AutoMate - Service and repair info for thousands of domestic and imported vehicles, from the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). Includes step-by-step repair information, diagrams, maintenance schedules, parts and labor estimates, service bulletins and recalls and more.
The Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education (ACPE) has teamed up with US Department of Education Federal Student Aid (FSA), and postsecondary professionals from colleges & universities across Alaska to deliver one centralized location for you to access the information and resources necessary to COMPLETE THE Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)!
The FAFSA isn't just for federal student aid, but is used by Alaska Performance Scholarship (APS) and the Alaska Education Grant as well by universities and colleges for their own aid programs.
The website for the Alaska FAFSA Completion Initiative website has resources and information for students, families and school counselors. Visit https://acpe.alaska.gov/AlaskaFAFSACompletion to get started today!
Basic Facts:
| Name of Library | Sessions |
|---|---|
| Sitka Public Library | 12,249 |
| Kenai Community Library | 3,744 |
| Unalaska Public Library | 2,093 |
| Delta Community Library | 1,311 |
| Haines Borough Public Library | 1,164 |
In addition to reporting total number of wireless sessions, WhoFi can report the busiest hour and the busiest day of the week for wifi usage. Learn more at our Getting Wifi Statistics page from our wireless networking guide. If you'd like to sign up your library to WhoFi at no cost to you, please check with your IT people - if you have them - then contact Daniel Cornwall.
In April 2021 the OWL Videoconference Network hosted 118 videoconferences with a total of 610 participants. Representative videoconferences included:
Remember, if your patrons have home or mobile internet access, you can use your library's instance of Zoom as your virtual meeting room. Your library's account holder would start the meeting. The account holder could either stay and monitor the meeting, or could make one the participants a host and leave the meeting. Ask Daniel, Jack or Kyle to show you how.
If you already have an OWL Zoom account, we ask you to give descriptive names to your meetings so we can better document the types of events done over OWL. So instead of "LibrarNameHere's Zoom Meeting" or "LibraryNameHere's Personal Meeting Room" something like "LibraryNameHere: Cooking with canned Salmon." THANKS!
If your public or school/public library does not yet have an OWL issued Zoom account to schedule your own videoconferences OR If you are a non-profit, local, state or federal government agency interested in doing outreach/training through library partners, please contact OWL Program Manager Daniel Cornwall.
Christopher Russell, Librarian & Project Coordinator for Alaska's Digital Newspaper Program (ADNP) recently viewed National Poetry Month in a 4/20/2021 post in an ADNP blog titled World War 1 Poetry. He discusses several poems found in digitized newspapers, including:
For the full discussion and a list of the sources that Christopher used, see the full blog post. And check out the ADNP blog and Chronicling America to see what other gems can be mined from Alaska and other states digitized newspapers.
We'd like to take a moment to off our division's warm congratulations to Elizabeth Nicolai, Youth Services Coordinator, Anchorage Public Library, Anchorage who has won awards near and far in 2021:
It is great to see an Alaskan librarian highlighted in our state and country! Please join us in congratulating Elizabeth Nicolai on this year's well deserved awards.
The Copper River Gallery at the Cordova Historical Museum recently opened an exhibit of more than 70 painted portraits of frontline workers who have stayed at their worksites throughout the COVID pandemic, supporting us all. Portraits include nurses, firefighters, cashiers and postal workers, among others.
For images of some of the paintings and the story of the exhibit Portraits of Cordova’s Frontline Workers exhibition, we hope you'll take time to read:
Exhibit features portraits of workers who braved pandemic. By Zachary Snowdon Smith, Cordova Times (web), 4/23/2021
The Kodiak History Museum recently announced that they are once again open to the public as of 5/1/2021. They will be open Wednesday - Saturday 10am to 4pm. They are limiting the number of guests to ten and requiring visitors to mask.
We wish Kodiak History Museum well with their new hours and public access.
The Anchorage Museum opened a physical and online exhibit this spring titled: Black Lives in Alaska: Journey, Justice, Joy. The physical exhibit uses archival photos and collected materials to showcase the richness and resilience of Black lives in Alaska. Black Lives in Alaska can be visited through 11/28/2021. The online component has selected images and links to digital interactive cards from the exhibition.
If your institution has an online exhibit you'd like highlighted, please send us a link and a description.
Not all disabilities are visible. Cognitive impairments are one set of invisible disabilities. The Mozilla Developers Network has this to say about cognitive impairments:
Cognitive impairment refers to a broad range of disabilities, from people with intellectual disabilities who may have the most-limited capabilities, to age-related issues with thinking and remembering. The range includes people with mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophrenia. It also includes people with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Though there is a lot of diversity within clinical definitions of cognitive impairments, people with them experience a common set of functional problems. These problems include difficulty with understanding content, remembering how to complete tasks, and confusion caused by inconsistent or non-traditional web page layouts.
This is already a sizeable group of people who have permanent or long-term cognitive impairments. Now add in sleep deprived people and the majority of Americans who read on an 8th grade level and you've got a large audience that could benefit from optimizing your website for cognitive disability.
If you'd like to learn about ways to make your website more cognitively accessible, consider reading Veronica Lewis' "How I optimize my website for cognitive accessibility" post at her "Veronica With Four Eyes" blog. Tips she offers include:
For the full tips, read her full blog post. Ms. Lewis is a web developer who has been involved in accessibility issues since 2016 and spoke at the inclusive design 24 conference in 2020. Additional information about providing cognitive accessibility can be found on the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)'s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)'s page Cognitive Accessibility at W3C.
Do you have a tip or resource for improving web accessibility? Drop us a line.
According to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), one effect of our shared pandemic year is that many older adults brought themselves online with a variety of devices to stay connected to family, to learn and to be entertained. And a majority in AARP's April 2021 survey said they'd like to get a better grasp of their devices. Perhaps this is an opportunity for libraries?
From the AARP article:
With social distancing restricting social interaction, adults 50 and older not only snatched up new devices, but also were more likely to use them daily. They purchased more smart TVs, smartphones, tablets, and wearables, and audio devices such as earbuds and headsets.
Barriers weren’t completely eliminated, however. Older adults cited cost, knowledge gaps, and privacy concerns as top reasons they may be hesitant to adopt technology. More than half (54%) admitted they want a better grasp of the devices they’ve acquired, while more than one in three (37%) said they lacked confidence when using the technology that has otherwise become so much more prevalent in their lives.
For more read: Personal Tech and the Pandemic: Older Adults Are Upgrading for a Better Online Experience. By Brittne Kakulla, AARP Research, April 2021 What's your experience of the over-50 set in your community? Send us a paragraph or two to share.
And if you're reading this and thinking "I'm over 50. I understand technology just fine!" you might have an advantage from working in an increasingly technology driven library, archives or museum!
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