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 May:
Month long observances
Week long observances
Specific day observances
Conferences
If you’re aware of a general event or observance in June 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: Alaska Native organizations:
This guide consists of collections of primary source material held by Alaskan archives, libraries, and museums which relate to Alaska Native corporations, tribal, cultural, and other organizations. This guide is an overview of collections containing significant amounts of material relating to these organizations and is not meant to be comprehensive or include every collection containing material related to the topic.
A few of the collections mentioned are:
Alaska Native Organizations' information file, circa 1918-1971. MS 24
Collection held by Alaska State Library Historical Collections
Alaska Native Association of Oregon records, 1971-1977. HMC-0021
Held by Archives and Special Collections, UAA/APU Consortium Library
Alaska Native Brotherhood Camp 2 Records, 1915-2010. MS/029
Collection held by Sealaska Heritage Institute Archives
Tundra Times newspaper records, 1968-1997. US TCL TTIMES
Collection held by the Tuzzy Consortium Library David Ongley Archives
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.
The Sheldon Jackson Museum is pleased to announce that the Alaska Native artists for this year’s Alaska Native Artist Residency Program, a program funded with support from the Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic (LEX-NG) Fund and Friends of Sheldon Jackson Museum, have been selected.
This summer, the LEX-NG grant will be used to support four Alaska Native artists-in-residence who will work in the Sheldon Jackson Museum gallery and, provide free hands-on classes teaching their art forms, give lectures, engage with visitors, share their process through creating artwork at the museum, and provide the museum with material culture consultations on artifacts in the permanent collection. While creating in an open-studio sort of setting, the artists will discuss their techniques, inspiration, methodologies, and share information about their art and themselves to connect museums visitors to their culture. Artists will also be paid to study the Sheldon Jackson Museum’s permanent collection on exhibit and in collections storage, providing them a chance to examine material culture created by their ancestors and share insight and knowledge about artifacts with museum staff. The information captured in the consultations will be recorded in the museum records, adding to staff and public knowledge about the collection.
The Alaska Native Artist Residency Program this summer will include four artists. Participating artists include Yup’ik elder and culture bearer Chuna McIntyre; Alutiiq and Inupiaq gut skin sewer, beader, regalia maker, and Aleut or Unangan style basket weaver June Pardue (May 15th-June 5th); Tsimshian carver and silver engraver Abel Ryan (June 7th-July 20th); and Neva Mathias, Cup’ik doll maker and grass basket weaver (Aug. 22nd-Sept. 12th) Abel Ryan will be co-hosted by the museum with the Sitka Fine Arts Camp.
For additional information, visit the 2019 Alaska Native Artist Residency Program full announcement.
If your institution has a residency program, drop us a line so we can share it with your colleagues.
Tip from Division Publications Specialist and webmaster Amy Carney:
Microsoft Word has a built-in feature that checks the readability and grade reading level of the document. It can be used to make content more appropriate towards the target audience or change reading ease. To access this option, go to FILE and select Options. Then select the Proofing section, and select the box labeled Show Readability Statistics, and select OK. To use it, go to the REVIEW tab, and select Spelling Check. After the check is done, the box including this information along with word and character count will appear.
Infectious diseases have been a part of the Alaskan landscape for a long time, only recently tempered by mass vaccinations. Alaska Digital Newspaper Project Coordinator Janey Thompson takes readers on a journey of past measles outbreaks in Alaska and noting how children and indigenous populations disproportionately affected by the virus in the early 1900s.
For news clippings and more visit her April 17, 2019 blog post, Measles outbreaks in Alaska’s historic newspapers.
We recently received exciting news from Sarah Harrington, director of the newly renamed Kodiak History Museum:
We're taking a big step to better communicate our mission to preserve and share all of Kodiak's history.
Over the past 10 years of planning for the new permanent exhibits, Kodiak Historical Society (KHS) Board and Staff have held dozens of community gatherings around town intended to answer specific questions about the nonprofit’s work and impact in the community: Who are we? Where are we going? The consistency of the responses and clear vision by the community for the museum has been unmistakable.
“Tell more of Kodiak's diverse and rich history.” “Expand the narratives beyond just those of Russian colonization and prominent families from the early American era.” “Share more stories like the Filipino Community Stories Film Intensive.” “Engage and support different sectors of the community.” “Strengthen partnerships with other Kodiak museums and take the lead as a unifying community center.” “Create more opportunities for young families to create meaningful, lasting relationships with the museum.” “Show Kodiak youth that their stories are valued and reflected in our community museum.”
For these reasons, the Board of Directors has elected to adopt a new name for our institution: Kodiak History Museum. Our hope is that the community will receive this change as an important step toward being inclusive in our telling of Kodiak's stories.
The Kodiak History Museum was chosen because it provides a clear and timeless message that better communicates the Society’s mission of preserving and sharing Kodiak’s history. A rebranding effort includes a new look and feel for the organization, including a new logo based on the construction of the Russian American Magazin. At the time of its construction, the Russian American Company employed a diverse group of woodworkers to build the storehouse. Various joint styles can be found throughout the log structure, the oldest standing building in Alaska and the earliest documented log structure on the West Coast, including a key joint used for connecting logs that meet horizontally throughout the structure. Symbolically, the key joint and new logo represent both the building as well as the Kodiak community. It brings people, stories, and time together with precision and great care.
As we come to the end of the decade long project to transform the museum with new permanent exhibits, the KHS Board and Staff thank you for your support and partnership as we grow.
And mark your calendars! We look forward to celebrating the Grand Reopening, as the Kodiak History Museum, on May 4 at 1 pm.
With gratitude,
Sarah Harrington
Executive Director
We wish the Kodiak History Museum well and hope the name change sparks the positive changes KHS is hoping for.
If you find yourself challenged to explain how library databases are different from the open web, try what Staci Cox of the Anchorage School District did. Relate library databases to something practically everyone is familiar with – Netflix.
She explains the comparison through a presentation she created based on an analogy made by Dr. Kristen Mattson in a September 2018 blog post Repeat after me. Academic databases are the Netflix for Nerds. Staci’s presentation is titled Netflix & Research Databases: Can they possibly have anything in common? Some of the side by side comparisons we found helpful were:
There’s more in Staci’s presentation and it’s customized to SLED databases.
If your institution has done a new twist on a hard for laypeople to understand topic, please share it with us.
Samantha Blanquart, our Early Literacy Outreach Coordinator, gave a presentation at the 2019 Alaska Library Association Annual Conference on bibliotherapy titled Bibliotherapy for Preschoolers: Using storytime to help. Her presentation slides and presentation handout have been posted to the conference schedule page.
If you’re not familiar with bibliotherapy, this text from one of Samantha’s slides might help:
We hope you’ll look at the full deck and review the handout. If you have questions, Samantha’s contact information is on the last slide.
In March the Tongass Historical Museum in Ketchikan opened an intriguing sounding yearlong exhibit. As described by their exhibits page:
Solving Problems, Telling Stories: Handcraft in a Harsh Environment
As Ketchikan Museums continues exploring our community’s unique identity through conversations within the community and delving into the accounts and images that carry our history, one symbol keeps emerging: hands. The logger’s wooden handshake, the nurse’s healing touch, the salt-cured scars of the fisherman, the baker kneading elastic dough, the dexterity of an elder sewing beads—these are able, active, working hands, and they created our town.
Our ability to make is at the foundation of our history and culture. This special exhibit explores how vital our hands are to our identity, how important they are in transforming our environment and building our town, and how they keep our community alive today.
The exhibit opened on March 1, 2019 and will close January 25, 2020.
According to the Homer News, the Alaska SeaLife Center took in their first stranded animal of the year on April 9th. A newborn otter pup was found floating alone in Kachemack Bay. The Center was notified and with the permission of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service brought in the three pound pub to the Center. This pup is one of the youngest rescued by the Alaska SeaLife Center.
For the full story, visit:
Sea otter pup found in Kachemak Bay recovering at SeaLife Center in Seward by Victoria Petersen. Homer News, 4/24/2019.
BuzzFeed News recently noted how some writers are finding income by establishing paid newsletters through services like Substack and Patreon. This appears to be part of a move by some creators, large and small alike, to move from advertising models to subscription models. For more, visit:
Paid Email Newsletters Are Proving Themselves As A Meaningful Revenue Generator For Writers: As writers gravitate toward paid email newsletters, small audiences translate to meaningful dollars. By Alex Kantrowitz. BuzzFeed.News, 4/29/2019.
This may be a trend writers in your community may wish to explore.
From our friends at the Library of Congress:
Rare and Beloved Children's Books Now Online
Just in time for the 100th anniversary of Children’s Book Week, Children's Book Selections brings together a sampling of digitized children’s books, including rare and beloved titles that reflect three general themes: Learning to Read, Reading to Learn, and Reading for Fun. The presentation includes both classic works that are still read by children today, and lesser-known treasures drawn from the Library’s extensive collection of historically significant children’s books. It is accompanied by a new guide to help researchers find historical children’s materials on the Library’s web site: Children's Book Selections: Resource Guide
While we’re delighted with this new online resource, we were very pleased to read this shout-out to local public and school libraries in the Resource Guide:
A few things to keep in mind:
- Your local public or school library is generally the best source of contemporary children's books for young readers (in both print and electronic formats).
- Your local children's and school librarians have few peers when it comes to pairing the right book with the right child (we are happy to provide whatever help we can with this, but defer to the true experts!).
In the May 2019 issue of Library Journal, Michael Stephens describes a resource that will be of interest to those library staff who enjoy visiting libraries on their vacations. The resource is Library Planet, which according to Stephens is a "crowdsourced travel guide for libraries" created by Christian Lauersen of Roskilde Libraries and Marie Engberg Eiriksson of Gladsaxe Libraries, Denmark.
The list of featured libraries is short but global:
So far, there are no Alaska libraries in the Library Planet guide. But you could change that by contributing to the guide.
Most of Michael Stephens piece is based on discussions he had with site creators. To learn more about that conversation, visit:
Stephens, Michael. 2019. “The World Spins.” Library Journal 144 (4): 14.
May 1st was Law Day in the United States. The Library of Congress Law Library sent us a note highlighting law guides we think will be of general interest:
In honor of “Law Day” 2019, the Library of Congress is highlighting our law-related Research Guides:
We wanted to share this resource announcement and call for contributions from our friends at StarNET:
We’re collecting suggestions on engaging STEM books to support ongoing learning for all ages. See our suggestions to date – and add your own favorites – through our websites:
- Browse our book wikis to provide a starting point for updating your STEM collections. Check out the Space Science and Our Moon wikis to celebrate space science this summer, and peruse other resource lists.
- See the “Related Books” section of every activity on the STEM Activity Clearinghouse to find any suggestions contributed by the STAR Net online community – and submit your own recommendations through the “Suggest a Book” link.
Note: You'll need to login to your free STAR Net account to be able to edit the book wikis. Not registered? Click here.
Does your library, archives or museum have a crowdsourced project needing help? Send us an announcement that includes how to participate and we’ll pass it along.
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