By Glenn Ellen Starr Stilling
About the Bibliography
Introduction
This site, which has been on the web since 2002, began as a supplement to The Lumbee Indians: An Annotated Bibliography, with Chronology and Index, a book-format bibliography published by McFarland & Co., Inc., Jefferson, NC in 1994. Its primary function is to provide references, usually with annotations, to sources about the Lumbee Indians. The emphasis is on published sources; and, especially in recent years, coverage is more comprehensive for scholarly sources than for non-scholarly and news sources. Secondarily, the site provides other information, such as a chronology of Lumbee history, biographical sketches on notable Lumbees, and genealogical information (including a list of Lumbee surnames) provided by Morris F. Britt. The site is maintained by Glenn Ellen Starr Stilling, with much technical assistance from her colleagues at Appalachian State University's Belk Library & Information Commons.
How many bibliography entries are there?
This website now has 2,673 bibliography entries.
The 1994 book lists 1,412 sources, in a wide range of published and unpublished formats, which contain information about the Lumbee Indians, the Tuscarora Indians of Robeson County, and related topics. It has a documented chronology of significant events in Lumbee history, as well as an index to the Lumbees' weekly newspaper, the Carolina Indian Voice, from 1973-1993, which have been added to this site. The book won a History Book Award from the North Carolina Society of Historians in 1994.
Because the 1994 book is out of print, McFarland gave me permission to place all sections of it onto this website. Over half of the bibliography items have been added to the site. Data entry is complete through item 764, in the section: Crime and Criminal Justice; Law; etc.; beyond that, key items from the sections on the Henry Berry Lowry Period and the Ku Klux Klan Routing have been added. A grant from the Appalachian State University Library's Martha and Nancy Lee Bivens University Library Fund for Excellence paid for this data entry.
How are new bibliography items discovered?
I regularly search a wide variety of databases for newly published information about the Lumbee. These include both multi-discipline and full text databases (such as WorldCat, EBSCOHost's Academic Search Complete, Gale Cengage Learning's Academic OneFile, Project Muse, and JSTOR) and several specialized or discipline-specific databases (such as ERIC, MLA International Bibliography, America: History and Life, PubMed, PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts, Bibliography of Native North Americans, and Ethnic NewsWatch). I also search full-text newspaper databases. I receive alerts from several specific searches in Google. I scan the footnotes and bibliography of each source I annotate to see if it lists new items. Several scholars have told me about, or sent me copies of, materials they have written. I regularly check the Fayetteville Observer and the Robesonian for relevant articles.
Who writes the annotations?
I have personally skimmed or read each item on the site except a few that I was unable to obtain (these are marked “Not Seen”) and items for which annotations are forthcoming. My annotations are always based on my own perusal of the text of the item, not on abstracts. As was the case in the 1994 book, my annotations are primarily descriptive rather than evaluative. All annotations were written by me, with the following exceptions:
- Since 2009, most annotations for news items were written by student assistants at Appalachian State University Library and edited by me.
- Some annotations were written by Roger J. Stilling; his name appears at the end of the annotation.
In most cases, the annotations have not been revised since they were first written. Annotations for items with a record number that begins with a number, first appeared in the 1994 book; thus, these annotations were written between 1988 and 1993. Annotations for items with a record number that begins with letters, first appeared on this website. These annotations were written in 2002 or later.
Many bibliography items have Additional Subjects; these are more specific topics, people, and places that are discussed in the item and that might be useful to researchers. Additional Subjects are drawn from my reading of the text of the item, not from the annotation; therefore, it is likely that you will notice topics listed in Additional Subjects that are not mentioned in the annotation and are not apparent from the item's citation.
How up-to-date is the site?
When I was working on the 1994 book-length bibliography, I was able to include, and annotate, just about every published scholarly and popular item of substance, along with a generous selection of newspaper articles dating back to the early 1900s. To supplement the 1400-item bibliography section of the book, I provided an index to the Carolina Indian Voice newspaper and a chronology of significant events from Lumbee history. Since this website made its debut in 2002, and especially in the last five years, the volume and pace of publications about the Lumbee have increased dramatically. This rate of increase signals both the wide range of popular and scholarly interest in the history, culture, and experiences of the Lumbee, and the contributions of Lumbee people who are "telling their own stories," as historians, medical researchers, educators, creative writers, students, and more.
In order to keep the site as up-to-date as possible, I have, in recent years, added citations as quickly as I can, with the note that an annotation is forthcoming. Some items will remain unannotated; others (especially scholarly items and news items about significant events) appear with the note that they are "designated for annotation." In recent years, again due to the increased volume of publications, I have chosen to be more selective in my inclusion of news items. I welcome feedback and suggestions about publications that are significant and about items for which you would like to see annotations.
Genealogy
The site provides references for genealogical resources, a Genealogy Help Page (to guide site users in the genealogy process), and numerous resources on Lumbee surnames compiled by Dr. Morris F. Britt.
The site does not assist individuals with genealogical research, however.
How to submit comments and questions
Please use the Contact link to submit feedback, questions, and requests to me.
You can use the Contact form to do the following:
- Request that an error be corrected
- Request that a published source be added to the Bibliography Entries
- Ask a question about doing research on a topic related to the Lumbee Indians
- Provide feedback and suggestions of any sort about the site
If your question or comment is about a particular page on the site, please include the link to the page when you type in your comment in the Message box.
Acknowledgements
I offer thanks and appreciation to the following individuals, who have provided support, encouragement, technical and academic expertise, and—in many cases—a great deal of time and hard work.
James Smith, currently a University Library Specialist at Appalachian's Belk Library & Information Commons, began work on this website as an English major and Library student assistant, while the site was under development. Over the years he has typed annotations, structured the template for the bibliography database, laid out webpages, done data entry, and—most recently—supported, in numerous capacities, the finalization of this Drupal-based version of the website.
Jennie Goforth, formerly Web Librarian at Appalachian's Belk Library & Information Commons, did the web design this Drupal-based version of the website and helped, in a multitude of ways, to get it ready for launch.
Jonathan Priest, Web Programmer at Appalachian's Belk Library & Information Commons, made it possible to take the work that had been done in previous versions of the site, bring it into Drupal, and implement the features and functions that I wanted the site to provide.
Forrest Yerman, formerly an English major at Appalachian State University and student assistant at Belk Library & Information Commons, worked on this website in various capacities from summer 2010 through spring 2012. He wrote numerous annotations for news and video sources and (under the Bivens Fund grant) converted sources from the existing website into a format that the Drupal-based database could use, and added hundreds of bibliography items from the 1994 book to the Drupal-based database.
Emily Hale and Crystal Houk, formerly student assistants at Belk Library & Information Commons, discovered news items and wrote numerous posts for the Lumbee news blog, helped with data entry, and brought a great deal of interest, enthusiasm, and professionalism to all the work they did.
Kathy Staley, formerly an archivist in the library’s Appalachian Collection, developed the site’s Genealogy Help page in 2008.
Tommy Sprinkle, formerly a student assistant at Belk Library, did the first web design for the site, as well as data entry for annotations, prior to the site's inception in 2002.
Tom Bennett, Operations & Systems Analyst at Appalachian's Belk Library & Information Commons, has provided server and web support, as well as technical troubleshooting for the site, at every stage, both prior to the site's launch in 2002 and since then.
Chad Locklear, now Director of Marketing for the Givens Performing Arts Center at UNC-Pembroke, provided graphics and webpage design for an intermediate stage of the redesign of the site.
Hattie Ruth Miller, Lumbee artist, for allowing me to use a portion of her painting of the pine cone quilt by Sally Ann Locklear in the header and footer of the website pages.
Morris F. Britt, genealogist, for answering numerous questions and for allowing me to reproduce many appendices on Lumbee names and surnames from his unpublished book manuscript.
Stanley Knick, Director/Curator of the Museum of the Native American Resource Center at UNC-Pembroke, for meeting with me many times and answering numerous questions, and for many significant contributions to scholarship on the Lumbee Indians.
Wes Taukchiray, researcher on the Lumbee and other Southeastern tribes, for answering many questions over the years, helping me find sources, and for many significant contributions to scholarship on the Lumbee Indians.
Malinda Maynor Lowery, now director of the Southern Oral History Program at UNC-Chapel Hill, for answering numerous questions over the years, for being both a user of and an advocate for my Lumbee bibliography work, and for many significant contributions to scholarship on the Lumbee Indians.
Roger J. Stilling (d. 2024), who was always interested in my Lumbee bibliography work, and who always engaged with me and supported me in all of my projects and endeavors.
About the site's author
Glenn Ellen Starr Stilling is an information literacy librarian and professor at Belk Library, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina. She received a B.A. in English (1975), M.A. in English (1978), and M.L. S. (1978) from the University of South Carolina. She has been with Appalachian State University since January, 1985. She worked at Pembroke State University’s (now UNC-Pembroke) Mary Livermore Library from mid-1980 through December 1984. During that time, she lived first in Lumberton and then in Pembroke. She began work on The Lumbee Indians: An Annotated Bibliography while at Appalachian State University. She made frequent visits to Robeson County during 1990-1994 while working on the book; again in early 1996 while working on the "Lumbee Literature, Art and Music" presentation; as a member of the Lumbee River Fund Advisory Committee; in 2007 during an off-campus scholarly assignment devoted to this website; and occasionally since then to attend Lumbee Homecoming and the Southeast Indian Studies Conference.
Glenn Ellen has also written numerous articles for Salem Press encyclopedias (ranging in length from 250 to 5,000 words) on topics related to women's studies, the fifties, the sixties, Native Americans, African Americans, censorship, modern scandals, global warming, propaganda, psychology, family life, aging, and domestic violence. She has written articles for the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, Social Issues in America, and Encyclopedia of Native Americans and Sport. She has written journal articles and a book chapter related to library and information literacy instruction; they appear in Academic Exchange Quarterly, Research Strategies, Journal of Recreation and Park Administration,Teaching and Learning at Appalachian, and Introduction to Leisure Services in North Carolina. In 2010/2011 she facilitated a faculty learning community for scholarly writing at Appalachian State University and continues to facilitate the group as a writing circle. Her article on this experience appeared in C&RL News 73 (July/August 2013): 390-398. She was guest editor for the second annual issue of Teaching and Learning at Appalachian and guest book review editor for two issues of National Women's Studies Association Journal. Her book reviews have appeared in North Carolina Libraries, NWSA Journal, College and Research Libraries, Counterpoise, and LOEX News. Her articles on the Lumbee appear in the Encyclopedia of North Carolina (2006) and the Ethnicity volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. For over thirteen years she has been a volunteer indexer (now a Senior Contributor) for the ABELL (Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature) database.