The Division has identified the following events and observances below as of interest to either libraries, archives, museums or to Alaskans at large during the month of July:
Month long observances
Week long observances
Specific day observances
Conferences
If you’re aware of a general event or observance in July that meets our criteria, e-mail Daniel Cornwall at daniel.cornwall@alaska.gov.
Today we take a quick look at the SLED history primary sources guide Canol Pipeline:
The Canol Pipeline was built during World War II and ran from the Norman Wells oil fields in the Northwest Territories, Canada to Whitehorse, Yukon on the Alaska Highway. The Canol Road and a telegraph line running north of Johnson’s Crossing were also constructed at this time to service the oil pipeline. The Whitehorse refinery and the pipeline were shut down in 1945.
This is a multi-institutional annotated bibliography of collections, which are housed in repositories in Alaska, Canada, and within the National Archives, that relate to the Canol Pipeline. This list may not be comprehensive, therefore it is recommended to contact each institution individually regarding materials they may have on the Canol Pipeline.
A few of the institutions with holdings are:
National Archives (College Park, Maryland)
In most cases, you will need to visit an institution above to access the materials.
All of the Alaskan Primary Sources guides on SLED are supported in whole or in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Alaska State Library. This particular guide was created with funding provided by the Elizabeth Tower Endowment for Canadian Studies.
On May 29, Addison Field, Chief Curator, and Steve Henrikson, Curator of Collections, returned four Frog House Posts and a Rain Screen to Klukwan. These objects have been stored at the Alaska State Museum since 1978. Members of the Klukwan community repeatedly thanked State Museum staff who have had a role in caring for these important cultural objects over the last four decades.
Caption: Collection Curator Steve Henrikson stands with Klukwan community members during ceremony welcoming home these Frog House objects.
Caption: Frog House post carried into Jilkaat Kwaan Heritage Center in Klukwan
Caption: Picture of Frog House posts and screen.
As reported in Julie Niederhauser’s June 3, 2019 CE News and worth sharing to Archives and Museums:
Congratulations to the following people who have successfully completed the Alaska Digital Stewardship Intensive and qualified for an Honoring Alaska Native Cultural Heritage through Tribal and Community Libraries: Year 2 Continuing Education/Training Grant.
For the past four months, participants of the Alaska Digital Stewardship Intensive have been steadily working through a course curriculum that was designed to introduce them to all aspects of the digital stewardship lifecycle. Participants have been attending bi-monthly webinars presented by experienced Alaska facilitators while drafting a digital collection policy for their institution.
The final webinar of the Alaska Digital Stewardship Intensive was held on May 21st and featured Jennifer Treadway, the State Records Manager for the Alaska State Archives who provided an Introduction to Records Management. If you missed her webinar or any of the previous webinars, you may view recordings on the Digital Preservation and Digitization Training Resources LibGuide.
The Alaska Digital Stewardship Intensive training was a truly collaborative effort. The success of the training is due in larger part to the following presenters who graciously shared their shared their knowledge and expertise.
Julie Niederhauser, Public Library Coordinator, Alaska State Library; Anjuli Grantham, Curator of Statewide Services at Alaska State Museum; Arlene Schmuland, Head of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Alaska, Anchorage; Leah Geibel, Alaska State Archives; Janey Thompson, Alaska State Library; Katie Fearer, Documents Librarian, Alaska State Library, Anastasia Tarmann, Librarian and Alaska Digital Newspaper Project Director at Alaska State Historical Collections. Karen Gray, Alaska State Archivist at the Alaska State Archive; Sara Piasecki, Archivist at Anchorage Museum; Jason Russell, Archivist/Technical Services Librarian at Tuzzy Consortium Library; Jennifer Treadway, State Records Manager, Alaska State Archives
A special "thank you" to Annie Tucker at the Sustainable Heritage Network who has assisted Alaska State Library staff in creating a community on the Sustainable Heritage Network where all of the Alaska Digital Stewardship Intensive course material will soon reside.
The Alaska State Archives has accessioned a box of records housing documents created or signed by United States presidents from George Washington thru John F. Kennedy (1788-1964). The records originally collected and housed at University of Alaska, Fairbanks in the 1960’s, were transferred to the State Archives in May, and have opened a window to patrons and staff on the daily life of civil service at the local, state and federal level of government. Many documents were created and signed while these men were president, while other documents were created when they held offices outside the presidency.
Since March we’ve been doing a presentation by presentation look at sessions done at the 2019 Alaska Library Association (AkLA) Annual Conference where presenters had posted slides and other materials. At this rate, we’re unlikely to finish our retrospective before the next conference, so we’re picking up the pace so we’ll finish by the end of July.
Today’s highlights:
Arlene Schmuland took some time to blog on 6/3/2019 to post New in the Archives: May 2019 about activities done at the Archives and Special Collections at the UAA/APU Consortium Library. The post describes several sets of activities:
For context, selected collection photos and more, read the entire blog entry.
On May 31st, the award-winning Tlingit artist Lily Hope and her apprentice, Anastasia Hobson-George, gave a free, public presentation on Chilkat weaving and leggings they have been working on at Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI).
Hope has been mentoring Hobson-George this month at SHI’s artists-in-residence space, and the pair unveiled the final Chilkat weavings at the event.
The presentation included an overview of the complex and traditional process of harvesting, prepping, spinning and hand-dying all of the materials that comprise Chilkat weavings.
This event was livestreamed on Sealaska Heritage Institute’s Facebook page. Click on “videos” then open the one dated 5/31/2019. For more information, read SHI’s 5/28/2019 press release, Artist in Residence, apprentice to give presentation on Chilkat weaving.
We’re rather late in reporting this, but we really liked this item from the Spring Newsletter from Clausen Memorial Museum in Petersburg:
Open Mic Night
In March our Museum hosted its first Open Mic Night of 2019. This is a fun, kid friendly, event hosted in partnership with our local Petersburg Arts Council. Once a month, on a Saturday, Gallery Two of our Museum is transformed by the skilled performance of our many talented community members. The $5 dollar admission and bake-sale help support the Petersburg Arts Council.
We had more than 30 guests in attendance at our most recent Open Mic Night on April 6th.
The May Open Mic Night is, unfortunately, canceled. But keep your eyes open for the June date, to be announced.
Does your library or museum offer an Open Mic Night? If so, let us know about it and what sort of reception it gets from your patrons.
Yupiit, Yukon-Koyukuk, Copper River, and Hydaburg school districts have collaborated with the Association of Alaska School Boards (AASB) to create a collection of 15 interactive digital books featuring Yup'ik, Denaakk'e, Ahtna, and Haida languages.
Each book was created during a series of two-day 'Book Slam' workshops held in schools during the 2018-19 school year. Students, teachers, elders, community members, and district staff were involved in illustrating, translating, and narrating the books, which include history, stories, and Native languages of the communities in which they were produced, often from the first-hand accounts of local elders.
(Reprinted from DEED Information Exchange, 5/31/2019)
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 2017 (latest year available), Alaska was number two in Suicide Mortality by State. So we thought this item from the 6/4/2019 NNLM PNR Weekly Digest was appropriate to share:
Talking to those who have lost a loved one to suicide presents challenges beyond the discomfort we commonly feel in the presence of grief. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention offers ten helpful tips to help you navigate conversations with suicide loss survivors in a kind, thoughtful, and responsible way.
For resources on suicide prevention, read the page of the Alaska Statewide Suicide Prevention Council. From their page:
If you are feeling down or are looking for help for yourself or others, please talk to someone. Here are some resources:
Henry Stokes of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission recently published “HHH: Telehealth” on the Commission’s Library Developments blog.
Telehealth is the use of using telecommunications technology to deliver health care and Henry Stokes sees an opportunities for libraries that have sufficient bandwidth. A few concrete examples:
Has your library offered telehealth services? If so, please write us about your experience.
Have you wanted to see whether your collection has gaps in race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and other traditionally marginalized perspectives but didn’t have the time to analyze your entire collection? A recent article by Annabelle Mortensen in Library Journal titled Measuring Diversity in the Collection may be of help.
The article describes a two year effort by the Skokie Public Library (SPL) in Illinois to do an “audit designed to cultivate insights without overwhelming staff.” According to the article, here’s how they narrowed down their task:
After our research failed to identify any libraries that had taken on such an enormous audit to use as a model, we decided to narrow our focus to collections used in three high-profile areas: youth story times, adult film screenings, and adult book discussions. These programs are popular, heavily marketed, and draw significant levels of community engagement, so it seemed crucial to discover to what extent they showcased diverse works. Practically speaking, this also meant we would only need to survey a few hundred titles rather than a few hundred thousand.
We further limited ourselves to analyzing a one-year period of screenings and discussions and half of the story times at SPL. These uneven parameters were set because we had not previously tracked story time books and did not wish to wait a full year to compile the results. We also knew there would be many more story time books to log than films or book discussion titles and wanted to be realistic about the number of staff hours absorbed by the project. A clearly defined, manageable scope took the project from an impossibility to one that could be completed in a few months.
For their methodology, results and where they’re going after the audit see the full article:
Mortensen, Annabelle. Measuring Diversity in the Collection. Library Journal (web), May 08, 2019. Accessed at https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=Measuring-Diversity-in-the-Collection .
A recently updated PC Magazine article titled Microsoft Windows 10 covered updates that came with the May 2019 update. Libraries, archives and museums that have zero to small IT staffs may be the most pleased with:
New updating options. Windows can now determine your active hours automatically so that backups are performed while you're not using the PC. You can also pause updates and delay feature updates for up to a year and quality updates for a month.
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