L.C. Native American Scanning

Two years ago the Library of Congress and LLMC partnered to scan, catalog, and bring online some 285 titles containing Native American constitutions, charters and legislation.[1] That collaboration provided the first big building block toward replicating online the substantial Native American Collection of ca. 1,660 titles that LLMC offered on film during its fiche era.

It was hoped from the beginning that in a second phase of LC/LLMC collaboration a large number of early and rare treatises related to American Indians could be scanned and added to both collections. Unfortunately, this time of sequester and other mindless cuts to the budgets of cultural institutions would not seem an auspicious moment to rekindle the collaborative flame. After all, as reported in the New York Times just this week, the Library of Congress’ budget for digitization, which was $1 million in fiscal 2012, has been cut to $500,000 in the current fiscal year. In the words of Rep. Rodney Alexander, a Louisiana Republican who chairs the appropriations sub-committee that oversees L.C.’s budget: “Times are tough, and we every so often have to make difficult choices between the nice-to-haves and the must-haves.”

Despite these dismal portents we are happy to report that L.C. has placed a high enough priority on the Native American project that it has scheduled at least 500 American Indian titles for scanning in this next fiscal year. The scanning has already begun, and we expect that in the next few months, as LLMC completes the cataloging, this rich lode of research material will begin to flow online. Kudos to our colleagues and friends at L.C. for continuing their good work, even under the most trying of circumstances.