|
Exciting
News - The Red Cliff Library opened on
April 18, 2015!
Read about it at the
bottom of this page
In the spring of 2010, The Rural Library
Project was contacted by a faculty
member of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison School of Library and
Information Studies with a request for
assistance. A group of UW-Madison SLIS
faculty, staff and students were working
with a small Ojibwe tribe in Northern
Wisconsin to revive a once-vital library
that had been closed. The Red Cliff
band of Lake Superior Chippewa (www.redcliff-nsn.gov)
has approximately 1,500 resident members
and the Red Cliff Reservation
encompasses nearly 23 square miles
adjacent to the Apostle Islands National
Lakeshore.
In September 2010, we accompanied a
group of UW-Madison SLIS faculty and
staff and a Chicago-based architect to
Red Cliff and presented a workshop to
Tribal leaders on our experience
creating new libraries. We also toured
the reservation to look at possible
library sites in existing structures and
for new building construction.
The Rural Library Project returned to
Red Cliff in March 2011 to meet with
Tribal leaders, the recently formed Red
Cliff Tribal Library (Mazina’igan
Wakai’igan) committee, and some of the
SLIS project staff and students.
Together we reviewed the project
progress and discussed project planning,
community organizing, and library design
and location. We also visited a couple
of sites that the Tribe was looking at
more closely for construction of a new
library, education center, and tribal
archives facility.
Site
of the future Library and Cultural
Center
Through 2010 and 2011, the Red Cliff
Tribe was also working hard on another
major construction project: The
Legendary Waters Resort and Casino (www.legendarywaters.com).
This 78,000-square feet, multi-million
dollar investment opened in August 2011
and has helped move the library project
forward as Tribal members see new
economic opportunity on the
reservation.
The
Rural Library Project is honored and
delighted to participate in the
collaboration of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison SLIS and the Red Cliff
Tribe to create a library and cultural
education center reflecting the
Anishinaabe heritage of the Northern
Wisconsin woods and lakeshore.
|
