer Jane Johnston Schoolcraft
who lived from 1800 to 1842.
And the field work
that was conducted
by the members of her,
Johnston family.
The Johnston's were instrumental
in providing the personal
and social connections for
gatherings cultural field notes
for preparing Chippewa
grammars and for the translation
of oral history, legends and tales.
So it exists in primary
format in that collection.
Their field work provided the
foundation of the published work
of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft,
Jane Johnston's husband
who was the ethnologist and Indian
agent in Michigan Territory.
And at the literary magazine that
the Schoolcraft's produced together
in the 1820's and we have
the magazine in rough draft
within the Schoolcraft papers.
The collection also includes
some indigenous vocabularies
from non-Chippewa sources including
some Mandan material and notes
on the Cush-an tribe of the
south Yuba River near Sacramento,
above Sacramento in California.
The Schoolcraft collection
is available on microfilm,
it is also offered as a
documentary electronic resource
through the [inaudible]
Groups Indigenous Peoples
of North America archive.
This is a proprietary site,
in other words the library has
to pay to have it available.
The Library of Congress
does subscribe to the site
and you can access it through
the electronic resources portal
on computer terminals on the
Manuscript Division, Reading room
or elsewhere within the library but
you can't get to it from offsite.
There are a variety of Native
American history materials among
what we call in the
Manuscript Division,
our miscellaneous manuscript
collections.
These are very small collections we
store onsite in the Madison building
and some of them are also
available on microfilm.
Examples include the
Assiniboine or Stony First Nation
and Dakota Sioux Indian collection.
It contains only four items but
these include a vocabulary list
with English equivalents.
And a translation of the
Lord's prayer collected
from a First Nation
speaker in Canada in 1886.
Both the Albert Gallatin
and the Indian languages
miscellaneous manuscript collections
focus primarily on Indian tribes
of Mexico and central America.
While the John Kirk Townsend
collection has glossaries
of Indian words recorded
by an Anglo-American
ornithologist during exploration
of the Pacific Northwest in 1835.
The Charles Leon papers within the
Pennell-Whistler papers include
field work for Leland's 1884 book,
Algonquin Legends of New England.
Primarily Wabanaki, Penobscot,
Passamaquoddy and Micmac.
Leland was the uncle of
Elizabeth Robins-Pennell
and his materials came to the
library as part of her papers.
They include vocabularies
collected by folklorists Abby Alger
who was author of, Work on
Algonquin Languages of Quebec
and northern New England.
And by a Passamaquoddy ethnologist
and Native American member
of the Maine state
legislature, Louis Mitchell
who lived from 1847 to 1930.
The divisions work progress
administration federal writer's
program and Schoolcraft collections
also include documentation
of Indian pageants,
tales and legends.
Alger's published works are
available electronically
through the Hathi Trust.
And you can access
the Hathi Trust links
through the online catalogue
records for particular collections.
The papers of ethnologist C. Hart
Merriam are our most important
source for Indian languages
of the Pacific Coast region.
Merriam who lived from 1855
to 1942 began his career
as a naturalist and zoologist.
He was one of the participants
in the 1889 Harriman expedition
to Alaska, we also have the
Harriman papers here at the library.
In the later part of his life
Merriam devoted his efforts
to field work studies or Indian
peoples of California and Nevada.
His vocabulary field work
was an extension of his work
with the United States Department
of Agriculture with backing
from the Harriman fund of
the Smithsonian in 1910.
The [inaudible] check lists and
word and phrase field work records
in the Merriam collection stem
primarily from 1904 to 1938.
Additional Merriam collection
stem primarily from 1904 to 1938.
Additional Merriam materials
are at the Bancroft Library
at the University of California.
And ideally if you're doing work
on Merriam you should work both
at the Library of Congress and
at the University in Berkeley.
Merriam's California
journals which we have here
at the library are
available on microfilm.
Boxes 24 through 47
of the Manuscripts Division
collection contains the [inaudible]
field work from throughout
California,
parts of Oregon and parts of Nevada.
Including word lists for Chumash,
Hupa, Me-Wuk and Pomo subgroups.
The Merriam papers also
includes handcrafted maps
of the Indian linguistic groups
of California and for those of you
who have already looked
at the table,
I've got some of the
physical vocabulary lists
from California Indian groups
and also one of the map
that you see on the screen here.
We have several other maps that are
in oversized physical collection
in the manuscript division
and if you come
to do research we can
get those out to you.
That's it, thanks very much.
[ Applause ]
[ Background noise ]
>> Guha Shankar: And next up
we have Carla Davis-Castro
from the Law Library
who's going to talk to us
about the Indigenous Law Portal.
>> Carla Davis-Castro:
Good morning, Buenos Dias.
Thank you to the bringer of
coffee I hope it's helping
to keep everybody awake.
I know it's a lot to absorb.
My name Carl Davis-Castro, I work at
the Law Library and I wanted to talk
about the indigenous law portal
which is a totally online source,
so there's nothing more to look
up, other than what you find here.
There's some things that we've
digitized here but actually a lot
of them are in better conditions
digitized than they are physically.
And so seeing it online is sometimes
better than seeing it in person just
because how you can zoom and such.
So I want to talk a little bit
about just sort of the basics
of how librarians organize
information.
There's sort of two main systems or
main tools, we use subject headings
which was mentioned earlier
research is going to be
under Indians of North America.
The conversation about how that name
came to be is one for another time
but for classification, a lot of
what you would look at would be
in class E which is
history of the Americas.
My colleague Dr. Yolanda Goldberg
was interested in finding a place
for indigenous law because for
most of the libraries history
and library history
in the United States,
all indigenous things
was grouped together
under class E no matter
what the subject was.
And for her this was
problematic, she didn't think
that indigenous law should be next
to basket weaving and pottery just
because it was the same tribe.
And so she has been working on
a new classification system, K,
class K is where law lives, we have
sort of class K for western law
and she is in the process
of creating KI
which is indigenous
law of the Americas.
North America is done and we're
working on Central America,
we will go into South America.
So this is the first time that
indigenous law is being pulled
out away from other cultural and
anthropological type materials
and putting it in a different area.
So one area was this
classification which is
to deal with print materials.
When you have books that are
published, things that come in
and you say where am I going to
put this physical book on a shelf.
But we know that there's a lot
of information that doesn't go
on a shelf, some things that
never will go on a shelf
because they're born
digital as we say.
So the idea of the indigenous
law portal was born to try
to organize information that you
see online that is never going
to come into our book shelf.
So just to talk a little bit
about library tools the
way classification works.
We have number 1, name
authority records.
And these are you know, library
records that are created for people,
organizations, places and the way
you create these authority records
is based on research.
Once you have these name
authority records you have lots
of little pieces, like
puzzle pieces but the idea is
to organize the information so that
someone can find it in a logical way
so we have classification which
I was showing you earlier,
class E history of the
Americas or of North America.
And for example law, and so this
classification is structured
according to hierarchical
relationships.
Right so we have Indians of
North America for the hemisphere,
Indians of North America, Indians
of Mexico and Central America,
Indians of South America and
then within each sub region.
Right so you move down
the hierarchy.
For a lot of classes like class
E they're organized by subject,
law is divided by geography because
law emanates from a jurisdiction
from a place, the law of this place.
So in our case law is organized by
geography to reflect jurisdictions.
So I was talking about
these puzzle pieces,
these name authority records.
So here's one that was created,
what had been interesting
about this project is that
there were a lot of tribes.
There were a lot of councils, there
were a lot of advocacy organizations
that never had name
authority records ever.
And so part of this project has
been creating name authority records
to establish these entities
as groups, as places,
as governments within
library systems.
So we can create name authority
records here at the Library
of Congress and then
they also go into sort
of a global name authority pool.
So once this is created for example
for the Shoshone-Bannock
tribes of Ft.
Hall reservation of Idaho,
once we've created it here it
will then go into a global pool
and this is something that libraries
all over the world can access.
For North America alone
we've created
over 2,000 name authority records.
These are peoples,
governments, that did not exist
in the library world before.
So as you can see here we've got the
name of the tribe and then as you go
down we have alternate names,
we know a history of names,
complicated, people got called
different things by different people
at different times so as
much as possible we try
to have alternate names here to
make each group more findable.
And just where indigenous
law sits in sort
of the overall thing I mentioned,
class K. K at the top is global,
so here's the geographical
hierarchy, yes.
>> Does this [inaudible]?
>> Carla Davis-Castro: That's
a really good question.
>> Indigenous actually [inaudible].
>> Carla Davis-Castro:
That's a good question,
so under class K western nations
states law we do have federal Indian
law but that's under class K
because federal Indian law emanates
from Congress right
across the street.
That's not indigenous,
that's federal Indian law,
about indigenous peoples
but not of them.
So indigenous law really is
what comes out of the councils,
how are indigenous peoples governing
themselves and our focus is today.
So not historically --
>> [inaudible] reorganization act,
cover [inaudible] were
forced upon us
and the fact the government
[inaudible] different
from traditional government
so laws are you [inaudible]
are you putting traditional,
very traditional laws because to
me there are two different things.
>> Carla Davis-Castro: Well,
as much as we can find,
so it's true that those governments
were imposed, in you know,
especially around the 1920's, 30's.
But a lot of those governments
are still operational today,
they have councils,
they have websites,
they've taken on some
sort of agency.
So we do include those because even
though the cede maybe was an act
of Congress here, if
they still live on today
and they're making decisions
and they have governments.
Then that at some point, I mean
100 years later reflects the
tribes decisions.
So for now we do include
those as much
as we can find other traditional
materials we do include them.
The idea is that federal Indian
law is not NKI, that's NK,
it's not part of indigenous law.
So the Acts of Congress
are not on this side.
>> What about treaties?
>> Carla Davis-Castro:
So treaties we're working
on creating the name
authority records
like I said this is something
that we're working on right now.
I think the focus has
been on Canadian treaties
and so yes those are examples
where technically they could live
on both sides, right, they could
live on the K side or the KI side.
Normally we try to put it in both
and have a bridge saying you know,
this represents sovereignty,
autonomy of two different groups
that came to sign a treaty.
So yes, that would absolutely
be part of indigenous law.
So we tried to be sort of
use terms that are reflective
of national realities because the
way people talk about indigenous law
and issues in Canada is
different from the U.S.
and it's different from Mexico.
I was brought on to do research for
central America so now we're getting
into terms in Spanish, this is just
an example of similar structure
for how you would find information.
But the terms are slightly
different.
So this is what the home page looks
like for the indigenous law portal,
as I said KI is geographic
so you find the group
that you're looking for.
You find the council
that you're looking
for through maps to
move hierarchically.
So we started with North
America as you might guess.
Here at the Library of Congress
the area that we're strongest in is
for the United States and the
Library of Congress has digitized
over 400 Constitutions
that were here.
Like you had mentioned a lot
of those governments and a lot
of the constitutions are coming out
of the 20's and 30's but not all
of them we have materials from
Cherokee, Chickasaw and the Choctaw
that are made in 19th century.
So it depends on the group.
So when you move into the United
States you can search state
or you can search by region.
So for example, if you went into
the Southwest you have here a list
of your groups, like I said because
this is jurisdiction and it's based
on land we're looking at
where people are located.
We do have groups to try to connect
people, the Sioux group for example,
you know, has several
different reservations,
there's many jurisdictions and
they have each a government,
so we try to represent
where people physically are.
But we do try to make cultural
connections between related groups.
This is one example of a
constitution out of 1936,
I was interested in having a
table to show that but I was told
that this was not printed on
very good paper in the 1930's,
it's not in really great shape.
And it's actually much
better to look
at the digital form
than the physical form.
And this is what you were referring
to about imposed governments
that this is what we have.
If we get more, find more, see more,
people want to share
more we would really
like to be able to include that.
So just a little bit about impact,
I talked about the name authorities
that we're creating to make sure
that we have indigenous
people on the map.
Digitized works from the law
Library of Congress and we got a lot
of people coming to see
us, so you can page visits,
over 3,000 document downloads.
People are downloading these
digitized constitutions,
It's really interesting to see
you know, people are looking
for these documents,
they're looking for access.
And it's one thing to read it
because we have it digitized,
you can look at the website any
time you want but downloading it
to me means you actually want
to read it, you want to hold it.
And to me the most interesting
thing is that we've had users
from 174 countries visit
the indigenous law portal.
The United Nations
is 193 member states
so there are people
everywhere who want
to see what they can
find on indigenous law.
So like I said it's open,
we would love to have more,
we're working on Central
America, that's all for me.
And I thought there was a
schedule here I'm not sure
who the next person is.
Okay, great thanks.
[ Applause ]
[ Background noise ]
>> Barbara Natanson: Good
morning, I'm Barbara Natanson,
I'm the head of the Print
and photographs reading room
and with my colleague
Katherine Blood
who is our fine prints curator,
we're excited to have an opportunity
to talk to you about
our collections.
Our plan today is to talk to you
about the pictorial collections
in the library if pictorial voices
isn't a contradiction in terms.
Katherine is going to highlight for
you the variety of pictorial voices
that you can see in the prints
and photographs division.
And then I'll talk to you a little
bit about how to do some searching
and how to use our collections.
But first I thought we would
start with a little bit of context
about the larger collectivity
of materials
that our Native American
holdings live in.
So the prints and photograph
division we estimate at this point,
so everybody comes up and starts to
talk about their millions of items
but we have nearly 16 million
items in the collections.
We're particularly strong for
American culture and history
but as you can see
from the Japanese print
in the corner we also have
an international collecting.
We've gotten our materials
from various sources,
we've been in existence for a
little bit more than a century.
Since 1870 when the copywrite
office found its home in the Library
of Congress a lot of our
collections between about that point
and 1920 we're built
through copywrite deposits.
Can you hear me?
So that meant that people
were submitting their images
to be protected, to register
their rights to the images
so that other people
would not pirate them
because even back before
Photoshop pirating was a problem.
And so it puts a certain
commercial slant on the collections
that we have but we have also gotten
materials through generous gifts
and we occasionally
purchase materials.
The largest portion of the
collection is photographs
and we have photographs in
a lot of different formats
so 19th century photographs
like this cased photograph
of an African-American
family during the Civil War.
We also have a wonderful collection
of panoramic photographs which came
to us through copywrite
deposit and these are wonderful
for getting a sense of
landscapes all over the U.S.
and sometimes towns and cities
and sometimes large groups
because if you are thinking
about marketing your photographs
and you take a picture
with a large group.
How many can you sell, one to
each person on the group right.
And then we also have a
larger stereograph collection,
also acquired through copywrite
deposit primarily so these images
where you've got two
pictures mounted side by side.
When you look through them through
a special viewer you get a 3-D
experience it's sort
you are there experience
so they can be really
interesting to look at.
Our photo collections are
particularly documentary in nature
and especially one
concentration is photojournalism
so you're seeing some
samples on the your left, yes,
sample from an early photojournalism
collection from the 1910's.
that was based in New York
but we are also collecting
photojournalism
up to the present day.
So we have some collections that
run into the 1980's and 90's.
We also have lots of images in
nonphotographic formats so just
as you're seeing materials from
all different formats from all
over the library, the
kinds of pictorial formats
that we have are just as
different one from another.
So we have large poster collection,
we have comic strips
and cartoon drawings.
We have sheet music covers and
of course we have fine print
which makes it an appropriate
time for me
to turn this over to
Katherine Blood.
[ Applause ]
>> Katherine Blood: So we're
going to, is this okay --
we're going to join Jay in
plugging our Many Nations book
and it's worth mentioning
that this is a book from 1996
and the Library has been actively
collecting all along the way.
So it's a good launch point
to keep going further.
And the images that we're
bringing which are both appearing
in this book at John Grable's,
1891 view of a Sioux camp photograph
not long after the massacre
at Wounded Knee and
then in the middle
from our protest poster
collection is a 1974 poster,
We Remember Wounded
Knee by Bruce Carter.
There's also an online
collection overview, you see a link
at the top here called images
of Indians of North America
and there's a collection
[inaudible] on the same subject
which we have brought with
us today and you can find
in our reading room any time.
So of the libraries more than 17,000
images of Native American peoples
and related subjects
the lion share arrived
through copywrite deposit
beginning in the 1870's.
And of those only a fraction
were made by indigenous creators
and so acquisition efforts
in the last several decade
especially have emphasized adding
works in the first person.
So first person visual voices by
artists of American Indian heritage
and we'll look at some
example's shortly.
But in the historic
collection strengths tend
to cluster along these categories
that you see on the slide.
And I won't read them, the book
also echos this arrangement
but I'll mention the images
that are on the screen.
There is a 1904 portrait of
Navajo women by Edward Curtis
in a fairly rare example
of a subject smiling.
In his body of work in 1899,
Buffalo Bill Wild West show poster
which shows that these categories
are not mutually exclusive
and can overlap.
A 1903 Francis Benjamin
Johnston photograph
at Pennsylvania's Carlyle
Indian School.
A group portrait of a Sioux Indian
delegation to Washington in 1891
and McKinney and Hall's
1843 portrait
of Cherokee Chief John Ross.
In the arena of documentary
photography and we brought one
of these with us today in the
original over in the corner,
I hope you get a chance to look
at it up close and in person.
Are this early 20th century
portrait of Blackfoot tribal leader,
Mountain Chief and he's listening to
a recording of a Blackfoot song made
with ethnographer Francis
Densmore whose scrapbook is
in the room as well.
On the right is Zig Jackson's
1995 photo of Vietnam vets,
Howard and Leroy Crow Flies High
escorting three war mothers.
And this is part of his
tribal veteran series.
Now here are photographs by
Richard Throssel who was born
to a Red River Metis family
in Oregon and later adopted,
he was adopted into the Crow
nation while working in Montana
as an Indian service clerk.
And his work is often compared
with that of Edward Curtis
and the two met around 1905
and spent time together.
And here are a few examples from
the libraries extensive Curtis
collection of about 2,400
photos including an oasis
in the badlands whose
subject is identified
as an Oglala warrior named Red Hawk.
In his project called the critical
indigenous photographic exchange,
[inaudible] photographer Will Wilson
consciously embraces the documentary
impulse of Curtis but supplants
it from the view point of him
in his own words, I have a quote,
from whom a 21th century
indigenous trans customary
cultural practitioner.
And there he is at the left with his
camera and Wilson further evokes,
they're very beautiful, we have
one on the table over there,
the self-portrait is over there.
Wilson further evokes
critics through his use
of historic photo processes and
his studio portrait approach
to his subject walking
with directly at the lens.
So he's invited the participation of
indigenous artists, tribal citizens,
leaders, creators,
curators, academic.
And on the right is Sandra Lamouche,
he's a renowned hoop dancer
and also a scholar and she's a
member of the Big Stone Cree Nation.
So here on the left is another
famous Curtis image showing
[inaudible] horse riders
at Canyon de Cheffy.
And on the right the image is
recast by Alaska born artist,
Larry McNeil who is a member of
the Tlingit and Nisga'a nations,
the title is diacritical
form line [inaudible] style.
We know that Curtis edited things
like alarm clocks and umbrellas
out of some of his images but
here McNeil playfully adds a group
of people in an automobile
that suits the period.
And I have a quote
from McNeil he says,
I have fun with the American
mythology and in the spirit
of Raven our own northwest
coast mythological being,
change things around.
I have an indigenous
family out for a cruise,
instead of the romanticized idea
of noble savages riding
their horses everywhere.
And if you look closely
you can see him
in the lower left blue
margin is the photographer
with his camera strapped
around his neck.
So he's there, he's sort of
inside but also outside the action
as witness and commentator.
And here's one of the earliest
known European portrait prints
of an American Indian from life,
from 1645 by bohemian
artist, Wanaslause Hollar.
It's tiny it's about this big.
And the title identifies him
as an American form Virginia
and a recent scholar has tentatively
identified the man a Muncy,
Delaware, Algonquin
speaking lawyer called Jack
and almost nothing else is known.
Oh, who was transported to
Amsterdam from New Amsterdam in 1644
and almost nothing else is known.
On the right is a recent
acquisition which we've also brought
with us today, a 2011
monoprint by Osage artist,
Norman Akars who was born and
raised in Oklahoma and teaches
at the university of Kansas.
So underscoring images of migration
and immigration you
see birds in flight.
And bank note portraits of three
well-known U.S. founding fathers
arriving in alien spaceships.
They are alexander Hamilton, Ulysses
S. Grant and George Washington
and they're all associated
with government policies
that would have devastating
results for indigenous Americans.
The conventionalized image, I
interviewed him a little bit
and asked about the very red
Indian that appears on the left
and he was barred from an old
Webster's dictionary for the entry
that went along with
the word tom-tom.
So it's playful but it has a punch.
So these beautiful,
vibrant screen prints are
by Oklahoma Potawatomie artist,
dancer and musician, Woody Crumbo.
While studying art at Wichita
University and the University
of Oklahoma, Crumbo supported
himself as a dancer while performing
in collective tribal dances
from across the country.
And these came in through
copywrite deposit.
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith is a
member of the confederated Salish
and Kootenai nation of Montana and
her 2014 lithograph called Waiting
for Rain, shows a central
figure based
on the right hand 19th century
portrait of a Mandan man
by Swiss artist, Karl Bodmer and
we have an impression of this
in rare book division has a hand
colored impression of this as well.
So surrounding him in Juane
Quick-To-See Smith's images are
signs of the natural world
and you can't see it very well
but tiny song lyrics that are form
the song, You Are My sunshine,
you make me happy when
skies are gray.
And on the left margin
she says listen up humans.
So she's saying something very
different with the imagery
and she made the work,
she's a gardener.
She made the work during a period
of severe drought, about five years,
so she's commenting on
environmental health
and the fragility of the ecosystem.
So before turning things back
over to Barbara I just want
to give an idea, we've
been looking at sort
of narrative story telling
representational images
but our collection traverse
a much wider universe
of styles and subjects.
So going clockwise from top left,
some beautiful contemporary examples
by Kay WalkingStick, Wendy Red Star,
Edgar Heap-of- Birds and Marie Watt.
And this is just the tiniest
tip of the iceberg so we hope
to see you come and
look and explore further
and now we'll hear from Barbara.
[ Applause ]
>> Barbara Natanson:
So how do you delve
into the iceberg, that's
the big question.
Well, you've probably already
discovered that there's a lot
of search systems on the
Library of Congress website
and we have a catalogue
that's devoted to the holdings
of the prints and photographs
division, it's called the prints
and photographs online catalogue.
You'll see the URL at the top of
this screen, we also have a handout
at the back of the room, so before
you leave today do take a handout
then you can pursue the
mystery of which are the tips
that I'm not telling
you out loud today
that you could pursue
through the paper.
At any rate the prints and
photographs online catalogue,
we estimate it covers about 95%
of our holdings at some level
and some level is the asterisk.
We describe somethings as entire
groups maybe because they're going
to be better understood
as groups and also
because describing 16 million items
one by one could take a lot of time.
We also have some items that
are individually described.
Often things like the fine prints
that Katherine was showing you.
Of the 16 million items
we've digitized about 1
and a quarter million images, so you
will find lots of digitized images
to the online catalogue
but not by any means all.
In terms of using the online
catalogue you would have a slightly
different experience if you're
here on site at the library
versus if you're searching
from home or your office
or from the classrooms that you
might be using this couple of weeks.
So when you're onsite
here at the Library
of Congress we usually
offer a small thumbnail
but we also offer a larger JPEG or
2 and a high resolution TIF file.
When you're outside the Library
of Congress if you don't know
that the rights are free
for an image we only
display the thumbnail image,
so to have the fullest
experience you'd want
to be doing your searching online.
But we've also tried to make it
as efficient as possible for you
to do your searching where
it makes the most sense.
So whenever you do a search for
instance I did a search for Indians
of North America, I got 4,531
records that I used that phrase.
But you can see at the top that I
could filter my results so if I'm
at home or I'm outside the
libraries buildings I might filter
to larger image available anywhere
because those are the digitized
images that I'd be able
to see the larger JPEG and TIF and
see all the detail that they offer
as well as download them.
In the middle you see larger image
available only at the Library
of Congress, those are the ones
that if you're planning a visit
here you may want to focus
on those while you're here.
Onsite so that you can make
most efficient use of your time.
And likewise you see that there
are 259 listing for things
that are not digitized at all.
So again you might want to focus
on those while you're here on site.
You are very welcome to come to
our reading room to do research,
we're in the Madison building
across this street in room 337
so up on the third floor.
We're open Monday through
Friday, 8:30 to 5:00.
We stop bringing things out
of the storage areas at 4 PM
so it's usually a good idea
well before that point.
But as you can see in this
picture that we also have a lot
of file cabinets in our reading
room, so even if you were
to get here close to 4
there may be some material
that we can show you right
out in the reading room.
We have lockers right in our
foyer so you don't need to worry
about locking up your
belongings in the cloak room.
Just bring them with you and we'll
help you get them stowed away
and then you'll have easy
access to them while you're
in our reading room where we allow
very few things in general just
to protect that materials.
So things to remember to bring
if you come to make a visit,
bring your LC reader card, we'll
do a little registration activity
up at our front desk
and do some orientation.
It's a good idea also
to bring a camera,
many of our pictures are too old or
fragile to go on a photocopy machine
so the best way to take a record
of what you saw is to take a point
and shoot photo without flash.
Because you may want to download
images that are not displaying
for you outside the Library
of Congress buildings it's also a
good idea to bring a flash drive
or a lap top onto which
you can down the images.
And then of course your curiosity,
it's always a good thing
to come armed with.
So for the most part you don't
need to make an advance appointment
to use our collections, many things
are available just on demand,
often if it's something in our
storage areas we help you fill
out a paper call slip, we go an
fetch it and it's available to you
within about 10 to 15 minutes.
There are some occasions however
where a material is either offsite
and we need time to bring it onsite.
Or it's so fragile that we need
to have a staff member available
to work with you one on one.
So one thing to watch out
for is an access advisory
because that's a situation in which
it would be a good idea to get
in touch with us in advance just
so that we can make sure we
have the material available
for you to look at.
And by means of contacting
us whether or not you need
to make an appointment or you just
want to know what we might have,
we're really happy
to consult with you.
We do answer our phone
between 8:30 and 5.
So if you phone us just press 3
when you get to the phone tree
and a reference person will
pick up to talk with you.
We also do Ask a Librarian,
as Jay was mentioning.
So when you're within the prints and
photographs online catalogue the way
to find our Ask a Librarian page
most directly is to look to the left
where it says ask a prints
and photographs librarian.
That way you don't have
to be steered to us
through all the other librarians
who are monitoring Ask a
Librarian here at the library.
And when you select that you will
get to our Ask a Librarian page.
Where you can either go ahead
and fill out the online form
to ask us your question
or go ahead and phone us.
If it's not something
that we can answer
in real time then we'll always
direct you to Ask a Librarian page
and you know, tell you the things
that would be most important for us
to know so that we can
research your question further.
With that.
[ Applause ]
We'll hope that you can make a visit
and I think we're turning
it over to Judith Gray.
[ Background noise ]
>> Judith Gray: I join with
everybody in saying welcome to those
of you who have never been
here before and I'm pleased
to see some people whom
I have met here before.
So, welcome back.
We've mentioned Edward Curtis
multiple times here so I just wanted
to say for those who are interested
he also made sound recordings
but they are one of the
things that are not here.
The Edward Curtis recordings
are at the Archives
of Traditional Music
at Indiana University.
So if anybody is looking for
that part of the picture,
or hear the sound of that picture,
you'll need to go to Indiana.
So I want to tell you just a
little bit about our holdings,
the archive of the American Folk
Life Center has probably the largest
collection of one of a kind
ethnographic recordings
of tribal music, somewhere
in the order of --
and I'm saying music
and I'll explain why.
Probably over 2,000 hours at least
from at least 140 different tribes
and many more communities than that.
Since a lot of collections were
recorded in multiple locations.
So there's a lot of material here
but it is certainly not uniform
in terms of where it comes from,
nor is it uniform in the kinds
of material, the kinds of sound
recordings that you'll find here.
None the less I think quite a few
of you will find your way back to us
in the course of the next
week, I look forward to that.
The recordings that came to
us come from various places,
we did end up with
most of the bureau
of American ethnology
cylinder recordings,
in particular our recordings
go back to 1890.
You heard Betsy Peterson
make mention
of those Passamaquoddy recordings
when she started the morning for us.
But we have recordings all the
way up to at least last year
when we had performers here.
And when people performed here
we also try to interview them
about their cultural
heritage and such
and so we have those
materials become part
of the collections as well.
The people who are out doing
the early recordings though were
principally linguists, ethnologists,
early ethnomusicologist, folklorists
and occasional tourists and such.
You're very lucky I thought when
the sound came that it was going
to be the evacuation
of this building,
we haven't had our
spring fire drill yet.
Oh, let it go.
Anyway be prepared.
So the people who are out making
those early recordings almost all
of them were prepared to deal with
international phonetic alphabet.
So narratives, spoken word,
almost exclusively taken
down by hand, by dictation.
And you'll have to be at
whatever location has those
written manuscripts.
In a lot of cases for the
ones collected for the Bureau
of American Ethnology you're
going to be looking at documents
at the National Anthropological
Archives.
I think you have gone there
or you're going there, right.
Mostly then the early
sound recordings tend
to be the wax cylinders
that were recorded
between roughly 1890 and 1930.
Most of the early ones only would
take about two minutes of material,
sometimes they could
stretch them by playing very,
very slowly they could get a
little bit more material on.
But you're still only looking
at small amounts of audio.
And so for that reason,
that was part of the reason
that the narrative, the much
longer narratives were taken
down by dictation and the cylinders
themselves were reserved for songs.
So the bulk of the audio
recordings that you're going
to get here are going to be
songs rather than spoken word
and that means when you're
trying to extract words
and such you're dealing
with a lot of repertoire
that might be mostly vocables and
you're going to deal with the fact
that you know, when you sing a word
you might pronounce it slightly
differently than when you speak it.
You might you know, accent it
slightly differently depending upon
the melody, so you're going to have
to be working through those things
and keep those factors in mind.
Another thing about the collections,
you're always dependent then
on what the goal was of the person
who was out making the recordings.
And while some of them were focused
on more general materials one
of the major collectors, for
example Francis Densmore.
Her goal was specifically to get
the oldest ceremonial traditions
that she could.
So that meant she did not go women,
she did not collect work songs,
she did not collect lullaby's,
she would be wherever she could
approaching the oldest men usually
who were the ceremonial leaders.
And so you end up getting recordings
of only certain kinds of genres,
in the case of, if she was
recording really old men
in some communities
their voices quavered
so the question then becomes is
the quaver simply and older voice
or is it part of the stylistic
trait of that particular song genre.
Again something that
those of you who are
in the communities hopefully will
recognize and be able to sort
out that which is relevant
to what you are doing.
>> How did she come to the
conclusion that old men [inaudible].
>> Judith Gray: Well, that's
what she was finding is she went
out you know, as she started
and started her collecting she
was constantly being directed
to the older men.
And then I think after a while
that became more her focus
so that she didn't -- she
wasn't questioning that,
she was following that
particular trend.
She started her collecting
career when she was 40 years old
and kept collecting
until she was 87.
So, her story is another one, well,
all of these collections are filled
with stories and sometimes the
stories are all in one place
that you can find but
in a lot of cases
for example the recordings
came here, the documentation
that may have been created at the
same time is in another institution.
Correspondence that the collector
had either with people who sang
for him or with the sponsoring
organization that may be
in a third place entirely.
We've tried to gather what we can
so that we're trying to provide you
as full a picture as we
can of what's out there,
so it doesn't mean we've got all
the photo copies from other places
and we may not have picked up
absolutely everything there
so if you were really pursuing one
specific collection you may find
yourself going to multiple
institutions and multiple states
or even multiple countries
in some cases.
The other part to say
is that because
of this way collecting was done,
especially early on, you know,
the focus was really on the parts of
the country, the parts of the U.S.
where it was believed that
native cultures were more intact.
So you end up getting far more
interest and far more recordings
from the American southwest,
east of the Mississippi,
you're pretty much
going to get Iroquois,
you might get a few things
around the Great Lakes.
You're going to get a few Cherokee
recordings from North Carolina
and a few Seminole
recordings from Florida.
You're not going to get much else.
So there's you know, in some cases
we have collections that are less,
about two minutes of material,
on the other hand we've got
at least one Pueblo collections
that's over 400 hours.
So it's for that reason I do
want to tell you for the groups
that I represented in this
year's Breath of Life.
I can tell you which groups have
some material here because some
of you will not be
seeing us I expect.
We do have the Chumash recordings
so that will be for those
of you doing some of
the [inaudible] work,
we do have some Haida materials,
some Hupa materials, Miwok,
for Nisenan the closest that we
have are two KonKow collections.
So if that turns out to be relevant
that would be the material
we would have.
We do have quite a bit
of Nez Perce, some Oto,
Piute although this is one instance
where the collectors don't
necessarily tell you exactly
which Piute group.
So you're going to have to look
and see what the documentation says
and see if you can determine
whether it's relevant
to your specific community or not.
Likewise Pomo, oh yes, that's a real
mix in what we have listed here.
Ponca and Ponca is the
last of the groups.
Okay, one of the things to be
said since many of you are groups
from California, a lot of what
we have is samples that are drawn
from elsewhere and so especially
from the Hearst Museum at Berkeley.
What we end up, for example
the Pomo recordings are most
of them are going to be samplers
of larger collections that are
out there, so you're welcome
to listen to the materials
that we have here but of course
their collections are larger
and chances are they've
got much more documentation
than ever made its way here.
So when you're deciding
whether or not to come back
and do some listening with
us, you'll need to weigh that.
And I would give one set of
these pages to Gabriella to take
so that you can look
at it ahead of time
and see whether it's worthwhile
and so for you to come.
We will need to have you make
listening appointments just
so we can have the materials cued up
for you, it will be streaming audio
and listening cubes
in the reading room.
Or sometimes in the conference
room if it's a larger group.
And then we'll see how best we
can accommodate you and bring
out whatever materials we
have that are relevant.
Over on the table over there I
brought out some of the originals,
some of the field note
from Willard Rhodes,
some of Ellis Fletcher's the notes
that were inside the Oto
cylinder boxes and some
of the Helen Roberts
field notes and such.
Chances are again as you've
heard from other reading rooms
if we've got a surrogate
copy we'll use that.
So that you don't have worry
as much about you know,
something getting damage
or whatever.
I do also want to say at the
end of this, one other thing.
You've heard from several
readings rooms, you haven't heard
from all the reading rooms here
in the library and the fact is
that there's going to be
material related to tribal groups
in probably ever single
reading room.
And so you can think more broadly,
the library also has the largest,
well you've seen some maps
but the libraries geography
and maps division is enormous.
And if you were interested in seeing
if there are maps documenting
the territory of the community
that might be a useful
thing for you to do.
I even noticed one of the things
that Jay showed you about one
of the searches, the Chumash
searches, one of the titles
for a bilingual document
was actually
for something that's
in children's lit.
So even there in children's
literature you may find things
that would have samples of
language that could be relevant.
So, as all here have said, talk
with all of us who do reference
and we'll try to get you to
different parts of the library
that might have useful
things, um, hum.
>> With regard to the [inaudible]
that are copies of for example
from the particular
[inaudible] the copies
that are here might be better
quality than ones like back
in Berkeley that [inaudible]
maybe you have a better copy here.
>> Judith Gray: That would
be, my guess would be not
because I think the
samples were sent
by what was formerly the Lowie
Museum before it became the
Hearst Museum.
The Lowie sent samples
probably in the 70's
to see [inaudible] yeah I
think they sent just samples
to see what our copies
would then look like.
But the originals went back and then
they made their own copies later
on at some point.
So my hunch is that for a lot of the
materials it's probably going to be
that we have actually [inaudible]
lower than the ones they have.
So then the question becomes
you know, what was the equipment
that was used for transferring
at which point,
but that's another, yeah.
>> I think it was done --
yeah there were two copies
of the cylinders that
were [inaudible].
>> Judith Gray: There's all sorts
of interesting stuff happening
with cylinders but it's all
going to take a lot of time
at this point it can take several
hours to do a retransfer and then
to do the processing
before you get one cylinder
of two or three minutes.
So it's happening and there's
some exciting possibilities
but it will be [inaudible].
>> [inaudible] are you using Irene
here that laser beam [inaudible].
>> We've done the 3-D Irene you
need a 3-D reader as opposed
to a 2 dimensional
one that reads disks,
the 3-D one is working
somewhere I know
that it's being used actually
I think the Ishii recordings
that Crober [phonetic] made
I think those have been done
out in California.
We have a few samples
that we have been using --
there are at least two
other transfer mechanisms
that we've been using that
are a little bit faster.
And we'll see, you know, how that
all goes, yeah but we're using Irene
for something's, we have real
hopes that Irene can restore some
at least broken cylinders that
are not shattered but broken.
And we'll see how that all goes.
So, anyway I think we're
getting to the time when you have
to be heading back and so,
you're pointing to the what?
I was looking for you.
>> I first wanted to do two things,
the first is to thank our colleagues
at the Library of Congress.
[ Applause ]
So you heard from Betsy, from Jay,
from two Barbara's, from Carla,
from Katherine, from Judith,
from Guha, he was gracious enough
to get us in and out even
with unexpected coffee.
There was Jen also helping out
and there's a number of people
who I haven't met but
who are here and I know.
I don't have their names so
we're talking a dozen people
who are coming together
and giving us their time
for the next two weeks.
And so I wanted to bring that
back to a point that I made
in my opening remarks on Monday
and that is that that there's many
of us holding the pieces, building
that bullet proof spider web
to hold all of these efforts to
sustaining linguistic diversity,
hold on to the net, you're not
alone, we're altogether here.
So appointments first and
we'll get the bus thing going
and thank you again to our
Library of Congress colleagues.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a
presentation of the Library
of Congress, visit us at loc.gov.