EDIC-PDC Workshop by Dr. Trevor Bond and Will Gregg

This session will explore long-term collaboration between the WSU Libraries, the Nez Perce Tribe, and the National Park Service.  Trevor will describe his dissertation research which involved obtaining a Nez Perce Tribe research permit and how his dissertation research materials in turn became a collection on the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal and how this work in turn contributed to an example of restorative justice when the Ohio History Connection returned $608,100 to the Nez Perce Tribe. The session will include examples of the reuse of audio recordings and photographs and the creation of new video interpretations that surface Nez Perce traditional knowledge. Will Gregg will describe a new collaboration just underway between the Nez Perce National, Historic Park and MASC in which MASC staff will process and digitize key Nez Perce archival collections held in Lapwai. The collections include Nez Perce (nimipuutímt) language material and documents showing the impact of the late-19th century allotment policy on reservation lands. MASC has hired two Native students to work on the project this semester and will continue to use the project to provide students with opportunities to work hands on with these important historical records. This project coincides with an effort at MASC to enhance our understanding of which Native tribes or nations are documented within our collections and to share the result with originating communities.

Dr. Trevor James Bond (he/him) is the Interim Dean of Libraries at Washington State University. He is the author of Coming Home to Nez Perce Country: The Niimiipuu Campaign to Repatriate Their Exploited Heritage, a finalist for the 2022 Washington State Book Award for non-fiction.

Will Gregg is the Manuscripts Librarian at Washington State University’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections where he curates records of the history of our region and the greater Pacific Northwest. He previously worked as a museum archivist at University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.