Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains - Montana State University Library

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About the Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains Collection

The Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains Collection includes photographs, paintings, ledger drawings, documents, serigraphs, and stereographs from 1874 through the 1940's. In 1998, the images were digitized and drawn from the library collections of three of the Montana State University campuses (Billings, Bozeman and Havre), the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, and Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency, Montana.

The applicant partnership was between Montana State University Library and the Museum of the Rockies. The major tribes represented in this collection include the Assiniboine, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Chippewa-Cree, Crow, Kootenai, Nez Perce, Salish (Flathead), Shoshone, and Sioux.

Since its original release in 1998, much of the world-wide-web technology changed. To continue hosting and maintaining the original Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains Collection, it was necessary to perform a full technical upgrade.

In 2012, the database and user interface were upgraded to a scalable set of web 2.0 systems. The technical upgrade provided long-term sustainable IT support and maintenance by the hosting institution (MSU Library at Bozeman), and it increased enduser web accessibility and usability.

The 2012 technical upgrade included:

  • Upgrading code to current 2012 LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP/Perl/Python) Standards
  • Migrating the original database schema to the Library of Congress's MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema) schema for increased data sharing between academic, museum and library institutions
  • Enabling SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for increased world-wide-web accessibility
  • Enabling the GUI (Graphic User Interface) to accommodate mobile browser devices