Name Lotsee Patterson | Education University of Oklahoma | |
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Books Indian terms of the Americas | ||
Interview with Lotsee Patterson
Lotsee Patterson (b. 1931) is a Comanche librarian, educator, and founder of the American Indian Library Association. She has written numerous articles on collection development, tribal libraries and Native American Librarianship.
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Patterson is a University of Oklahoma Professor Emeritus of Library and Information Studies and as of 2009, a member of the board for the National Museum of Library Sciences.
Early life
Patterson was born in 1931 and raised in southwestern Oklahoma, on a Native American land allotment near the town of Apache, Oklahoma. She started her professional career as a teacher in a rural public school (Boone) without a library. She taught at Riverside Indian School as well. These experiences led her to commit her professional life to determining the library needs of Native Americans and developing tribal libraries throughout the nation.
Education
She went to college at the Oklahoma College for Women and earned a Bachelor of Science degree (B.S.) in 1959. She received her Masters of Library Science (MLS) from the University of Oklahoma in 1969. In 1979, she completed her Ph.D.in Educational Technology. During her graduate studies she focused on procuring money for training librarians on how to work productively with Native American students and in selecting Native American materials of high quality.
Contributions
In the 1970s, Dr. Patterson helped to found the Office of Library Outreach Services Subcommittee on the American Indian, now the American Indian Library Association. Patterson wrote and received many landmark grants for projects that furthered the progress of librarianship for and in native nation lands, one of which was a training program for teacher’s aides of Bureau of Indian Affairs schools to become librarians.
Throughout her distinguished career as a librarian, Dr. Patterson has written many articles on collection development, Tribal libraries and Native American librarianship. She has also served on many committees including American Library Association's Committee on Accreditation. She has also served as a consultant in the field of library studies to many archives and museums nationwide.
Her life’s work has consisted of recruiting and mentoring Native Americans in the field of librarianship, lobbying for funds to create and improve librarianship for native schools and educating students about librarianship.
She is a Professor Emeritus of Library and Information Studies at the University of Oklahoma. As of 2009, Lotsee Patterson is on the board for the National Museum of Library Sciences.