Collection management is the systematic, planned, documented process of building, maintaining, and preserving collections. It explicitly encompasses collection planning; effective selection; evaluation or analysis of the collections; and resource sharing and coordinated collection development. The overall goal of collection management is to plan, process, build and maintain collections and simultaneously be cost-effective and user-beneficial.
The first step in the archival management life cycle is planning; writing a collection development policy is essential because it defines what the institution will and will not accept. Policies are essential to deal with donors and unwanted materials by rejecting gifts that do not fit the collecting scope. Secondly, effective selection translates the policies into practice, meaning archivists will actively accept and recognize the need for increased local and interactive materials specialization. For example, the Jean Chaudhuri collection was accepted and admitted into the Labriola National American Indian Data Center because it met the current and future information goals through the evaluation or analysis of the collection. Notably, she was a Muscogee-Creek citizen, leader, activist, and author. Who worked with our local Indigenous communities and organizations here in Arizona. She was also inducted into the Arizona Women's Hall of fame in 2013.
Lastly, the resource sharing and coordinated collection development were demonstrated at the past event 'What Life is All About' Jean Chaudhuri exhibit opening. Labriola National American Indian Data Center and the ArtSpace at West Gallery shared Jean Chaudhuri's collection to showcase her life and legacy with the Arizona Indigenous communities. In addition, to spreading the word and bringing awareness to our message to the community here at Labriola, "...to engage with ASU and the local community in meaningful ways through Indigenous librarianship." In addition to our mission, "to collaborate with and proactively meet the needs of ASU Indigenous students, faculty, and regional Tribal communities by providing: Space and Place, Research Services, Collections, Programming, Stewardship, and Protocols." Labriola’s message to the community and mission is from an Indigenous perspective, which values and respects our traditional knowledge and cultures. Notably, Labriola identifies and addresses the relevant issues of cultural exploitation and data sovereignty, which are problematic in protecting our traditional knowledge and cultures.
One of the overall goals of collection management is to make it user-beneficial. From an Indigenous perspective, tribal archives are essential due to our different world view and the value of knowledge. As Indigenous people, we must explain our traditional teachings and stories as "methodologies" since academics do not see the value in our knowledge. According to Linda Tuhiwai, in Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2012), there are 25 Indigenous Projects which include Storytelling and testimonies, to name a few. Specifically, Storytelling is a part of our traditional knowledge system. These stories are not for entertainment but to teach us to think critically and learn how to behave. Society has labeled our stories as legends and folklore and overlooked their true intentions. Testimonies reveal our truth, for example, oral history. Our history may not be documented on paper, but it is still relevant and valued as traditional knowledge.