This is the last Friday Bulletin for 2018. We wish everyone a safe and happy winter holiday of their choice and hope all of you will have a great 2019!
The Alaska State Library and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are one of nine partnerships nationwide awarded a Field Project grant from Civic Switchboard. The $9,000 grant will support data valuation work for Alaska’s Statewide Data Hub project. During the valuation process, the partnership will survey stakeholders to create a statewide data ecosystem map. The map will identify sources of data within state government, and how that data is currently accessed and used. When the map is complete, the project will convene state, community and business representatives to analyze the ecosystem, identify missing connections or perspectives, deficient resources and infrastructures, and other gaps and weaknesses, as well as strengths and opportunities.
This will be the first step in understanding the true value of Alaska’s data and information assets, and how they can be used for improved government efficiency, economic development and civic engagement. The grant recipients will also contribute details about their work back to Civic Switchboard, informing case studies that will become part of the Civic Switchboard Guide.
For more information on Civic Switchboard, see https://civic-switchboard.github.io/ .
Join State Library E-rate specialist Valerie Oliver in her webinar next month to learn how to file Form 471 Application for Funding:
Filing the E-rate Form 471 Application for Funding January 10, 2018 10:30, repeating at 3:30pm
10:30 am | Meeting number: 803 035 673
3:30 pm | Meeting number: 803 860 754
Librarian Claire Imamura sent us a report on November’s Youth Art Activity:
[On November 3, 2018] the youth activity program had scientific illustrator Kathy Hocker leading an archaeological drawing class for kids ages 8-14. They learned about archaeological digs, the use of field sketching in archaeology, and then used tools and other objects from the Museum’s hands-on collection to create their own archaeological drawings. Big thanks to Lisa, who introduced the kids to the Thorne River basket and explained how it was discovered, excavated, preserved, and ultimately displayed in the Museum’s origins gallery, Christine and Mary for assisting with selecting hands-on objects, Ellen for loaning us the Alaska Archaeology Week poster, Jacki and Connie for identifying archaeological drawings from the Historical Collections, and to the Friends for supporting this program.
I’ve attached some of my favorite photos from the day – it was hard to pick because the program was so great. It had a strong connection to LAM collections, taught kids about archaeology and objects, and resulted in beautiful drawings of the hands-on objects. Ben Hohenstatt of the Capital City Weekly was there in the morning and he wrote a very nice article about the program.
Here are two of the pictures that Claire took that day:
Caption: Grid Activity
Caption: Paint Brush and Net Gauge
Recently, Janey Thompson of the Alaska’s Digital Newspaper Project shared this news with us:
Chronicling America updated their list of Alaska newspaper titles and added one more: The Seward gateway daily edition and the Alaska weekly post.
Throughout its publication, the Seward gateway changed title and frequency, offering both daily and weekly issues. For this paper, we had access to one issue of the Seward gateway daily edition and the Alaska weekly post, which is treated as its own newspaper title. Although only a single issue, this paper can shed light on what life was like January 24, 1918 in Seward- and the rest of the world.
For a bit more on this title, see Janey’s 11/6/2018 post on the blog for Alaska’s Digital Newspaper Project.
The Sheldon Jackson Museum’s December Artifact of the Month is an Inupiaq ivory dish (SJ-II-K-115). The dish was collected from Point Hope by Sheldon Jackson in 1889. For many years, the dish was cataloged as being made of bone, but closer examination shows that it is in fact mammoth or mastodon ivory.
The presence of Schreger lines indicates if something is made of bone or ivory and averages taken representing angles between the Schreger lines can indicate whether or not the ivory is from an extinct ivory-bearing animal. When determining if something is bone or ivory, one may consider the density of a piece and its coloring or texture, but these indicators are not as reliable as Schreger lines which are often described as cross-hatchings, stacked chevrons or engine turnings and present in all ivory but not bone.
For more on this artifact, visit December 2018 Artifact of the Month page. Or take a look at artifacts from months past.
The Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan will be hosting an open house for their Native Arts Studies Program on Thursday 1/10/2019 from 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm. From their flyer:
“Learn about the Native Arts Studies Program and the spring class schedule, register for spring classes starting at 5:15, meet instructors and staff, explore classrooms, the woodshop and exhibits, find out about resources from KIC and UAS, sign up to win class registration door prizes, celebrate and perpetuate Northwest Coast art!”
For a list of spring classes, please see Native Arts Studies Program webpage. Distance students can register during the Open House by calling (907) 225-5900.
The Gustavus Public Library kindly shared their December 2018 newsletter with us and there were several things we wished to highlight for you:
If your library, archives or museum publishes a monthly newsletter, we would love to receive it.
In a short article in the Cordova Times, Cathy Sherman of the Cordova Public Library notes that every single book on the New York Times best books of 2018 list is available at the library. We enjoy it when libraries publicize their contents and wish them many happy borrowings.
The Eaglecrest Ski Area is Juneau’s city-run ski resort. We recently got the following photo and message from Erin Lupro, Director of Snowsports School, Rental, Retail & Repair:
Eaglecrest is now a location for Little Free Library. Charter 2727 is located in the Porcupine Learning Center at Eaglecrest Ski Area, Juneau, AK.
We have so many community members, families and children that visit our lodge. It really will be a wonderful opportunity for everyone to share to love of reading!
We love the new addition to the lodge.
And we love when new opportunities for reading are created!
The Anchorage Museum commemorated the 7.0 Anchorage Earthquake on November 30th through poetry. They used Twitter and other means to solicit word and phrase suggestion to be used by a group of poets convened by the museum.
The process and some of the results are featured in a 12/8/2018 Anchorage Daily News article written by Dave Goldman, Local writers team up with Anchorage Museum, patrons to express earthquake thoughts.
Recently we received two awards related news items from ALA:
2019 Nonfiction Award finalists announced
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), selected five books as finalists for the 2019 Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award, which honors the best nonfiction books written for young adults between Nov. 1, 2017 and Oct. 31, 2018. YALSA will name the 2019 award winner at the Youth Media Awards on January 28, 2019, in Seattle during the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting. Read moreWinners of National Short Fiction Contest announced
Six outstanding writers are being recognized for their entries in the Public Library Association’s (PLA) National Short Fiction Contest. This fall, more than 600 writers across the U.S. entered the contest by submitting short stories on the theme of courage. The contest was hosted by PLA in collaboration with French publisher Short Édition and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The contest jury awarded the $1,000 USD first prize to Mim Eichmann, a professional folk musician, composer and choreographer from Wheaton, Illinois, for her story “Slomp.” The jury also awarded $500 USD Honorable Mentions to R.L. Burke, an author and playwright from Snellville, Ga., for “The Invitation” and Donald Ryan, a librarian with the Piedmont (Georgia) Regional Library System, for “Call It What You Will.” All three juried winners will also be given the opportunity to have their stories published in Short Édition’s Short Story Dispensers — ATM-like kiosks that print short stories in a range of genres—around the world. Read more
The American Library Association (ALA), in partnership with the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, invites public libraries to apply to be part of a national tour of the traveling exhibition Thinking Money for Kids.
Inspired by the success of the popular Thinking Money exhibit, Thinking Money for Kids is a new financial literacy experience for children ages 7 to 11, as well as their parents, caregivers and educators. The interactive exhibit will help children understand what money is, its function in society, money choices, and money values, such as fairness, responsibility and charitableness.
The exhibit will travel to 50 U.S. public libraries between 2019 and 2021. Applications will be accepted from Dec. 17, 2018, to Feb. 8, 2019. Read the full project guidelines and apply online.
Selected libraries will receive:
Participating libraries will be required to hold a minimum of four public programs related to the personal finance themes explored in the exhibition and fulfill other marketing and reporting requirements.
Thinking Money for Kids will be administered by ALA’s Public Programs Office.
ALA and the FINRA Foundation have partnered since 2007 on Smart investing@your library, a program that supports library efforts to provide patrons with effective, unbiased educational resources about personal finance and investing.
If you or someone you know plan to make reading more books part of your 2019 plans, hop on over to Library Journal’s Best Books 2018 list. While there are lots to choose from – 188 books this year – Library Journal has subdivided the list into the easy to browse categories of:
If you enjoyed the book list, you might enjoy the upcoming Audio and DVDs lists coming out in January.
Speaking of books, Library Journal has a page that displays all of their book news items, including their Book Pulse and Prepub Alerts. You can even have Book Pulse delivered to your inbox every day, but then you might not have time for anything else but following great reviews and book lists.
A few updates from our friends at the Library of Congress:
Watch: A Conversation with Rod Serling
In our last update we announced the National Screening Room which makes rare movies available on the Library's website and on our YouTube channel. We are still discovering treasures from this collection like this conversation with Rod Serling from 1968 in which he discusses television as a medium for literary writers and artists. Check it out.
World War I: 400 Volumes of WWI Newspaper Content are Now Online
Read all about this extraordinary collection of newspaper front pages, illustrated feature articles, editorial cartoons, and more in a post from our Headlines & Heroes blog. You can also go straight to the collection and start exploring yourself.
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