Collection Assessment of the Digital Record Repository Containing the Official Records of the Gila River Indian Community

Abstract

This collection assessment is interdisciplinary in that it incorporates tenets of American Indian Studies with principles of Library Information Science to assess the current record keeping practices of the Gila River Indian Community, a federally recognized Indian Tribe. The purpose of the thesis is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the record keeping practices of the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC or Community). It provides data collected from a review of the Community’s digital repository of official tribal government documents. By identifying issues in the digital repository, the Community can devise a plan to improve the condition of its records. Discussed within a Native nation rebuilding and Indigenous data sovereignty framework, coupled with Library Information Science, this collection assessment will demonstrate the importance of tribes evaluating their data and collections to improve data accuracy and quality, and manage how data and information are used. This project received approval from the Community. The effective governance of tribal government records is an example of how tribes can efficiently negotiate water rights settlements, rightly discuss accounting claims, aptly participate in government-to-government consultations, and exercise their sovereignty to its fullest ability. A tribe cannot do these fundamental acts of governance if it lacks the ability to create and maintain accurate, adequate, accessible, and complete records. As an expression of their sovereignty, tribes can establish standards of information quality to organize their government’s records. By doing so, they are ensuring that their records are meaningful, intentionally created and preserved, enabling its usability into the future. In the era of Self-Determination, Native nation rebuilding is continuing to flourish in ways that tribes have not seen in prior eras of Federal Indian law and policy. By taking proactive measures and addressing the organization of government records, the Community can establish acceptable standards of information quality. The impetus for information quality standards becomes an important cornerstone for an effective governing body.