Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe

The Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries include one public Tribal Library, one preK-5th grade Tribal Academy library, and one Tribal College library. These libraries use classification systems that employ colonialist logic to classify items relating to Indigenous people. This grant will address the question: How can tribal libraries use traditional ways of knowing and being to break free of the colonialist library organizational systems that reinforce a damaging worldview? The team, along with community partners, will: assess the current cataloging and classification systems through a decolonizing lens; create a system of organization for cataloging and classifying library materials according to Anishinaabe ways of knowing and being; implement this system to decolonize and indigenize the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries collections; and document how the project was conducted to provide a framework other libraries can use as a template to decolonize their collections.