October 9, 2018
In partnership with archivists from the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) the Community Archiving Workshop ran a full day pre-conference workshop at the International Conference of Indigenous Archives, Libraries, and Museums in Mystic Lake Center, Minnesota.
For this workshop we partnered with the Medweganoonind Library and Tribal Archives. ATALM Conference attendees partnered with moving image archivists to conduct basic processing, cataloging and inspection of a moving image collection and, by doing so, learned how to identify risk factors and make preservation recommendations for moving image collections. Forty participants in this workshop processed a total of 200 audiovisual assets, including film (16mm, 8mm), video (VHS, ½” open reel), and audio (compact audio cassette).
The Medweganoonind Library is the library for both Red Lake Nation College and the Red Lake community. The Red Lake Nation College (RLNC) was chartered by the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians in 2001 to provide higher education opportunities for Tribal members living on and near the Red Lake reservation. Prior to the opening of Red Lake Nation College, Red Lake members were forced to drive two hours round-trip daily in order to attend college. The rural location of the reservation, the high cost of transportation, and daycare costs were all huge barriers to attending college for Tribal Members.
The library houses books for both academic and recreational purposes, a small reference collection, a growing collection of media items such as audio books and DVDs, and an Ojibwe Language and Culture collection. In order to address the needs of the Red Lake Nation community, the library makes a special effort to create programming and collect all materials relating to the Red Lake community, including history, culture, and language. The library motto is “We live in the college; we serve the community”.
Workshop participants engaged in hands-on processing, inspecting, and cataloging audiovisual media. Most importantly, we worked together to help the Medweganoonind Library and Tribal Archives inspect and prepare their audiovisual collection for preservation.