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Friday Bulletin: Issues

November 3, 2017

by Daniel Cornwall on 2017-11-02T15:55:00-08:00 | 0 Comments

Table of Contents

News from the Division

New format for Friday Bulletin

Welcome to the new format for the Friday Bulletin. We have transitioned to a blog format in an effort for greater accessibility. Generally speaking, content that is in HTML format (like this blog) are easier for screen readers to process. It also may download faster than the PDF format we have used for many years. If you have feedback about our new format, please send it to Daniel Cornwall at daniel.cornwall@alaska.gov

Alaska Week of Code December 4-8, DEED leading Alaska school efforts

Scratch code blocks and Alaska.

The Hour of Code is an annual effort by many schools and some libraries to give students a chance to try out computer programming and/or give them greater inspiration. This year the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development is leading a school based Alaska Week of Code. From the DEED announcement to Ed Tech leaders:

The Alaska Week of Code is coming! On December 4-8, DEED is encouraging schools and communities to participate in the world-wide Hour of Code week https://code.org/hourofcode/overview .  In partnership with Code.org, we want to increase the number of Alaskan students who get a chance to try coding this year.  DEED will be messaging this to school administrators and the public over the month of November.  We ask that you, as ed tech leaders, look at ways to promote the Hour of Code (and coding in general) within your district.  You will find rich resources at www.code.org to help with this initiative.  Finally, register your school’s involvement on the Code.org map - https://code.org/yourschool  

Libraries can register their involvement at https://hourofcode.com/us. This might also be a good time for public librarians and school librarians to collaborate. 

Sheldon Jackson Museum November Artifact

Birch basket/bag (Tsimshian)
Learn more about Sheldon Jackson Museum's artifact this month.

Featured Video

One of the potential benefits of doing the Friday Bulletin in a blog format is that we can embed videos into our Bulletin. It would be great to feature videos produced/archived by libraries, archives and museums around Alaska. If you have a video that you are proud that you have posted online, please send us the link.

For now, enjoy this 1970s era Department of Environmental Conservation video collected by the Alaska State Archives:

Binky the Polar Bear in Dept. of Environmental Conservation May spring cleanup month public service announcement. ca. 1975-1982.

Alaska Digital Newspaper Project Update

The staff of the Alaska Digital Newspaper Project offered this update on new newspapers becoming available in post on their blog:

The second batch of Alaskan historical newspaper pages has been accepted for ingest in Chronicling America! Batch II will include two titles, the remainder of Douglas Island News (1907-1922) and the beginning of The Daily Alaskan (1898-1905). These titles will be available on Chronicling America in December. Currently available titles for searching are the Alaska Daily Empire (1912-1917), Douglas Island News (1898-1907), and The Thlinget (full run, 1908-1912).

For more information on these and other titles visit the Alaska State Library’s page on Alaska Historical Newspapers.

We hope you are as we are to see this historical content available to the world at large!

News from L.A.M.S in Alaska

Contest: Letters About Literature 2018 - Deadline: January, 12, 2018

Students in grades 4 through 12 are invited to enter Letters About Literature 2018, a national writing contest sponsored by Alaska Center for the Book and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress in partnership with Target Stores. The contest deadline is January 12, 2018 (Levels 1, 2, and 3).

To enter, students must write a letter to an author—living or dead—explaining how his or her work changed their view of the world or themselves.

The contest has three competition levels: Level 1 is open to students in grades 4 through 6; Level 2 is open to students in grades 7-8; and Level 3 is open to grades 9-12.

Each letter must be accompanied by an official entry coupon or copy of one. Entry coupons will be available at your local participating library or online at www.alaskacenterforthebook.org. Guidelines and teaching supplements are also available for teachers, parents, or librarians at the site.

Alaska state winners at each level will receive a $100 cash prize. They also advance to national competition. Runners-up receive $50 cash.

Six national winners (two per competition level) and 12 national honorable mentions (four per competition level) will be selected. National Winners in each competition level will receive a $1,000 cash award, and National Honor Winners in each competition level will receive a $200 cash award.

The 24th annual writing contest for young readers is made possible by a generous grant from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, with additional support from gifts to the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, which promotes the contest through its affiliate Centers for the Book, state libraries and other organizations.

Deborah Rinio of Fairbanks published in Voice of Youth Advocates

Via the Alaska School Librarians group on Facebook, we learned that form Fairbanks North Star Borough School District librarian Deborah Rinio had been published in a national journal. Here is her citation:

Rinio, D. (2017). Using Social Network Theory to Improve Collaboration. Voice of Youth Advocates, 40(4): 12-13.

While many journal titles are available through SLED, Voice of Youth Advocates does not appear to be. 

Other Announcements

Webinar 11/14/17, 10am: National Cancer Institute’s Information Resources

From our friends at the Government Publishing Office:

Register to attend the live training webinar, "National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Information Resources."

Date and time.

Date: Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Time: 2:00 pm until 3:00 pm EST

Free. Recorded. Closed Captioning.

Recording and closed captioning are available. All webinars are free of charge.

  • Speakers: Louise Cunningham, M.P.H., and Robin H. Juthe M.P.H., C.P.H., National Cancer Institute
  • Learning outcomes: This webinar will provide an overview of the NCI’s evidence-based resources available on the organization’s website. These include educational materials for patients, families, and health professionals, as well as cancer statistics, dictionaries, and an image repository. Participants will learn how to access this information, and the processes used for their development and maintenance.
  • Expected level of knowledge for participants: No prerequisite knowledge required.

Upon registering, a confirmation email from sqldba @ icohere.com will be sent with instructions for joining the webinar. To ensure delivery of that email, configure your junk mail or spam filter(s) to permit messages from that address. If you do not receive it, please notify GPO. In order to attend or present at a GPO-hosted webinar, a WebEx plug-in must be installed. Download instructions.

 

Tech Buying Advice from Jessamyn West

If you don't already know her, Jessamyn West is an accomplished tech librarian who had the foresight to register the internet domain librarian.net way back in 1999 when most of us were still figuring out what the internet was good for. She's also been an AkLA speaker. 

Ms. West wrote this helpful article in the October 2017 issue of Computers in Libraries:

West, Jessamyn. 2017. "Hacking Your Shopping, Shopping Your Hacking." Computers In Libraries 37, no. 8: 18-20. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 1, 2017)

Access to this article, Computers in Libraries in general and thousands of other articles are available to you through SLED. If you have trouble getting to this article, visit the ALN help form or call the SLED password hotline at 1-800-440-2919.


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