July 3, 2001

Contact: Joyce McCray Pearson, Law Library, (785) 864-3025.

KU Law Library to expand American Indian law holdings

LAWRENCE -- The KU School of Law Library recently received a grant from the Kansas Library Network Board to purchase materials on American Indian law.

The $8,671 grant will enable the library to update and expand its collection, which includes books, treaties, handbooks, periodicals, microfiche, indexes and tribal codes and statutes.

Joyce McCray Pearson, Law Library director, said that in addition to serving scholars at KU, the new materials would enhance the library's contributions to the statewide interlibrary loan network.

"This grant allows us to increase our already extensive holdings in this area and to serve users throughout the state, region and country," Pearson said. "Through this grant we are able to better support researchers interested in Indian nations and tribes and the Law School's Tribal Law and Government Center."

Joseph Custer, associate director of the Law Library and author of the grant proposal, said the center was the first of its kind in the United States.

"Effectively representing Indian nations and tribes requires an understanding of the laws, history and policies that affect them," Custer said. "The grant money will assure that undergraduate and law students aspiring to a career of representing nations will have access to the necessary books and microfiche that embody the extremely complicated body of federal, state and tribal law that form the unique nature of the indigenous tribal legal system."

The grant program is funded by the State of Kansas and is administered by the Kansas Library Network Board, a division of the state library in Topeka.