Learning About Archives at the Labriola Center
One of our Library Aides, Baylee LaCompte (Standing Rock Sioux Tribe) at the Labriola Center finished her final year of graduate schools by completing her practicum archiving American Indian Student Services materials at Fletcher Library. She was mentored by our Archivist and Librarian, Vina Begay (Diné).
Practicum Week 1: AIS, Archive, and Archivist
Haŋ, mitákuyepi, čhaŋté waštéya napé čhiyuzapi. Baylee LaCompte emačíyapi. Íŋyaŋ Woslál Háŋ Oyáŋke, na Húŋkpapȟa é na Sičháŋǧu Lakȟóta Oyáte emátaŋhaŋ. Matȟó Akíčhita naíŋš Makáȟleča él wathí, na Matȟó Očhíŋšiča Thiyóšpaye emátaŋhaŋ. Iná Anna McLaughlin ečíyapi na atéwaye kiŋ Dale LaCompte ečíyapi. Thuŋkášila Michael LaCompte é na Phillip McLaughlin Sr. ewičhakiyapi. Uŋčí Eileen Buckmier-LaCompte é na Garnet Little Bear-McLaughlin ewičhakiyapi.
Hello, my friends and relatives; I shake your hand with good feelings in my heart. My name is Baylee LaCompte. I am a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and Camps at the End of the Horn and Burnt Thigh are my bands. I reside permanently in Bear Soldier, also known as McLaughlin, South Dakota, and come from the Mad Bear Extended Family. My mother is Anna McLaughlin, and my father is Dale LaCompte. My grandfathers are Michael LaCompte and the late Phillip McLaughlin Sr. My grandmothers are Eileen Buckmier-LaCompte and the late Garnett Little Bear-McLaughlin.
I received my dual bachelor's degrees in American Indian Studies and Human Services (Justice Studies) with a minor in Psychology from Black Hills State University, Spearfish, South Dakota, in 2019. I am in my final semester at Arizona State University pursuing my Masters in American Indian Studies (Indigenous Rights and Social Justice). My research areas include Federal Indian Law and Policy, Sacred Sites, and Lakota Language.
The MS in AIS is a transdisciplinary program focusing on protecting and strengthening oral history, traditional knowledge, Indian sovereignty, self-determination, and human rights. The Indigenous Rights and Social Justice concentration explores the historical dimensions of colonization on American Indian political, economic, and cultural institutions. As students, we analyze the legal, political, and social implications of American Indian relationships with federal, state, and local government. In addition, we investigate processes that American Indian nations and community members use to strategize and work toward social justice and Indigenous rights. We also acquire an understanding of US Indian law and policy, colonization/decolonization, and nation-building.
I chose Archival studies as my practicum because of the work and legacy of Vine Deloria Jr. His work holds pertinence. He was one of the first intellectuals to talk about decolonization and the concept of colonialism. Specifically, in chapter 4 of Custer Died for Your Sins (1988), Vine Deloria expresses his distrust of anthropologists "anthros" and other friends, hence the chapter's name. He questioned their motives and had strong feelings about outsiders exploiting our traditional knowledge and not giving back to the people. Therefore, he believed the fundamental motive of an anthropologist is that people are objects for observation for manipulation and are viewed as a vanishing race. Secondly, Archives are a foreign concept not only to me but my nation as well. Notably, the Labriola National American Indian Data Center identifies and addresses the relevant issues of cultural exploitation and data sovereignty, which accompany my practicum requirements for my program.
An archive is a place where people gather primary sources. It refers to valuable records of materials with a common theme, such as letters, photographs of people, collections, sound recordings, textual records, and audio-visual records. These records are documentation of the past that are utilized to understand history. The institution is responsible for the care, control, and preservation of archival records for the repository in which the materials are stored.
Archive resource #1:
https://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/about/definitions.html
Archive resource #2:
https://siarchives.si.edu/blog/just-what-archives-anyway
What is an Archivist?
An archivist is an individual responsible for managing and overseeing an archival repository or records of value. They are responsible for appraising, acquiring, arranging, describing, preserving, and providing access to the materials. In addition, archivists are trained to preserve the original materials. There are different types of archivists: archives technicians, archives specialists, conservators, and records managers.
Archivist job position #1:
https://www.boisestate.edu/hrs-job-levels-job-standards/job-standard-fo…
Archivist job position #2:
https://jobs.jhu.edu/job/Baltimore-Reference-Archivist-MD-21218/9445069…
Archivist job position #3:
https://www.maine.gov/sos/arc/archivistjob.html
Week 2: Archive Fundamentals
The archival fundamentals are Provenance, Original Order, Finding Aid, and Protocol of Native American Archival Materials. Provenance, also known as Respect Des Fonds, is the information regarding the origins, custody, and ownership of an item or collection. It also protects records' content, structure, integrity, and context. Fonds are containers containing a specific creator's material, such as an organization, family, or individual. Different countries use different terms for fonds; for example, the term archive group is used in England. The United States National archives use the term record group.
Original order is the organization and sequence of records established by the creator of those records. It preserves the arrangement, method, logical structure, existing relationships, and evidential significance of how the creator accesses their records. However, the original order doesn't necessarily mean it is in the order in which materials were received. The materials may have been distributed because of inactive use before transferring them to archives. Thus, it is necessary to reconstruct the original order, the process of returning materials to the organization and sequence established by their creator.
There are five levels of arrangement: Repository, Record Group, Series, File Unit, and Item. The repository is the archives itself, where it is stored, the institution. The record group is the collection in the repository. Series are within the record group, which are categories with different functions. File unit is each file in a fond. Lastly, an item is an individual piece in the file unit. We must note that we do not itemize archive collections like museum artifacts. Next, finding aid are tools that help users find information in a specific record group, collection, or series of archival materials; some examples of finding aid are Arizona Archives Online, Library of Congress, and South Dakota Digital Archives.
Lastly and most importantly, the Protocol of Native American Archival Materials is essential to protecting traditional knowledge and tribal sovereignty. Native Americans, also known as American Indians, have been fighting for their Indigenous rights and social justice since their first contact with European settlers. American Indians are the first people of what is now North America and are sovereign nations. There are 573 plus federally recognized tribes here in the U.S. Each tribe has a distinctive language, history, culture, and traditional knowledge. These four items are essential to the American Indian perspective and philosophy. Each tribe has cultural knowledge to be shared only with their people, not the public, for example, ceremonies, seasonal animal stories, and traditional stories. These traditional ceremonies and stories may be documented in books and the like. However, these documents exploit our culture and go against our traditional teachings. The Constitution of the United States mentions Indians specifically in Article 1, section 1, clause 3, "excluding Indians not taxed," and, most importantly, in Article 1, section 8, clause 3, in which the powers of Congress are enumerated. Article II, section 2, clause 2, the treaty-making clause, does not explicitly state Indians or Indian tribes, but treaties are the supreme law of the land. Therefore, American Indians are domestic nations with treaties within the U.S. and are the only ethnic group with distinctive individual governments.
-Written by Baylee LaCompte
Read more of Baylee's blogs on archiving at the Labriola Center here.