Encyclopedia of the Great Plains

NORTH DAKOTA INSTITUTE FOR REGIONAL STUDIES

Located in Fargo, the North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies was founded at North Dakota State University (NDSU) in 1950 to stimulate and coordinate scholarship, research, and publications that foster understanding of regional life in the Northern Plains and Prairies and related regions of the world. In keeping with the land-grant university tradition, both knowledge and application are encouraged by institute programs.

Collections, publications, outreach, and the Center for Social Research are the major activities supported by the institute. Institute research collections and archives related to the Plains experience are housed in the ndsu Library under the curation of library staff. The publications program, which includes monographs, occasional papers, and hardcover and paperback books related to Plains life, is housed in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Outreach activities include radio and television production, public programs, and oral history. The Center for Social Research conducts ethnographic and survey research in the rural and urban Plains. The institute codirectors are the director of the ndsu Library and the dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. The institute houses a small publications endowment and the Gunlogson Fund for Plains research.

The North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies is the oldest Plains studies center in the United States and houses the only university-based press in North Dakota. Recent publications include Aristocrat of the West by Larry Wowoide (2000), Unwanted Bread: The Challenge of Farming and Ranching by Sheldon Green and James Coomber (2000), and Dakota Circle: Excursions on the True Plains by Tom Isern (2000).

Thomas J. Riley North Dakota State University