Mansfield Library Subject Guides

AMERICAN INDIAN MATERIAL

Contact: Julie Biando Edwards, Ethnic Studies Librarian, 406-243-4505

Many people who come to the Mansfield Library want to know: "Where can I find material on Indians?" There is no single, simple answer to this question. We have books, magazine articles, newspapers, pamphlets, archival material, government documents, and computer files by and about Native Americans in different places in the Mansfield Library. Not even all the books relating to Indians are in the same place, or even on the same floor. To find things on this or any other subject, it helps if you understand something about how the library's catalog and classification systems work. You should also understand a bit about the Bibliography of Native North Americans, a computerized index of journal articles, book chapters, and books. That index and our catalog are the first places to look for material on Native Americans in the Mansfield Library.

Indians in the catalog
 Like other library catalogs, ours lists items by author, title, and subject. To find a subject like "Native Americans" in them, you have to know the subject headings used in the catalog. There's a list of these headings in five big red books near the Information Center Desk. Other copies are on Level One. Reference librarians can show you how to use the list. For Native Americans, the basic subject heading is: INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA. If you try "Native American" as a subject search in our online catalog, there are 16 subject headings that begin that way. Do a keyword search; there are 66 items with this as a subject heading phrase. Do a subject keyword search on the word "Indians," however, and you get thousands of subject headings and over 10,000 titles with subject headings like: INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA -- BIBLIOGRAPHY or INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA -- GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, and listings by place, like INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA -- MONTANA.

BUT—MOST of the material about Native Americans IS NOT LISTED UNDER INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICAbut under NAMES OF SPECIFIC TRIBES OR RESERVATIONS!! The tribal names used are often those used by anthropologists instead of the common names—SALISH not Flathead; SIKSIKA not Blackfeet; for example. 

This is especially confusing, because you can find things in the catalog under the words "Flathead" and "Blackfeet." Those records are for books about the Flathead Reservation, or the Blackfeet Reservation, or they are titles that contain those words. Most of the material about, for instance, the Flathead tribe are found under SALISH INDIANS and subdivisions like SALISH INDIANS -- FOLKLORE. Books about the Blackfeet people are in the catalog under SIKSIKA INDIANS. Kootenai Indians are listed as KUTENAI INDIANS, though the National Forest is KOOTENAI NATIONAL FOREST.
 
When you look in our catalog for material about Indians, the search results will be very big if you do general searches. A subject keyword search on "Montana Indians" will bring up over 1,000 items. If you're interested in the Crow Reservation (not just the tribe) try those words ("Crow" and "reservation") as subject keywords. You find 68 items. Most of those 68 items won't be there if you look through all 1,000+ you found with the "Montana Indians" search.

Native Americans in the Bibliography
The Mansfield Library has over 100 different databases available on subjects ranging from medicine to Montana, and from political science to psychology. Almost all of these databases contain some material on Native Americans. But the database where you can find the most such material is the Bibliography of Native North Americans. You can go to any of the library's public-access computers, select Electronic Databases from the menu, then go to History/Political Science in the subject menu, or the letter "B" in the alphabetical menu, and click on the Bibliography of Native North Americans.

The description of the database (which you can find by clicking on the blue circle with a question mark under the search boxes) contains the following:

Bibliography of Native North Americans (BNNA) is a bibliographic database covering all aspects of native North American culture, history, and life. This resource covers a wide range of topics including archaeology, multicultural relations, gaming, governance, legend, and literacy. BNNA contains more than 80,000 citations for books, essays, journal articles, and government documents of the United States and Canada. Dates of coverage for included content range from the sixteenth century to the present. The database is an essential research tool for anthropologists, educators, historians, political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, legal and medical researchers, linguists, theologians, ethnobotanists, and policy makers. BNNA will appeal to anyone interested in exploring the contributions, struggles, and issues surrounding North America's indigenous peoples.

 
When you perform a search, the results that you get is just the sort of information you would find in a catalog record—the author, the title of the item, the title, date and issue number of a magazine where it was published, or the place, publisher and date if it's from a book. You get a list of subject headings. You do NOT get any abstract or summary of the article. If you find an item you want to read, next you look in the library's catalog for the book or magazine where the article appeared. You can't find the author or title of the article in our catalog— only the book or magazine, if we have that. If we do not have that book or magazine, you can definitely get it on interlibrary loan if you are willing to wait a few weeks.

Native Peoples on the Shelves
Once you find an item you want, write down (or print out from the computer) the call number for the item, go to the shelves, and find it. ALWAYS COPY ALL PARTS OF A CALL NUMBER! No two books in our library have exactly the same call number, but many call numbers have the same first part. Make sure the item is actually available at this library: if you are looking for material about the Salish of Kutenai people, for instance, the item may be at Salish Kutenai College. Much other Native American material is there as well.

Created by Christopher G. Mullin

Last revised 26 Dec. 2006