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The KTOO team has been doing great work with us this summer, from upgrading our Lecture Hall to venturing (sometimes far, far) outside the lecture hall to film this year’s At the APK episodes. So far, we’ve completed five episodes despite the reduction in in-person events. There’s still some lag time in getting the episodes on the KTOO website, but you can see the following on the 360TV YouTube At the APK playlist.
We thank all the staff, volunteers, artists, and weavers who made these episodes happen. We hope you’ll have time to take in an episode or two. Or come to a lecture when you’re in Juneau.
My name is Amy Salmon, and I will be serving as an intern at Sitka Public Library this summer. I am a career changer, and I have done a little bit of everything, and lived all over the world. I am thrilled to be making two dreams come true at once this year: completing my MLIS and spending some time in Alaska. After spending about 15 years as an ESL teacher, I am looking forward to working as a librarian, and making a difference in a different way. In Sitka, an island community of about 9000 people in Southeast Alaska, I will be working on a UX design program, following the book “Useful, Usable, Desirable: Applying User Experience Design to Your Library.” The goal is to make the library a more user-centered one, to determine what is and is not currently working at the library, and to make the library experience the best it can be. I am excited to be in Alaska and l look forward to my time on Baranof Island. I hope to see a lot more eagles and whales than bears as I explore, but I will carry bear spray and be “bear aware” (just in case).
Preparing Alaska’s Cultural Organizations for Emergencies (PACO) is a comprehensive emergency management program for staff and volunteers at collecting institutions. Organizations with collections of photographs, rare books, archival materials, objects, cultural items, and government records are encouraged to apply.
Participants enroll in a four-month online course that teaches how to keep staff, visitors, facilities, and collections safe during an emergency. The course guides participants through the creation of an institutional emergency preparedness and disaster response plan. All participants are paired with an experienced coach who provides additional information and support to assist emergency planning efforts. Finally, participants will attend a three-day workshop at a regional fire training center. At these workshops, participants will practice salvaging a damaged collection. The program is free to participants and comes with travel support thanks to a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The deadline to apply for Cohort B is August 9. Cohort C will begin in January. Apply soon to secure a spot in this rare and highly regarded training program!
If you think that harsh rhetoric is mainly found in this century and among political opponents, check out Christopher Russell’s 7/12/2021 blog post Sourdough Socialists over at the Alaska's Digital Newspaper Project website. Here’s his set up:
===Begin Excerpt===
Alaskan newspapers from the early 20th century often argued about controversial topics such as the territorial delegate, the Alaskan railroad, fish traps, and eagles. Editors sparred and went back and forth with each other on these topics with some frequency, and while the disagreements between editors were often relatively civil, they sometimes took on a personal edge that’s lacking in current newspapers.
One of the best examples of these acrimonious relationships was between the Fairbanks Alaska Socialist, run by Andrew Knowles, and the Fairbanks Socialist Press, run by George Hinton Henry. From looking at the titles one might reasonably assume the editors of these newspapers ought to have had similar political beliefs and would have gotten along quite well. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Knowles and Henry were frequently at each other’s throats in the columns of their respective papers.
===End Exceprt===
Source of picture: Alaska Citizen, 7/22/1912
Source of article: Iditarod Pioneer, 6/29/1918
For the full story, read Sourdough Socialists, 7/12/2021, by Christopher Russell.
We recently learned about “Ties to Alaska’s Wild Plants”, a series produced by ethnographic filmmaker Sarah Betcher designed to teach viewers about the many traditional Alaskan indigenous ways of using wild plants for food, medicine, and construction material.
Funded by NSF grant #1546438 to Herbarium Curator Stefanie Ickert-Bond (PI) and Sarah Betcher (Co-PI).
This series, nine so far, is hosted by University of Alaska Museum of the North, which has posted a Ties to Alaska’s Wild Plants playlist on their YouTube Channel. Plants featured on this series as of this writing are:
From a June 10th announcement by our friends at the Sealaska Heritage Institute:
==Begin Excerpt==
(About Baby Raven Reads) (Get the Book) (Audio)
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has released its first-ever children’s book entirely in the Haida language, X̱aad Kíl.
The book, Nang Jáadaa Sg̱áana ‘Láanaa aa Isdáayaan, or The Woman Carried Away by Killer Whales in English, is part of SHI’s award-winning Baby Raven Reads program.
The traditional Haida story features a hunter who successfully hunts a sea otter and forgets to thank the otter for its life. When he gifts the otter to his wife, it comes back to life and swims away. She jumps in after it and is captured by the SGaan, the killer whales. An adventurous rescue begins.
==End Excerpt==
For more, see the full 6/10/2021 press release, Sealaska Heritage releases first children’s book entirely in Haida language.
Whether you’re looking to drop Facebook over their privacy and moderation practices or just want an easy way to repurpose your content, PC Magazine recently reported that Facebook has just released a built-in tool to transfer posts and other content to Google Docs, Blogger or Wordpress. You can choose to copy photos, videos, posts or notes. You cannot transfer all at once.
If you’re transferring to Google, bear in mind that you’ll need to mind your storage space. Based on the PC Magazine article, it’s not obvious whether Facebook or Google tells you the amount of storage your Facebook content will take up before you transfer it. If you try it, we’d like to hear from you.
For detailed instructions and ways that Facebook content can be repurposed this way, see:
The SLED databases provide access to tens of thousands of journals, including Computers in Libraries (CiL). The May 2021 issue of CiL featured an article we think will be useful to web staff in libraries, archives and museums:
Perry, S. C., & Waggoner, J. (Jess). (2021). Universal Design Assessment: We’ve Got a Checklist for That! Computers in Libraries, 41(4), 23–27.
After defining Universal Design as "the design of products and environments to be usable by all people”, the article describes a checklist that may be used to check whether a given web page meets criteria for universal design. It also offers tips on correcting deficiencies.
The checklist itself is a freely sharable/usable Google Doc.
The above article should be available to any resident of Alaska. If you have trouble getting the article, visit the SLED Help Form.
While we don’t have to worry about SkyNet or the the Matrix taking over the planet, more specialized artificial intelligences (AI) from Alexa to the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars is already here. Code.org has posted a new video series and curriculum explaining the basics of artificial intelligence and the ethical issues that come with investing machines with classification and decision abilities. Along the way you’ll learn that while a program can be taught to do one thing better than any human (think Jeopardy or chess), it appears that a program that can learn everything and take over the world is extremely unlikely.
To watch the videos and maybe work with AI yourself, visit Learn about Artificial Intelligence (AI) [Code.org].
On 7/6/2021, Apple published a support document about possible magnetic interference from some Apple devices. From the article:
===Begin Excerpt===
Under certain conditions, magnets and electromagnetic fields might interfere with medical devices. For example, implanted pacemakers and defibrillators might contain sensors that respond to magnets and radios when in close contact. To avoid any potential interactions with these types of medical devices, keep your Apple product a safe distance away from your medical device (more than 6 inches / 15 cm apart or more than 12 inches / 30 cm apart if wirelessly charging). Consult with your physician and your device manufacturer for specific guidelines.
If you suspect that your Apple product is interfering with your medical device, stop using your Apple product and consult your physician and your medical-device manufacturer.
===End Excerpt===
Classes of Apple products that should be kept a safe distance from pacemakers, etc listed in the support article were:
For the names of individual products in each class see: About potential magnetic interference with medical devices (7/6/2021, Apple)
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