people like me as well, who -- i was studying the history when this was going on -- i thought, it is so important for people to know about this history because there's kind of a notion that, oh, adoption is great. isn't it nice when people who have financial means take in children who are in difficult circumstances or who are neglected or abused? i felt like there was an important history to be told here, that there's more than meets the eye, that sometimes the state was using the promotion of fostering and adoption as a tool to undermine ofian people and instead providing the resources that indian communities needed to thrive and for indian families who are struggling to get back on their feet, over time, it seemed like the government was really trying to just undermine these communities through removing their children, because if you remove children, third ofy up to 1??a all children, the tribe cannot persist and the culture cannot persist. issues is such a grave for indian families and indian people. >> the c-span city's tour of the literary sites of lincoln, nebraska, continues with a visit to the room of nebraska authors at the bennett martin library. the main public library in lincoln, nebraska. host: we are in the heritage room of nebraska authors. it is in the lincoln city library in lincoln, nebraska. this is the main library in downtown lincoln. the bennett martin branch and we are on the third floor. the purpose of the heritage room is to collect and celebrate and promote the works of nebraska authors. w began the collectione in 1949 with a library named ethel jane marr. she originally held just one bookcase where she would put books that would come in by nebraska office. our collection has grown from that shelf to now we have 14,000 volumes. we represent more than 4000 nebraska authors. the most prominent authors featured here are will a toheter, our most famous breast gaza. some of for contemporaries would have been -- aldridge. and manyome cleft corn of the early writers are established as literary heritage. they started at the nebraska writers guild and they began the tradition of writing about planes literature. we also have some interesting writers who wrote, who were l wroteknown but they land surveys. they wrote about fthe more nonfiction approach to a nebraska settlement. we have early books from same as -- from famous in breast -- famous nebraskans. morton,jay sterling william jennings bryan. we have some of the books he wrote. these are some of the books that are representative of our early collection efforts. some of the things we collected early on were books that were the property of famous nebraska is examples of both of those things. this one, for example, is "republic for empire," written by william jennings bryan. very delicate. that is his signature. this is part of his personal library. it was published in 1899. not ourk is one of our, earliest book, but it is one of our more valuable books, because of its provenance. this one, for example, is called "n nebraskans." these are nebraskans. part of the territory of nebraska before it became a state. this was owned by j sterling morton. --gave it, it along to him it belonged to him in 1872. this is from his library in nebraska city. this is one of our most valuable pieces. ofs book is a little boook early poetry by the brusca settlers. and some of the detail is what makes this book valuable -- by nebraska settlers. it has the gold on the outside and has a lot of pasted in, um, pictures and things. and also is representative of the early works of first nebraska settlers. so, this is really valuable just in understanding the heritage and the settlement trials and tribulations of the early settlers. we acquire our books through identifying who nebraska author is. we define that as somebody born here or educated here, spent most of their educational years at the university, or somebody who has lived here for more than 10 years. so, we look at these authors and we try to have a representative example of all the brusca authors. -- all nebraska authors. space is small. so, we do not exhaustively collects books from present-day authors, but we do have an exhaustive collection of the ors,y nebraska aluth that are famous for their literary contributions. one of the things our patrons like to see when they visit the heritage room is the scope of literature throughout the past 150 years. so, will cather, many people come to see her books. ane song of the lark" as example. this is the first printing. has an original autograph and inscription from willa cather from october 19, 1919. so we have these early editions of this book. we actually have about 35 copies of "song of the lark" from its earliest publication in 1915 through present-day publication. looking at our shelves come even see how the dust jackets have changed. and also, you can kind of see how the readership has changed. a lot of times it will come in with notes from readers. in some cases, notes from the author. this one, for example is by will

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