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Friday Bulletin: Issues

October 15, 2021

by LAM Webmaster on 2021-10-15T08:05:53-08:00 | 0 Comments

State of Alaska COVID-19 information

Explora for Grades K-5: Today's featured SLED resource

  • Explora for Grades K-5

    A dedicated, graphically oriented search for EBSCO's health and education related databases, geared towards kindergarten through 5th grades.

News from the Division

Origins of Gold Star Mothers Covered in Historic Alaska Newspapers

Christopher Russell of the Alaska Digital Newspaper Project recently blogged about the origin of Gold Star Mothers, including photos, headlines and articles from the Cordova Daily Times, Alaska Daily Empire, and Kusko Times. The blog post also documents unequal treatment of African-American Gold Star Mothers.

Gold Star Mothers, WWI and Jim Crow. By Christopher Russell, Alaska’s Digital Newspaper Project, 9/26/2021. 

State Archives Staff Featured on Podcast

State Archivist Karen Gray and Archivist Leah Geibel were recently featured on the UAA Consortium Library podcast Archiving Alaska. The episode is titled Archiving AK, Season 2, Episode 3, Alaska State Archives with Karen Gray and Leah Geibel. Give it a listen if you’d like to know more about what the State Archives does.

News from L.A.M.S in Alaska

Anchorage Museum Podcast: Chatter Marks

We recently became aware of the Anchorage Museum’s podcast Chatter Marks. It debuted back in September 2020 as a “printed and virtual journal and podcast of the Anchorage Museum, dedicated to creative and critical thinking about the Circumpolar North.”

A sampling of episodes includes:

Does your library, archives or museum have a podcast? Let us know and we’ll feature it in a future Friday Bulletin.

Totem Heritage Center (Ketchikan) Offers Native Arts Classes this Fall

The Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan is offering a mix of in-person and virtual classes in Native Arts. From the brochure:

==

The Totem Heritage Center offers an annual series of classes in Northwest Coast Native art and culture. Experienced instructors of the Northwest Coast Native art style lead these classes to foster and strengthen traditional arts by sharing their knowledge with students. Students may elect to pursue a Certificate of Merit and/or earn university credit. All classes listed are for adults (18 and older), unless stated otherwise, and are open to all learners.

==

Two classes are listed as virtual:

  • History of Northwest Coast Art
    • Schedule: TBD (November - April)
    • Fee: $100 Materials: N/A
  • Painted Leather Dance Aprons / Instructor: Mike Dangeli
    • Schedule: December 4-16, 2021
      • Monday-Friday: 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM
      • Saturdays & Sundays: 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
    • Fee: $225 Materials: $120

For additional information and for registration information, see the class brochure.

Does your library, archives or museums offer classes? Any virtual? Let us know and we’ll feature them in a future Friday Bulletin.

New Resources from the Alutiiq Museum: Children’s Book and Tool Identification Manual

In the past few months, the Alutiiq Museum has been busy releasing new resources into the world. Two recent examples:

  • Iqsanim Ancirsuutii—Iqsani's Trout Hook
    The story in this children’s book follows a pair of Alutiiq children at fish camp and it is based on the finds from an archaeological sites.
  • Alutiiq Technological Inventor
    A laboratory manual that summarizes ancestral Alutiiq tools and their manufacture. The manual is designed to help our staff standardize the identification of Alutiiq artifacts and the materials from which they were made. It is available for free download for anyone who is interested. There are 12 chapters linked to the project webpage.

Preserving a Historic Church in Karluk (Kodiak Island)

Back in June, Preservation Magazine documented efforts to save Alaska’s oldest extant Russian Orthodox church. The building, Ascension of Our Lord Chapel or the Karluk Russian Orthodox Church, was 20 feet from a cliff edge in June 2021.

According to the article, Karluk residents are working with a number of groups including the Orthodox Diocese of Sitka and Alaska, nonprofit Russian Orthodox Sacred Sites in Alaska (ROSSIA), and the United States National Park Service to move the structure away from the cliff edge.

For the full story and the strong feelings the residents of Karluk have for their church, read:

Behind the effort to save an imperiled cliffside church in Alaska. By Max Graham. Preservation Magazine, Summer 2021

Other Announcements

Internet Archive Turns 25 This Year

In 1996, in the last millennium, Brewster Kahle and his associates started the Internet Archive. In the past 25 years it has grown into a library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. Here at the Alaska State Library, the Wayback Machine has been a lifesaver to resurrect broken URLs.

Recently Brewster Kahle blogged about the early days of the Internet Archive. To read this insider perspective, visit:

Reflections as the Internet Archive turns 25. By Brewster Kahle. Internet Archive Blogs, 7/21/2021.

The Internet Archive has also set up a 25th Anniversary website where you can see what events are being done to celebrate this milestone.

Summaries of Facebook Whistleblower Articles from Benton Institute

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society recently published a roundup of recent articles that used internal Facebook files to document flaws in the platform. The article was published on 10/8/2021 and was titled The Facebook Files and the Future of Social Media.

Articles summarized included:

  • XCheck - Exempts high-profile users from some or all Facebook rules.
  • A Toxic Environment for Teen Girls - Internal research showing how Instagram made some teenagers feel worse about their bodies.
  • Facebook Targets Preteens - Facebook's efforts to recruit 10–12-year-old users despite federal law prohibiting data collection on preteens.
  • Rewarding Outrage - Internal researchers concluded that the new algorithm’s heavy weighting of reshared material in Facebook's News Feed made the angry voices louder.
  • Inadequate or No Response to Illegal Activities - Failure to respond to documented abuses.

The Benton Institute article also discussed a recent hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security and offered opinions on the reception of whistleblower Frances Haugen on members of the Senate.

Science Vlogger Explains Facebook

Science vlogger and author Hank Green posted a YouTube video on 10/7/2021 titled We’re thinking about Facebook wrong. It discusses the recent six-hour Facebook outage, recent news coverage of Facebook and some comments about the dynamics of social media in general.

While the whole 20-minute video is thoughtful, if you have limited time, we suggest you check out the few minutes starting at the seven-minute mark. Hank Green discusses the three groups that interact to provide us the thing we call Facebook – the people who consume content, the people who produce content, and the people at Facebook the company.

Social Media Marketing: Make Social Media Support Your Site, Not the Other Way Around

Many libraries, archives, and museums post links to their social media accounts on their websites. But does this help or hurt the institutions? In the most recent issue of Computers in Libraries, technologist Marshall Breeding argues that while marketing on social media might be a necessary evil, the surveillance stance of most social media companies is in direct opposition to library values. His suggestion is not to abandon social media, but to use social media to direct people to your websites, thereby capturing usage that would otherwise go to social media. By contrast, Breeding argues that social media buttons on your websites essentially invite visitors to exit the library’s website to enter social media.

For Marshall Breeding’s full argument, read:

Social Media Disconnect: Considering the Role of Social Media in Library Marketing Strategies. By: Breeding, Marshall. Computers in Libraries. Oct 2021, Vol. 41 Issue 9, p9-11. 3p.

Does your social media presence bring tangible benefits? Problems? Let us know which and how you know.

Wikimedia Commons Historic Monument Photograph Contest – Enter By 10/31/2021

Want to see your photos featured in Wikipedia and across the internet? Maybe earn a prize along the way? Enter Wikimedia Commons’ Wiki Love Monuments 2021 contest.

Photos do not need to be taken this month but must be submitted by 10/31/2021. Prizes up to $500 are available.

See the contest site for further information.


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