I've been interested in getting our collection to have a broader literary sense and have gotten very excited about adding a Native American component, Right now we have very large collection of D.H. Lawrence and Charles Dickens - a couple [of] white guys from England. |
Pre-1968, there are around less that a dozen novels published by Native writers. The reason is that a lot of Indian writers hadn't had access to [the] publishing world. |
Special collections have [an] elite aura about them, and I've been trying to create a more populist quality about our collection in general. I'm particularly interested in promoting literacy, and I hope to develop programs that will make this Native American collection more dynamic and bring people into the John Wilson Room. |