Sante Fe trip: Day 5

Friday 8-06-04 Santa Clara and Pojoaque

Got to sleep in today. That was nice. It’s been an enjoyable but tiring week. First thing was a visit from Karen Buller, president of the National Indian Telecommunications Institute. She talked to us about some of the challenges they have in assuring telecommunications access to tribal areas. The main problem seems to be that because tribal areas are so rural, phone companies do not feel it is worth while or worth their money to set up towers and phone connections where their aren’t many people. So, access must be gained through wireless or satellite. Not many can afford wireless and satellite can be very slow. Internet access seems to be a major focus since many natives are now discovering what a useful tool the Internet can be.
Later we visited the Santa Clara Pueblo. The libraries we visited yesterday were developing libraries. The libraries we visited today are classified as full libraries. I admired the librarian at Santa Clara a lot. She has worked very hard to obtain grants and funding and has done a wonderful job. They have also implemented a language program. She said an interesting thing about the computer assisted language programs. She seemed a bit touchy about it and said “The computers will not teach our language to our children, WE will teach our language to our children”. The whole philosophy behind a tribal library is so different. The goal for every library is to provide for the needs of their specific community. But the needs here are so different. These libraries are not only being used to educate people. They are also being used to help restore a culture. The ideas of free access and free flow of information don’t necessarily apply so much to tribal libraries either. Because of the circumstances surrounding their history and the exploitation of their culture, Native Americans are sensitive about letting outsiders know about their culture. As a result, certain things within the tribal library are accessible only to tribal members, such as language classes. Yet, they are still considered to be a public library. But in a traditional public library we wouldn’t dream of denying access to anybody. It would go against our code of ethics. But, an entirely different code of ethics seems to apply to tribal libraries and somehow that’s ok because their culture demands that kind of respect. It’s difficult to get my head wrapped around all of this.