The UALR Sequoyah National Research Center will soon process and archive a major new collection of Alaska Native videos, thanks to a $24,000 grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council.

With the help of the grant, the Sequoyah Research Center will preserve the Jeanie Greene Alaska Native Collection, which contains 1,263 videotapes.

Greene, a reporter and journalist, worked with Alaska Native people to highlight and document their culture throughout the 1990s. She donated her film archives to the Sequoyah Center in 2014.

The current format of the recordings is outdated, so the center, led by director Dr. Daniel Littlefield, will partner with Preservation Technologies, a Pennsylvania collections preservation company, to create digital files from the tapes.

After the recordings have been digitized, they will be made available to the public.

Once the Jeanie Greene Collection is archived, it will be the largest public collection focused on contemporary Alaska Native cultures in the continental United States.

A member of the Inupiat Alaska Native people, Greene told the stories and struggles of her subjects with deep respect. Greene also invited her subjects to share their own stories, sometimes sending them cameras and encouraging self-documentation.

The tapes include both polished television broadcast programs and raw footage. Contents range from interviews with elders to town profiles to youth programs.

The archiving project will make these programs available to a new generation of Alaska Natives, including some who now reside in Arkansas, Littlefield said.

“The conservation work planned in this project is a major step toward preservation of the spoken expression, performance, and other actions of Alaska Native people,” Littlefield stated in his proposal.

Greene echoed Littlefield’s enthusiasm for the project, stating “I will continue to produce Alaska Native documentaries and movies as well as pursue my academic goals, knowing past programs are in safe hands.”