We hope everyone is off to a good start this year. We're looking to forward to useful and exciting times for libraries, archives and museums.
The Alaska State Library is accepting applications for three summer internships in public libraries. Interns will receive travel reimbursement, a $4,000 stipend and free housing during the eight-week internship.
The grant-funded Alaska State Library Internship Project will bring three interns who have recently or are near completion of their Master’s degree in Library or Information Science to work in Alaska public libraries for two months in the summer of 2018. The goals of the project are to provide assistance to public libraries in Alaska who lack staff expertise to sustain long-term projects that would benefit their libraries and communities, provide internship and professional development opportunities to MLIS students and increase the number of MLIS students applying for jobs in Alaska. Application period will close February 15, 2018.
To learn more about the Alaska State Library Internship Project and apply visit http://lam.alaska.gov/library_internship
We are very blessed to have Amy Carney, our webmaster, on staff. She is our local expert on web accessibility issues and we've asked her to share some of her accessibility tips with the rest of us. Here's her first tip:
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.” – Georgia O’Keeffe
Color enhances our webpages, PowerPoints, and documents. It adds information, differentiates concepts, and highlights important details. But what if someone else doesn’t see color the same way you do? An estimated 8% of men and 0.5% of women around the world are affected by colorblindness.
Solution: Couple other visual cues, like texture, with your color. Give the bars in your data chart their own background or border texture to differentiate each one. Avoid pure color coding without alternative cues. Better yet, add additional text that explains what you’re trying to share. Give someone context as to why there’s a thick red bar around an empty form field that wasn’t filled out. This method is inclusive of many more people!
Learn more about the different types of colorblindness from National Eye Institute website.
This issue's featured video is another episode of At the APK, with Jackson Polys discussing his work with the Seward shame pole in Saxman.
The Alaska State Archives recently digitized Gov. George Park's files on the creation of Alaska's flag and Benny Benson, 1927-1928. These 37 pages include cloth swatches, telegrams, hand written letters and orders for the first batch of what would become the Alaska State Flag.
The Sheldon Jackson Museum’s January Artifact of the Month is a Yup’ik model dance scene within a community house or qasgiq (SJ-II-H-46). It is not known who collected this model, nor who made it, but it has been identified as likely being from the Lower Yukon River area. Upon closer examination, this beautifully carved model conveys to the viewer a story about Yup’ik architecture, dancing, and even pilot bread.
The date of the January Artifact of the Month model is unknown, but the inscription on the bottom, “Pilot Bread,” suggests it was created sometime in the late nineteenth century. Pilot Bread was invented by a baker named John Pearson of Newburyport, Massachusetts. With a long lasting shelf life and ability to withstand voyages over sea, the cracker was similar to hard tack with the added benefit of being far more palatable due to its higher sugar and shortening content. Starting in the mid-1800s, pilot bread, brought north on ships and for crews’ consumption, was an important trade item. Once the bread was eaten, the wooden crates used to transport the crackers were frequently recycled into objects like this model and then sold or traded.
View previous Artifacts of the Month.
If you want to know about events in our Division, there are a number of ways to find out as documented in a January 17, 2018 Since You Asked post by librarian Claire Imamura.
Last month Claudia Haines did a guest post in the American Library Association's (ALA) District Dispatch where she shared information about her library's Makers2Mentors initiative.
Deborah Rinio, Secretary of the Alaska Association of School Librarians was recently named to the American Library Association's (ALA) Policy Corps. The ALA Policy Corps aims to expand ALA's ability to advocate on key policy issues on behalf of the library community. Participants in the Corps focus on issues for which deep and sustained knowledge are necessary to advance ALA policy goals and library values among policymakers. For more information about the ALA Policy Corps, visit http://www.ala.org/advocacy/ala-policy-corps.
An December announcement from Senator Murkowski you may have missed:
S. 2271, the Museum and Library Services Act of 2017, was introduced by Senator Reed (D-RI) on Thursday, December 21st in the United States Senate. Senator Lisa Murkowski, an original co-sponsor of the measure, said, “I am a huge fan of libraries and museums. They enrich our communities, engage Americans of all ages in continued learning, increase economic opportunities, and sustain our values and cultures. The Museum and Library Services Act will help to strengthen the already amazing libraries and museums across Alaska. I am proud to introduce this bill with Senator Reed as it will help Alaska’s diverse libraries and museums advance, further enable the professionals and volunteers who dedicate their energies to these institutions, and improve services for their patrons. I am grateful to Senator Reed for including recommendations from Alaska’s library and museum community and for including provisions that expand support for and consultation with tribal libraries and museums.”
For more information about about S 2271, visit its page on Congress.gov.
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