Diversity Award (team)

Oregon Tribal Archives Institute Team

Larry Landis, Natalia Fernandez, and Tiah Edmunson-Morton and Laura Cray – OSU Libraries

An historic gathering took place on the Oregon State campus in August, when OSU Libraries hosted members from all nine of Oregon’s federally recognized Native American tribes in an effort to help them better preserve their historical records.

The Oregon Tribal Archives Institute Team – consisting of faculty members Larry Landis, Natalia Fernandez and Tiah Edmunson-Morton and graduate student Laura Cray – put together a five-day workshop that featured 19 representatives from all nine tribes. There they learned archival principles and practices that they can apply to preserving their tribes’ most important records.

The institute curriculum included archival facility planning; disaster preparedness planning and recovery; electronic records management; grant writing; social media; professional development networks, and much more.

The development of the Tribal Archives Institute proactively took the outreach to Oregon’s Native American communities to new levels of engagement. Their innovative program embodies the outreach mission of the university in a way that will pay dividends for years to come.