Land Acknowledgment

The Bibliographical Society of America conducts its business on the traditional and ancestral lands and waters of the Lenni-Lenape People in Lenapehoking, currently known by settlers as New York City. The BSA recognizes the Lenni-Lenape’s preferred land acknowledgment to honor their people and territory. The Society gathers people together at events across the North and South American continents on the traditional and ancestral lands and waters of Indigenous peoples who were and are still forcibly removed from their lands. The BSA acknowledges the exclusion and erasures of Indigenous peoples in the places where we work and gather.

The Society recognizes its identity as a cultural heritage organization with roots in predominantly white settler scholarship. The BSA’s presence across space is tied to colonial enterprises across the Americas, particularly in academia, and this presence has led to the exclusion and erasure of Indigenous voices in our publications, past programming, and the composition of our membership, committees, and Council. In order to address and rectify these absences, the Society is committed to promoting and uplifting scholarship in the field of Indigenous Bibliography by expanding financial support for fellowships, research, and events in this academic discipline. These ongoing efforts are part of the BSA’s implementation of its Equity Action Plan to inform all aspects of the Society’s work.

Recognizing that the Society’s existence as an organization is intertwined with and has benefited from settler colonialism, the BSA is taking active efforts to make amends by supporting honoraria for the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation in Lenapehoking. Because the BSA has members across the Americas, we encourage our constituents to support landback initiatives in their communities by finding out what tribal community is tied to the land where they work and live and donating to their local tribal communities if they are able to. The Society is also committed to supporting native lands by divesting its endowment from investments derived from fossil fuels and taking environmental, social, and governance considerations into account in its investment strategy. By pursuing fossil fuel free investing, the BSA seeks to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change that put the long-term preservation of material culture at risk.