Grant Projects

IMLS Enhancement Grant: Kina gda gindaasomi, kina gda zhibiigemi: We all read, we all write
This project is now complete. Miigwetch to all who participated!

The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe's project will strengthen community members' identities as readers and writers and the entire community's identity as literacy-rich through a connection with Indigenous creators and traditional culture and language; a focus on the importance of literacy; and addressing community member desires to embrace literacy and share their knowledge, creativity, and talents in the form of books. Through the book creation process, which involves exploration, analysis, and questioning, participants will cultivate critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration. The project includes the development, implementation, and evaluation of workshops, events, tools, resources, and other related services to empower community members to create their own books to promote reading and authorship. It will support and encourage connection with traditional culture and language; provide guidance, information, and the opportunity for community members to learn about the process of and possibilities for creating their own books; and programs that celebrate traditional culture and language. Outcomes includes participants connecting with traditional culture and language; positive associations with reading; increased confidence; and connections between community members and authors, illustrators, and others in mentor roles.

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IMLS National Leadership Grant: Decolonizing Libraries to Foster Community Well-being
This project is now complete. Miigwetch to all who participated! Please see the Maawn Doobiigeng page for more information, and visit the Tribal Libraries to see Maawn Doobiigeng in action!

The Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries currently use classification systems that employ colonialist logic to classify items relating to Indigenous people. This grant will address the question: How can tribal libraries use traditional ways of knowing and being to break free of the colonialist library organizational systems that reinforce a damaging worldview? The team, along with community partners, will: assess the current cataloging and classification systems through a decolonizing lens; create a system of organization for cataloging and classifying library materials according to Anishinaabe ways of knowing and being; implement this system to decolonize and Indigenize the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries collections; and document how the project was conducted to provide a framework other libraries can use as a template to decolonize their collections.