The Role of Libraries in American Indian Tribal College Development

Abstract

This paper presents a model for assessing the role libraries play in meeting the institutional goals and objectives of the American Indian tribal colleges.The Carnegie Report entitled Tribal Colleges: Shaping the Future of Native America serves as the departure point for this assessment.In analyzing the library's role, the paper applies to tribal colleges an organizational development model constructed by Eric G. Flamholtz.The model identifies key developmental tasks associated with four stages of organizational growth: (1) new venture; (2) expansion; (3) professionalizing; and (4) consolidation.The analysis considers parallels between the tribal colleges' tasks and the libraries' tasks.Application of the development model suggests a set of hypotheses that frame the role of the library in meeting the institutional goals and objectives of the colleges.The library-related hypotheses consider the three unique tribal college goals: (1) preserving tribal culture; (2) enhancing community economic opportunity; and(3) improving health care.The next phase of this investigation will consist of extensive data gathering from the twenty-four tribal colleges to test the hypotheses identified in this paper and to generate additional hypotheses and research in the area of tribal college libraries.

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