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SNAC for Indigenous Archival Research: Finding Records and Improving Representation
December 12, 2024 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm Eastern Standard Time
When you’re trying to identify which archives may contain records related to an individual, group, or organization you’re researching, SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Context) is an invaluable resource. More than 25 archives, including the Library of Congress, contribute information about their materials so that users can search across these institutions all at once and find collections with relevant records.
SNAC makes this type of search possible by maintaining distinct biographical records—or authority files—for each person, group, or organization. These records provide biographical details and include links to other meaningfully related authority files, such as family members, to support your archival research. And the number of authority files available in SNAC only continues to grow as researchers and archives contribute more information.
In this webinar, originally recorded on Dec. 12, 2024, Ia Bull, Diana Marsh, Jerry Simmons and Melissa Stoner discuss how you can use SNAC for archival research. During their presentation, they introduce the SNAC web portal, describe archival authority control, explore SNAC’s authority records, and demonstrate how to navigate SNAC records to discover contextual relations between archival creators and their collections as well as the relations between organizations, persons and families.
They also introduce their work in centering Indigenous representation in the SNAC platform and describe opportunities and challenges to Indigenous archival search.
This workshop is ideal for individuals interested in learning how to use SNAC for archival research as well as learning about approaches to doing Indigenous archival search.
About the Presenters
Ia Bull ᎠᏴ ᎢᏯ ᎪᎳᏄ ᏓᏆᏙᎠ. ᏥᏄᏓᎴ ᏥᏎᎩᏳᏍᏗ ᏥᎦᏚᏩᎩ ᏥᎾᏥᏃ. ᏌᎶᎵ ᎤᎾᏓᏢ ᏂᎦᏘᏲ ᎠᏆᎨᎵ ᎠᏂᏌᎰᏂ ᎨᏟᏙᎯᏃ. ᏓᏫᏍᎦᎵᎯ ᎠᎴ ᎤᎭᎸᏂᎯ ᏧᏂᎦᏴᎵᎨ ᎢᏳᎵᏍᏔᏅ ᎠᏎᏃ ᏓᎵᏆ ᎠᏆᏛᏏᏙᎸᎢ. Ia Bull is a Ph.D. student in the College of Information (iSchool) at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a member of the Squirrel Ridge Gaduwag Ceremonial community in the Cherokee Nation, and the Natchez Nation. They are the lead graduate assistant for the Indigenize SNAC project, and is involved in researching archival information access for Indigenous communities, reparative metadata, and linked/open data.
Diana Marsh is an Assistant Professor of Archives and Digital Curation at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies (iSchool) and current appointee to the Society of American Archivists’ Archival Repatriation Committee. Her current research focuses on improving discovery and access to colonially-held archives for Native American and Indigenous communities. She is PI on an IMLS grant to Indigenize SNAC.
Jerry Simmons is the former leader of SNAC’s official training program, SNACSchool. He started his collaboration with the creators and builders of SNAC at the University of Virginia Library in 2012.
Melissa Stoner (Diné/Navajo) is Native American Studies Librarian at UC Berkeley in the Ethnic Studies Library. She specializes in metadata and archives digitization. Stoner is the past chair of the Society of American Archivists—Native American Archives Section. She also serves on the SAA inaugural Native American Archives Repatriation Committee. She recently served on the planning committee for the international metadata conference organized by NISO, the National Institute of Standards Organization.
