To collect, preserve, and make accessible in a public digital repository the historical record of Indian boarding schools in the United States and to engage in consultation with Native communities to uphold Tribal Data Sovereignty around those records.
Values
Responsible Stewardship
Tribal Data Sovereignty
Maintain culturally and legally competent sensitivity and privacy protocols
Maintain the integrity of individuals and groups
Protecting cultural knowledge in any record format from commodification
Trust
Cultivating conditions of transparency in order to establish meaningful relationships with partners, stakeholders, and communities
Advocacy
In the spirit of augmenting advocacy initiatives to be proactive in cultivating real-world meaningful change
Assist Tribes and descendant families in the repatriation of deceased individuals still on boarding school grounds
Healing
Highlight truth in history with the deliberate intention to understand the past and its effects on the present
Taking careful steps not to create new trauma for boarding school survivors with programmatic
Serve as a space which facilitates reflection and transformation
Preservation
In order for boarding school history to be investigated, understood, and contextualized to its full extent, archival preservation standards—both physical and digital—need to be applied to ensure that primary source content is made available to future generations of survivor descendants, researchers, activists, legal scholars, legislators, and Tribal governments
Service
Being of service to Native American communities in supporting Tribal healing initiatives wherever possible
Being of service to boarding school survivors, descendants, and researchers who are committed to truth telling about U.S. history.
Receptive and responsive to boarding school archives research and reference requests
Truth
Truth in history. Justice in Truth.
Continued research of boarding school history illuminates the past and contributes and normalizes its historiography
Developing resources which facilitate unhindered research
Objectives
Provide a dedicated safe and secure digital space for records of historical significance so that they may be preserved for future insights and evidence.
Continue to contribute to the development and verification of an authoritative list of U.S. Indian Boarding Schools
Continue to identify and locate U.S. Indian Boarding School records
Centralize historic records and other documents, descriptions, and material in related to U.S. Indian Boarding School History.
Establish meaningful relationships with other off-site repositories throughout the United States and Alaska to enter into discussions regarding the reclamation of primary source collections relating to U.S. Indian Boarding Schools.
Cultivate a “Community of Practice” and an ethic of collecting within Tribal communities revolving around the concepts, strategies, techniques, and critical thinking involved in Archival Science, particularly as it pertains to continue stewardship and curation of boarding school history.
Create a viable Records Retention & Disposition Schedule for institutional records that can detail the conceptualization, design, and continued development of the National Indian Boarding School Digital Archive which will function to manage policies and procedures involved in the management of all Digital Archives records.