Sitting Bull College Library started as Standing Rock Tribal Library in 1973 and was supported by innovative grant funds that introduced library services across Standing Rock and based in Fort Yates. A Design for Library Services for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is the founding document for the library that still informs activities today. It can be found and downloaded from the Internet Archive at this link
The early library featured several locations around Standing Rock and a range of services from a weekly radio show to a newsletter. Copies of the newsletter, which continued weekly from 1973-1977, can be read and downloaded from the library website at this link.
Here is a copy of an old library inventory from 1979
The library has continued its service as the public and tribal library to the greater Standing Rock community in addition to serving as the library for the college. Standing Rock College changed its name to Sitting Bull College in 1996 and the library took the name as well.
We continue to be informed and inspired by the early activities of the first library as we look to the future. Historic documents such as the Directory of Services on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, published by the library in 1974, provide a window into an age when new energy was being put into expanding educational infrastructure not just on Standing Rock, but across Indian country. This document too can be accessed and downloaded via the Internet Archive at this link.
