NIBSDA includes digital surrogates and associated metadata of records - regardless of format - of Federal, Tribal, state, or Church boarding school institution operators as well as records of private parties and other documents of historical significance related to the U.S. Indian boarding school era.
NIBSDA Collections are arranged by a variety of groupings based on Source Repository or Aggregation Contributor. In other instances, these can be groupings of record entries that provide more contextual information to the institutions, people, and Tribal Nations who are commonly associated with the historic record such as the various Name Authority Files which augment the relationality of the catalog records.
Continued survey - the process of proactively inventorying and accounting for collections - of boarding school era relevant manuscripts, records, and documentation is a key function of NIBSDA. Collections will continue to be made available on an ongoing basis.