BOZEMAN — Dozens of librarians serving tribal colleges and Indigenous communities throughout the country and beyond will have the opportunity this summer to participate in a professional development event hosted by the Montana State University Library. The 2023 Tribal College Librarians Institute, or TCLI, to be held at MSU June 5-9, will be supported this year by a $75,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation.

“We are so grateful to the Mellon Foundation for their support of TCLI,” said Doralyn Rossmann, dean of the MSU Library. “This funding provides crucial professional development opportunities for dozens of tribal college librarians who, in turn, support their Native communities.”

Mary Anne Hansen, professor and research services librarian with the MSU Library who is leading the institute, said 35 to 45 librarians attend the institute each year. The event features guest speakers and experts from the library profession as well as from Native communities, with organizers aiming to respond to the librarians’ academic and cultural needs. Topics in previous years have included creating oral history projects, providing targeted library services and outreach to veterans and military families, and grant writing information. Some topics, such as building archives and content digitization, are revisited frequently, Hansen said.

“With more and more tribal college libraries establishing, growing and digitizing their archival collections, there is a glaring need for additional training in archival practices and digitization,” Hansen said.

The MSU Library founded the Tribal College Librarians Institute in 1990 at the request of some of Montana’s tribal college librarians, who were seeking professional development support from MSU, the state’s first land-grant university. Hansen, who became involved with the TCLI in 1997, said the institute is designed to provide continuing education, professional development and networking opportunities for tribal college librarians and librarians who serve tribal college students.

Now in its 33rd year, the TCLI has grown in both size and geographic diversity, drawing participants from across the U.S., Canada and New Zealand. It is recognized as the one of the best development programs in North America for librarians serving native people, Hansen noted.

She said that because many tribal college libraries are also community libraries, many participants serve the information needs of not only students and faculty at tribal colleges but also their greater tribal communities. That means the librarians might provide after school and summer reading programs for children, job-seeking and computer help, and intergenerational cultural programming, including arts and traditional languages.

“Tribal college librarians often do a ton on a shoestring budget, and many are largely geographically isolated,” Hansen said. “I’ve heard many say that they love this opportunity to come together and speak with others in the same boat.”

Hansen noted that many participants return year after year to the TCLI.

“There is a continuing need for tribal college librarians to come together in person to share their projects, challenges and best practices,” she said. “Connecting with other librarians in similar situations is a large part of the value of the TCLI.”

Hansen said she hopes TCLI participants leave the institute with “new knowledge, new friendships, a stronger network and, hopefully, a renewed desire to be in their job.

“Over the years, I’ve heard a few people say that, ‘I’ve stayed in my job because of TCLI. Now I have that support network,’” Hansen said.

For questions or information about participating in the Tribal College Librarians Institute, contact Hansen at 406-994-3162 or mhansen@montana.edu. More information is also available at lib.montana.edu/tcli/.