Getting Started

System Requirements

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Disclaimer

The publisher has done its best to make sure the instructions and/or recipes in this site are correct. However, users should apply judgment and experience when preparing recipes, especially parents and teachers working with young people. The publisher accepts no responsibility for the outcome of any recipe included in this site.

For Further Assistance

If you require further assistance, remember that technical support is free with all ABC-Clio electronic products. Please call or email us at:

ABC-Clio
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Navigating Content

Top-Level Navigation

A set of common navigational links appears at the top of every page. They include About, Advisory Board, Skills Center, Help, Home, Browse, Resources, Index, and Blog, as this image demonstrates:

• Advisory Board: This link will take you to a page featuring a biography of Advisory Editor Loriene Roy and a listing of the names and affiliations of the librarians and scholars who helped to develop this site.
• Skills Center: Takes you to a separate site (in a new window) that contains tools that can be used both inside and outside of the classroom and library to improve basic research and writing skills for students. These tools include lesson plans, research tutors and wizards, and resources for teachers. See the Skills Center for more information.
• Browse: Ideal for most users, particularly students looking to narrow an over-broad research topic, this feature allows users to access the Subject Browse (see below), a list of popular topics with expandable lists of subcategories.
• Resources: Provides access to the site features, including Tribal Communities Resource, Timeline, Image Index, Primary Source Index, Landmark Documents, Today in American Indian History, as well as the complete Title List.
• Index: An ideal tool for librarians and advanced researchers that provides direct access to thousands of index terms.
• Blog: Your portal to From All Directions, a blog hosted by American Indian Experience Advisory Editor Loriene Roy featuring discussions, podcasts, and the latest news from Indian Country.

Quick Search, Advanced Search, Subjects, and Browse by Tribe

The Quick Search box and Advanced Search link appear on the top left side of each page. Below these on the Home Page are the Subjects, links to subjects that appear in the Browse.

1. Quick Search: Allows you to type in a few keywords and view results. Placing quotes around a proper name or exact phrase can help to narrow results. See more about Quick Search below.
2. Advanced Search: Allows users to narrow or broaden a search by using various tools and filters. See a more detailed explanation on Advanced Search and how it works below.
3. Subjects: Ideal for most users, especially students looking to refine an over-broad research topic, the browse Subjects on the Home Page feature popular topics, such as “Culture” or “Icons,” with expandable mouseovers designed to help refine topic areas. Further exploration of the Subject Browse will take users to a three-column Browse design that allows more detailed access to indexing topics and content. See more about the Subject Browse and Browse below.
4. Explore by Tribal Community: Clicking on this feature, located below the Subjects on the left-hand side of the home page, takes users directly to the Browse by Tribal Communities section of the Tribal Communities Resource, where they can find content on more than 500 contemporary tribal reservations and pueblos.
5. Featured Content: The center of the home page features rotating content from various site features, including Topic Guides, the blog, This Day in American Indian History, and other resources. To see the full text of featured home page articles, click on the title or the “see more” or “learn more” links below.
6. Right-hand Navigation
   • At the top right of the home page is an area featuring icons that link to a cluster of features, which are also accessible under the “Resources” tab on the top-level navigation.
   • Title List: A complete list of the more than 150 books, including multivolume reference works that appear in the site. Users can link to any of the works that have been used in their entirety and navigate through the Table of Contents for an e-book experience.
   • Tribal Resource: Links to a portal with information on historic Indian cultural regions, histories of the indigenous peoples in each state, and essays on more than 580 contemporary American Indian reservations, pueblos, and communities.
   • Timeline: This feature allows users to search through a detailed chronology of American Indian history dating from Pre-contact to the present.
   • Image Index: Allows users to locate photographs, illustrations, maps, and other images by navigating our alphabetical index.
   • Primary Source: Allows users to locate quotations, speeches, treaties, narratives, legal cases, historic essays, and other primary sources by navigating the site’s alphabetical index.
   • Landmark Documents: This list of links to primary documents, such as treaties, laws, memoirs, letters, and legal proceedings, was selected by board member and librarian Sandra Littletree. Each document is preceded by a contextualizing paragraph explaining its significance to American Indian history.
7. Topic Guides: This feature is designed to help users conduct targeted investigations on major topics on American Indians. Each Topic Guide includes an introductory essay; image essay; and links to biographies of key figures, primary documents, lesson plans, timelines, suggested readings, and related content and images.
8. Skills Center: Provides links to lesson plans on American Indian history and Culture, and to research tutors and wizards from the Skills Center site.
9. Top Searches: Links to the top five most searched words or phrases in the database.
10. Most Viewed Articles: Links to the top five most viewed articles in the database.

Navigating Entry Pages

1. Skills Center: By clicking on the Box marked Skills Center that appears just below the Quick Search box, to the left of each article view, users can access Greenwood’s Skills Center. This free site is designed to provide students and teachers with information on conducting Internet research, evaluating source material, avoiding plagiarism, and a wealth of other topics. It also contains 25 lesson plans on American Indian history and culture.
2. Related Topics: Many articles are closely related to other articles within the database. When viewing a particular article, the topics associated with it appear in the left column along with the number of other articles that have been tagged or indexed using that term. Clicking on any of those related terms will take you to other articles that address similar themes.
3. Printing, Emailing, and Dictionary: From any content page, users can print entries or send content via email to one address at a time.
   • Print: By clicking the Print button at the top right of the article view, users can access a “printer friendly” version of the page without any navigation elements. The browser print menu should pop up automatically, allowing you to print a “clean” copy of the article. A complete MLA and Chicago Manual of Style citation of the article will automatically appear at the bottom of the printed page. You can also print from a search results page.
   • Email: All authenticated users can email themselves search results and as well as full text content, or links to content, by clicking on the Email link that appears at the top right of the screen. Content is limited to one piece of content or one set of search results per email.
   • Dictionary: Clicking on the Dictionary tab will trigger a pop-up screen containing full-text access to the American Heritage® College Dictionary, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Type any word in the Search box and the definition will appear. You can also trigger the dictionary by highlighting a word and then clicking the Dictionary button or by double-clicking on any word on any piece of content in the site. Highlighting words will trigger a pop-up window containing that exact word and its definition within the American Heritage College Dictionary.
4. Tools: At the top right on the article view are a list of materials related to the article. These include:
   • Images: Photos, maps, illustrations, and other visual elements that have been indexed similarly to the article being viewed.
   • Links: Vetted web sites that have been indexed similarly to the article being viewed.
   • Citation: Clicking here will provide you with a pop-up window that contains the complete MLA and Chicago Manual of Style citation for the article you are viewing.
5. Table of Contents: Most of the books included in The American Indian Experience are available in their entirety. If the article being viewed comes from one of these books, the user can click on chapters that appear in the Contents box on the right side of the page for an e-book experience.

Browse/Index

The main content of the database has been thoroughly indexed by a team of librarians using controlled vocabulary with indexing terms similar to those used by the Library of Congress in its catalog. (For more information on the index and indexing process, see The Subject Index.) Every article, primary document, image, and web link has been indexed and tagged according to this defined vocabulary. The site contains five types of browsing that provide access to the indexing, each tailored to a different type of user and research need:

1. Subject browse: A condensed list of indexing Subjects appears on the left side of the Home Page. This first-level browse features a selected list of the broadest and most popular subjects covered in the database, such as History, and Literature. All of the items on the list are expandable with subcategories appearing with a mouseover.

   

2. Browse: A more detailed Browse is also available by clicking the BROWSE button found in the top navigation at the top right of every page on the site. This button takes the user to a three-column Browse screen (see below), which makes browsing through the various levels of the index easy and is ideal for students narrowing an over-broad research topic.
   • Instructions: In the first (left) column, a simple list of broad subject categories appears. Click on any of the broad categories to reveal the second-level subcategories. Clicking on any of these categories or subcategories will call up all related indexing terms from the index in the second (center) column. Note that many of these terms are in turn expandable and that you may need to click on the plus sign next to them, or in some cases, click the previous/next button that appears above the column to page through to all the subcategories. Once you’ve clicked on any of these subcategory terms, a list of content indexed to that term will appear in the third (right) column. Articles appear first, followed by Primary Documents, Images, and Web Links. Clicking on any of these results will take you directly to that piece of content.

   

3. Index: For more experienced researchers and librarians, the Index provides direct access to the site’s full index. (For more information about the Index that powers this Browse function, click here.) Though it has a similar interface to the Browse, the Index contains only two columns. The first column contains every indexing term in the database, without the top-level subject filter used in the Browse. Therefore, the Index allows you to go directly to lesser-used, very specific entries such as Phoebe Farris (1 instance) or Mary Tallmountain (1 instance). This tool is ideal for researchers who have an exact, ongoing research goal in mind.
   • Instructions: Page through the list of subject subcategories in the first column by using the “Previous” and “Next” buttons, or use the “Jump to” box at the top of the column. Simply type in a term and click “Go” to jump to that section of the index. Click on any indexing term in the first column and a list of content tagged with that term will appear in the second column. (Note that many of the indexing terms are expandable.) Articles are listed first, followed by Primary Documents, Images, and Web Links.

   

4. Image Index: This feature can be found on the Home Page, the Resources section, and as a link on the Index page. This index allows users to navigate through the photographs, illustrations, maps, and other images in the site by using indexing terms.
   • Instructions: Click on any of the Sub-Categories and corresponding thumbnail images that have been indexed using that term by our indexing team will appear in the right-hand Results column. When you spot an image that interests you, clicking on the image will take you to the content page where this image appears. In most cases the image will be accompanied by a caption and other contextual and citation information. Sometimes, you may have to scroll up or down to find the image. To navigate through the index, use the letters along the left-hand column and the “Previous” and “Next” buttons that appear at the bottom of the Sub-Categories column for more results that begin with each letter. Or type your search term in the “Jump-to” box and click “Go”; if there is an image that matches your search term, the screen with “jump” to the appropriate indexing term and corresponding image.
5. Primary Source Index: This feature can be found on the Home Page, the Resources section, and as a link on the Index page. This index allows users to navigate through quotations, speeches, court ruling, treaties, and other primary sources within the site by using indexing terms.
   • Instructions: Click on any of the Sub-Categories and corresponding content containing primary sources will appear in the right-hand Results column. When you spot a primary source that interests you, clicking on it will take you to the full-text content page where this primary source material appears. In some cases, the Primary Source will be a single document that appears with little or no introductory content. However, in most cases, the primary source material will appear as part of an essay or article with contextualizing information, and often, other primary source materials preceding or following it. The user may have to scroll up or down to find the Primary Source they wish to use in their research. To navigate through the index, use the letters along the left-hand column and the “Previous” and “Next” buttons that appear at the bottom of the Sub-categories column for more results that begin with each letter. Or type your search term in the “Jump-to” box and click “Go”; if there is an image that matches your search term, the screen with “jump” to the appropriate indexing term and corresponding primary source.

Searching

Quick Search

The Quick Search option, available at the top left of nearly every page in The American Indian Experience allows you to type in keywords and view the results. Keep in mind that multiple search terms will be joined together with Boolean ORs, and that the best way to limit your search is to surround your search terms with quotation marks, which will yield results for that exact phrase. For example, a Quick Search for Joy Harjo without quotations will yield results for every reference to “Joy” or “Harjo,” while typing in “Joy Harjo” surrounded by quotes will only yield results for content containing both “Joy” AND “Harjo” in that exact order somewhere in the title, body, or indexing metadata.

A number of very common “stop words” will be ignored by the Quick Search, including: a, an, any, by, for, from, if, in, it, its, not, of, on, or, same, than, the, there, to, which.

This search option is simple to use, but may yield overly broad results. We recommend that users with specific topics or results in mind use the Advanced Search, which allows you to control results with a powerful set of filters and other tools.

Advanced Search: Keyword Search

The Keyword Search option in Advanced Search works much like a standard search screen in many major search engines, with some minor differences. For Keyword Searches, all Boolean operators except wildcards will be removed in order to build the most reliable query. Instead of Boolean operators, use each text box as specified:

• All of these words…: accepts a space-separated list of keywords. All words must be found in an entry for it to be located and returned as a Result.
• and this exact phrase…: accepts a single phrase. The phrase must be found in an entry exactly as you type it for it to be returned. This is joined to the “All of these words…” box, if it contains text, with a Boolean AND.
• and any of these words…: accepts a space-separated list of keywords, If any of the words are found in an entry, it will be returned. This is joined to the “All of these words…” and the “and this exact phrase…” boxes, if they contain text, with a Boolean AND.
• and none of these words…: accepts a space-separated list of keywords. If any of the words are found in the entry, it will NOT be returned. This is joined to the “All of these words…,” the “and this exact phrase…,” and the “and any of these words…” boxes, if they contain text, with a Boolean AND.

Generally speaking, the more boxes you use the more specific your query will be and the fewer results you’ll see.

Advanced Search: Boolean Search

The Boolean Search option offers even more powerful search capabilities than the Keyword Search. Those who choose to use this option must write their query using specific Boolean terms. For convenience, a drop-down menu with all the available options is provided. Selecting terms will automatically insert them into the query.

Search Operators

The Search Operators AIE’s search engine understands are:

• • and (AND or +)
• • or (OR or |)
• • not (NOT or -)
• • adjacency (ADJ# - replace the # with a number)
• • near (NEAR# - replace the # with a number)
• • frequency (># - replace the # with a number)
• • operator priority (parentheses)
• • single character wildcard (?)
• • multiple character wildcard (*)

Adjacency and Near Operators

When used, the adjacency operator specifies the order in which terms must appear and how far apart those terms can be. For example, a result for the search term “Tecumseh ADJ3 revolt” must contain “Tecumseh … revolt” no more than three words apart and in that order to be returned. An entry with only “revolt…Tecumseh” would not be returned. The near operator disregards the order of terms and looks instead only for distance between them.

Advanced Search: Search Filters

Also available in the Advanced Search are four checkboxes that allow you to filter your searches by the type of content you are interested in: articles, primary documents, images, and external resources (mostly vetted web sites). You may select more than one checkbox. Searches default to returning all types of content.

Advanced Search: Sort Options

Results can be filtered by the five types of content in the database by clicking the appropriate tab:

• All (default): All types of content
• Articles: These can be chapters from a book, entries from a reference work, or an article written commissioned for The American Indian Experience.
• Primary Documents: These include excerpted text from treaties, laws, legal cases, speeches, memoirs, folktales, memoirs, and other primary source materials or the complete work, sometimes as a stand-alone document but often within the context of a larger article.
• Images: Photos, illustrations, charts, and maps.
• Timeline: Entries from the Timeline feature, a series of thousands of short descriptions of events from pre-Columbian Indigenous history to the present.
• Other Resources: Includes relevant web links, audio files, primary documents, and other material.

Search Results: Search within Results

If the results of your Search are not exactly what you wanted, or if a search for a common term results in too many hits, you can refine your results by searching within them. On the Search Results page go to the “Quick Search” box, type in an additional search term, check the “Search within Results box, and “Go.” For example, a Quick Search for “Navajo” may return hundreds of results, but if you enter “codetalkers” in the Search box and click on Search within Results, you will get a much smaller and more specific hit list.

Search Relevancy

Results for Quick Search and Advanced Search are weighted. The appearance of the search term (or terms) in the title of the article is weighted most highly, followed by its appearance in the title of the book from which the article is taken, its appearance in the indexing terms used to classify the content, and the number of times the term (or terms) appears in the article itself. In other words, if the term appears in the title of the article it will generally appear higher on the list of results than an article that contains the same term only in the body of the article.

Case Sensitivity, Special Characters, and Stemming

Searching is not case sensitive. A search for “iroquois,” “Iroquois,” and “IROQUOIS” will return the same results in the same order. Modified characters, such as “ñ,” “é,” or “ì,” can be typed into the Search box simply as “n,” “e,” or “i.” Words can be stemmed using the single character wildcard, ?, or the multiple character wildcard, *, as described above.

Multiple Search Windows

If a user opens more than one browser window and searches are conducted in them, the most recent Search overwrites all others. For this reason, we recommend that users launch only one browser window at a time.

The AIE Subject Index

The content of the American Indian Experience database was reviewed, analyzed, and indexed by a team of librarians and editors. To develop the subject index, this team followed the subject analysis guidelines and formatting standards defined by Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). This effort is reflected in the choices of controlled vocabulary terms used to describe thematic content. The index includes subject headings such as: Agriculture; Capitalism; Discrimination; Education; Emigration and Immigration; Genocide; Racism; Television.

The indexing team also used an LC-based structure for subject headings that require standard subdivisions for the purpose of refining their meaning (e.g., Children—Education; Alaska—Annexation to the United States; Genocide—Ohio; Massacres—Colorado.)

However, to increase the flexibility of the index and facilitate its use in any of the browse functional modes described further below, some subdivisions were used as primary subject headings. For example, the phrases —Social conditions and —Economic conditions, which are only used as subdivisions under place names and classes of persons headings in LC-based catalogs, were given complementary roles to provide direct access. The same principle of simplification was applied in the indexing of content of historical events for which the Library of Congress uses indirect access under United States. For example, the heading United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865 was replaced by the direct form: Civil War, 1861-1865.

Library of Congress subject headings that were deemed archaic, potentially misleading, or largely in disuse were also carefully reviewed and replaced with phrases more likely to be used as search terms. For example, the Library of Congress heading Family violence was replaced by Domestic violence.

To further enhance the usability of the subject index and facilitate the extraction of content, topics for which the Library of Congress lacked adequate or intuitive subject headings without overly complex subdivisions were described using phrases especially developed for the American Indian Experience. In some cases, content reflecting some of the lesser known abuses inflicted on native populations during and after the period of European conquest required subject headings not found in the LC authority database (e.g., Forced sterilizations). Some of the headings that were developed specifically for AIE include:

• Abduction of American Indians
• Alcoholism and suicide
• Desecration of burial sites
• Detribalization
• Forced relocations
• Forced sterilizations
• Gift giving
• Labor and gender
• Land claims
• Language recovery
• Sexual abuse
• Trials and executions

The AIE index significantly improves and enhances the related content links that appear alongside a particular article or piece of content. All of the Related Topics that appear in the left column in a Results view are powered by the index. Clicking on any of these will show you other content that has been tagged with the same term(s).

Searching the Index

The AIE subject index supports three functional modes for the retrieval of database content:

1) Alphabetical positioning
2) Searches for exact matches
3) Searches for character strings or words appearing anywhere in the subject headings.

Note: Searches for exact matches or for character strings or words appearing anywhere in the subject headings (as described under headings 2 and 3 below) are not case sensitive.

1) Alphabetical positioning is intended to promote and support browsing in situations where search interests are not well defined. This mode is entirely mouse-driven and it is made possible by the list of letters on the left-hand side of the screen. Selecting any of the letters displays the list of headings that begin with the chosen letter. The scroll bar available on the right-hand side of the center column and the “Next >>” button at the bottom of the screen can be used to move forward to examine areas of interest. Returning to a previous section, up to the point selected initially, can be accomplished with the “<< Previous” button found at the bottom of the screen. Selecting “All” on the left-hand column removes the limitations imposed by the beginning of the individual letters and all of the 7,500+ headings will be listed. This setting will also be reflected in the number shown in the counter above the center column. All the navigational tools (e.g., scroll bar) can also be used in the remaining searches.

2) Searches for exact matches can be entered in the “Jump to:” box without capitalization. The resulting subject headings will be displayed in the center column and organized alphabetically. This type of search is ideal for reentering searches on topics of interest one is already familiar with. For example:

• abenaki indians
• battles
• labor and gender
• massacres

3) Searches for character strings or words appearing anywhere in the subject headings are also supported in AIE. This type of search provides increased flexibility and advanced retrieval capabilities without the complexity of Boolean search operators used in full-text searches. It allows users to create sets of subject headings that share certain characters or words, including internal punctuation. The use of this feature is highly recommended to explore areas of interest when there is a condition of uncertainty regarding the structure of the headings used. For example, entering “Motion” in the Jump to: box retrieves headings such as:

• Academy Awards (Motion pictures)
• Assimilation in motion pictures
• Indian reservations in motion pictures
• Motion picture industry
• Pocahontas (Motion picture : 1908)
• Racism in motion pictures
• Women in motion pictures

Form of Headings

In AIE, the subject headings shown in the center column of the Index page can be single words, noun or adjectival phrases, both in direct and inverted form:

• Actors, Apache
• Agriculture
• Alcoholism and crime
• Authors
• Blood quantum
• Canoes and canoeing
• Casinos
• Celebrities, Women
• Cherokee law
• Civil rights
• Discrimination in education
• Education, Bilingual
• Harvest festivals
• Juvenile literature
• Names

In addition to words or phrases designating topics, subject headings can represent personal names, institutional and corporate entities, uniform titles, author-titles, conferences, and places. The combination of all the subject headings used make up the AIE subject index. The subject index consists of more than 7,500 non-repeating terms. These terms are available for searching in their totality as described earlier. A smaller number of terms representing selected subject areas of significance are available in the simplified Browse. To access the complete Index, please use the link available on the home page.

Uniformity in Subject Headings

To organize the information in AIE and facilitate its retrieval, the index developers relied on authorities for headings that require uniform entries, e.g.:

• Alexie, Sherman, 1966-
• Apache Indians
• Black Hawk, 1767-1838
• Dances with wolves (Motion picture : 1990)
• Forced relocations
• Indian Removal Act of 1830

The indexers also used standard syntax rules when constructing subject headings with standard subdivisions, e.g.:

• Adoptees—Biography
• AIDS (Disease)—Prevention
• Alcoholism—Psychological aspects
• Healers—Biography
• Religious life—Great plains—Bibliography
• Sacagawea, ca. 1787-1884—Death and burial
• Seneca Indians—Economic conditions

Types of Subject Headings

The subject headings used to tag content in the AIE database and build the subject index fall into the following nine categories:

1). Personal names: Content on individuals, including biographical material, is designated by subject headings in the form of personal names. The names may be in inverted or direct form. The form chosen for an individual is dictated by usage conventions and cultural norms and it is used consistently to give that individual a unique identity. Whenever possible and to eliminate conflicts, the terms for personal names in AIE follow the forms used by the Library of Congress as recorded in the Library of Congress Name Authority file.

Names may include dates of birth, death, or both. Some headings may include the approximate date of birth and/or death. In keeping with LC practice, these approximations are designated by the abbreviation “ca.” for circa. Dates may also include uncertain dates or dates when the individual flourished. These are indicated by the question mark (?) or the abbreviation of flourished “fl.” Headings for personal names can also include initials with parenthetical qualifications or honorific titles. Note that some artists’ names may be in form of stage names:

• American Horse, Elder, ca. 1800-1876
• Baldwin, Thomas, b. 1750?
• Between-the-logs, Wyandot Chief, ca. 1780-1827
• Big Elk, d. 1853
• Cornplanter, Seneca Chief, 1732?-1836
• Custer, George A. (George Armstrong), 1839-1876
• Little Warrior, ca. 1780-1813
• Lone Wolf, ca. 1820-1879
• Pocahontas, d. 1617
• Pontiac, Ottawa Chief, d. 1769
• Satanta, Kiowa Chief, ca. 1815-1878

Entries in the form of personal names correspond to data from MARC field 100 in Library of Congress authority records: http://authorities.loc.gov.

Names not found in the Library of Congress Name Authority file were entered using their most widely recognized forms.

When appropriate, personal names assigned to information entries are accompanied by additional, broader terms reflecting classes of persons. For example, a particular article containing biographical information on Sitting Bull would be tagged with both Tribal leaders–Biography and Sitting Bull, 1834?-1890. A similar article on George Custer would be tagged with both Generals—Biography and Custer, George A. (George Armstrong), 1839-1876.

Like any other subject headings used to describe information units, personal name headings can appear with extensions in the form of standard subdivisions. Standard subdivisions are words or phrases that increase descriptive precision. They are aimed at giving AIE users the opportunity to select the most appropriate content based on an examination of the available indexing entries to suit their needs. In the Index and the Browse, subject headings that include standard subdivisions are shown with a plus sign (+). Clicking on the plus sign expands the entire array of available subdivisions, e.g.:

• Sacagawea, ca. 1787-1884
  • Sacagawea, ca. 1787-1884—Bibliography
  • Sacagawea, ca. 1787-1884—Death and burial
  • Sacagawea, ca. 1787-1884—Statues
• Sitting Bull, 1834?-1890
  • Sitting Bull, 1834?-1890—Assassination
  • Sitting Bull, 1834?-1890—Quotations
  • Sitting Bull, 1834?-1890—Speeches, lectures, etc.

2). Organizations or corporate entities: Database content on government bodies, institutions, and organizations is organized with subject headings that reflect the accepted form of their names:

• American Indian Heritage Foundation
• American Indian Movement
• Bureau of Indian Affairs (U.S.)
• Carlisle Indian Industrial School (Carlisle, Pa.)
• Hudson's Bay Company
• Indian Defense League of America
• Iroquois Confederacy
• Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
• North American Indian Association
• Pre-Columbian Society of Washington, D.C.

Entries in the form of corporate entities or organizations correspond to data from field 110 of MARC Library of Congress authority records: http://authorities.loc.gov.

3). Conferences and meetings: Subject headings used for conferences and meetings are entered using the standard bibliographic descriptive format. The conference name is qualified by the date, city, and state or country:

• Albany Congress (1754 : Albany, N.Y.)
• World Conference of Linguistic Rights (1996 : Barcelona, Spain)
• Woodstock Festival (1994 : Saugerties, N.Y.)

Headings for conferences or meetings correspond to data from field 111 in MARC Library of Congress authority records: http://authorities.loc.gov.

4). Publications and uniform titles: Publications and works whose intellectual content cannot be attributed to individual authors are entered using standard title phrases known as “uniform titles.” The uniform title phrases are qualified in different ways. For serial publications (e.g., newspapers), the entries are qualified with a descriptive word, the city of publication, and the date of the first issue. Motion pictures and television programs are also entered using uniform titles. Headings for motion pictures are qualified with the date of production. For television series, the date of the first program is used:

• Akwesasne notes (Newspaper : Middletown, Conn. : 1969)
• American Indian law review (Periodical : Norman, Okla. : 1973)
• Braveheart (Motion picture : 1925)
• Buffalo Bill (Motion picture : 1944)
• Lone Ranger (Television program : 1949)
• They died with their boots on (Motion picture : 1941)
• We shall remain (Television program : 2009)

Entries for uniform titles correspond to data from field 130 in MARC Library of Congress authority records: http://authorities.loc.gov.

5). Author-title entries: The subject headings assigned to information content that describes, comments on, or provides critical appraisal of individual publications or literary works attributed to a personal author are in the form of author-title entries. Articles with author-title entries should be interpreted as content in the form of critical appraisal of the work whose title is cited after the author’s name. The punctuation used to designate an author-title entry is a period and a space after the author’s name. In the subject index, author-title entries file after subdivisions under a personal name:

• Erdrich, Louise, 1954-
• Erdrich, Louise, 1954- —Bibliography
• Erdrich, Louise, 1954-. Antelope wife
• Silko, Leslie, 1948-
• Silko, Leslie, 1948-. Almanac of the dead
• Welch, James, 1940-2003
• Welch, James, 1940-2003—Quotations
• Welch, James, 1940-2003. Indian lawyer

The structure of author-title entries is consistent with the pattern established in bibliographic databases such as the one supported by the Library of Congress. Critical appraisal of a general nature is entered under the author’s name and the subdivision — Criticism and interpretation. For example:

• Erdrich, Louise, 1954- —Criticism and interpretation
• Welch, James, 1940-2003—Criticism and interpretation

6). Classes of persons: The AIE index includes a large number of terms for groups of individuals or “classes of persons.” These terms are intended to create rich sources of materials on people with certain characteristics, such as tribal affiliations, occupations or areas of artistic, intellectual, or creative work. Examples include Actors; Artists; Authors; Dancers; Filmmakers; Journalists;Labor leaders; Musicians; and Tribal leaders. To further assist AIE users in the search for materials of interest, classes of persons headings were expanded with tribal affiliations. These have the effect of creating subsets:

• Actors, Seneca
• Artists, Abenaki
• Educators, Creek
• Traders, Cherokee

AIE articles on literary authors were given multiple access points. In addition to headings with the individual names and broad classes of persons heading “Authors” with and without tribal affiliations, heading by genre were assigned, e.g.:

• Autobiographers
• Novelists
• Poets

Articles on individual women were given additional headings with and without tribal affiliation. The most common application of these headings is in articles with biographical content. For example:

• Artists
• Artists, Apache
• Artists, Apache women
• Artists, Women
• Authors
• Authors, Cherokee
• Authors, Cherokee women
• Authors, Women

Content addressing native populations in North America in general can be found under:

• Indians of North America

To find articles on specific Indian groups, please use the name of the group in direct form. For example:

• Apache Indians
• Choctaw Indians
• Cree Indians
• Fox Indians
• Kalapuya Indians
• Nez Percé Indians
• Osage Indians

7). Treaties, laws, legal and legislative issues: AIE includes rich content on legislative initiatives, trials, treaties, and legal cases. Legal cases are entered under the name of the cases using the accepted standard. Legislative acts are entered under the name of the act:

• Arizona v. California 373 U.S. 546 (1963)
• California v. Cabazon Band Of Mission Indians, 480 U.S. 202 (1987)
• Indian Removal Act of 1830
• Indian Reorganization Act of 1934
• Johnson v. M’Intosh, 21 U.S. 543, 5 L.Ed. 681, 8 Wheat. 543 (1823)
• Land Act of 1796

8). Place names: Whenever possible, place names are entered using the jurisdictional names found in the Library of Congress authority file. When required, places are qualified with the name of the larger jurisdiction:

• Alaska
• California
• Cabazon Reservation (Calif.)
• Cattaraugus Indian Reservation (N.Y.)
• Hackensack (N.J.)
• Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)
• Milwaukee (Wis.)
• Montana
• New York (State)
• Ohio River Valley
• North America
• Wyoming

Place names correspond to the data entered in field 151 in MARC Library of Congress authority records.

9). Themes and topics. Subject headings for topics that do not fall under the categories discussed above can be in the form of single words or phrases. The headings can appear in combination with standard subdivisions to increase their specificity. When subdivisions are available, they are indicated by the presence of plus signs:

• Animals
• Archaeology
• Arrows
• Casinos
• Child rearing
• Climate change
• Clothing and dress
• Health care
• Horses
• Human rights
• Human smuggling
• Knives
• Land use
• Life expectancy
• Literacy
• Literature
• Marriage
• Massacres
• Mental health
• Off-reservation boarding schools
• Pharmacology
• Racism
• Recipes
• Soccer
• World War, 1939-1945
• Weapons

Subject headings in this category correspond to the data in field 150 in Library of Congress authority records.

Tribal Communities Resource

This section can be accessed by clicking on the Tribal Resource icon at the top right of the home page, the Tribal Communities Resource link found in Resources section of the top navigation tools, or the Browse by Tribe option at the bottom left of the home page.

The first two options take you to the home page of the Tribal Communities Resource, which can be thought of as a site-within-a-site. From the home page, you can select a region or state from the map or use the drop-down menus on the left to select a historic American Indian cultural region, U.S. state, or present-day American Indian community.

The third option, selecting Browse by Tribe from the home page or selecting to Browse by Tribal Community once you are in the Tribal Communities Resource, takes you to a Browse page featuring an alphabetical listing of more than 500 tribal communities. Not sure the exact name of the tribe you want to read about? For example, let’s say you’re curious about the Pima tribe of Arizona but you don’t know that the name of their community is the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Just look up the entry on Arizona and you will see every current tribe located in that state listed.

The Tribal Communities Resource contains historic and contemporary tribal information that can be accessed at the region, state, and community level. From each section and on every content page, navigation tools, including drop-down menus and highlighted links, allow users to explore the content in Tribal Communities Resource in greater depth and detail. Users can also quickly change strands as they go, moving from a regional to a tribal level of inquiry by selecting links on the left-hand navigational area. In addition to text, users can choose to examine Visual Guides that provide a museum-like glimpse at tribal art, clothing, tools, and cultural objects. These Visual Guides can be found in the Related Resources box at the regional, state, and tribal entry level. More information is available in the Resource’s Overview.

Timeline

This detailed chronology includes thousands of entries dating from Pre-Contact to the triumphs and challenges facing present-day American Indians. Based on the American Indian Chronology, by scholar-librarian Phillip M. White, the Timeline is navigable by time period and keyword. Select a century from the menu to the left of the entries, and then selecting a decade from the shaded decade boxes at the top of the screen.

To conduct a keyword Search within the Timeline, type a term into the Quick Search box at the top left hand side of the screen. You will notice that the “Search within Timeline” box is automatically checked when you begin your search. Once you’ve typed in a term, such as “repatriation,” you will be taken to a Search Results page with the Timeline tab highlighted and you will be shown hits from within the Timeline only. By clicking on any of the Results shown you will be taken back to the corresponding section of the Timeline. If there are no hits within the Timeline, you will be free to explore the hits from the other tabs, such as Articles, Primary Documents, or Images, for information.

Greenwood Skills Center

A separate, supplementary site to The American Indian Experience, the Skills Center contains numerous educational tools and tutors designed to help teachers, librarians, and media specialists as they guide students in the mastery of research and writing skills. In addition, dozens of American Indian lesson plans offer ways to use content from this site for classroom activities and student assignments. See the Skills Center Help section for more information. Directions on how to best use and navigate the American Indian lesson plans can be found at the Skills Center, which can be accessed by clicking on links with the Skills Center section on the Home Page or by clicking on the notice for the Skills Center that appears on the left-hand side of content pages throughout The American Indian Experience site.

QUICK SEARCH:

ADVANCED SEARCH