What is the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center (CISDRC)?
The Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center (CISDRC) is a web-based digital project which shares documentation related to the Carlisle Indian School. We are scanning historical materials that are spread across the country and often difficult to access. By sharing those digital copies online, we hope to facilitate a greater understanding of the school and the many different experiences of its students. This is our mission statement:
This project aims to develop a comprehensive searchable database of Carlisle Indian School resources. Beginning with the school records housed at the U.S. National Archives as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs papers, materials that tell the story of the school and the many thousands of students who were sent there are being digitized. Desiring to add to the school's history beyond the official documentation, this project seeks partners among those institutions that hold additional records regarding the school, its many students, and its instructors. This site also plans to offer individuals the ability to contribute their own digitized photos, documents, oral histories, and other personal materials to the online collection. In addition, educators will have the opportunity to develop teaching and learning materials utilizing the digitized content and database, and the site ultimately will support the creation of original scholarly and popular works that utilize the content of the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center.