Introduction
Many cultural institutions in the territory referred to as the United States (U.S.) recognize the importance of striving for racial justice in every aspect of our work. For metadata-focused library workers, one focus of addressing longstanding injustice within cataloging and classification is ensuring population groups are referred to in our controlled vocabularies by terminology which reflects their preferred group names. Oppressive colonial practices sought to deny Indigenous peoples their right to name themselves; our collective goal is towards redressing historical imbalances of power in naming, acknowledging and upholding the identifications Indigenous peoples choose for themselves.
Best Practices in Authority Work Relating to Indigenous Nations in the U.S. is intended for settlers and other non-Indigenous people with limited experience and knowledge about the complexity around Indigenous sovereignty and group names. For Indigenous peoples, groups include nations, tribes, and distinct native communities which may or may not be recognized by the federal government, but exclude groups with vague claims to native identity for the purpose of misrepresentation. To recognize the distinct identity of Indigenous nations as sovereign entities, and for the ease of reading within this document, we refer to these groups as nations.
This document is specifically constrained to discussing authority work relating to Indigenous nations in the U.S. There are Indigenous peoples throughout the world and while the overarching principles outlined here may apply broadly, different contexts will necessitate different practices. Terminology relating to Indigenous peoples is ever-changing; the members of LAIPA consider this an initial version of this document and publish it with the intention that it will continue to be revised in the future. We are publishing these best practices under a Creative Commons license in the hope that other organizations will adapt these best practices for other contexts internationally. We are extremely grateful for the Indigenous-written resources consulted to draft this document and for the thoughtful feedback received by Indigenous and non-Indigenous members of the library community on draft versions.
