ATALM announces that the Community Archiving Workshop (CAW) is coming to Alaska!

May 13 Kodiak
May 16 Anchorage

Deadline to apply is March 15.

Is your organization interested in sponsoring or serving as a site for the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP)? This is a federally funded program that provides free meals to children aged 18 or younger living in low-income areas during the summer months when school is not in session.

The SFSP is key to helping fill the hunger gap for children who receive free and reduced-price meals during the regular school year.

The spring 2023 training sessions are coming up in April. The training registration deadline is March 31, 2023.

You’re never too young to start learning about Alaska’s most important civil rights leader. Chuck Miller, the cultural and community liaison for the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, captivated a group of about 20 toddlers at the Sitka Public Library last Thursday (2-16-2023) with traditional Tlingit stories to celebrate Elizabeth Peratrovich.

Accompanying himself on a drum, Miller told the story of how Raven made humans out of trees, and another one about how Raven lost his beak.

“Neech wei yaanagut wei yeil, yoo awe kaduneek,” Miller began, introducing the story in Tlingit. “Do we remember what that means, friends?”

A blond-haired toddler sitting cross-legged on the rug piped up in response. “Raven walking along the beach!”

Meredith Redick, February 24, 2023. KCAW.org.

Unalaska’s new public library is expected to open in April. It’ll have more space, a fireplace, and many new art installations, all created by different artists from around the state.

KUCB is bringing the community a glimpse into the remodel by interviewing some of the artists whose work will be featured in the new library.

Many of the artists have ties to the island, including Ray Hudson, a common name in many Unalaska homes. He’s an artist, author, historian and former Unalaska teacher who has written extensively on the region — the library has even named the Alaskana reading room after him. In the new building, the Ray Hudson Room will sit across from his art installation, which will be featured around a fireplace.

Many resources including instructional videos are available online through the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Learning Lab.

In 2022, the Alaska Native Heritage Center collaborated with the Alaska office of the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center on a project to perpetuate and strengthen Alaska Native knowledges of natural dyes stewarded for generations. The Batuk’enelyashi: Natural Dyes from Dena’ina Lands project – led by Alaska Native Master Artist June (Simeonoff) Pardue, assisted by her granddaughter and apprentice Destinee VonScheele – included research, harvesting, experimentation, documentation and a weeklong educational workshop attended by an intergenerational group of Alaska Native artists and students. All work took place on the lands of the Dena’ina Athabascan people.

Homer Public Library's Radio Storytime is featured in a recent American Libraries article, "From Makeshift to Mainstay: what pandemic adaptations taught libraries about community needs."

During the pandemic, libraries turned to more analog adaptations—such as television, radio, and fliers—to disseminate information and host programs. Not all of these ideas stuck, but one is still thriving: Radio Storytime on KBBI-AM, the public station that serves Homer, Alaska.

Cinda Nofziger, youth services librarian at Homer Public Library (HPL), took over hosting duties in 2021, and the frequency changed from weekly to monthly when in-person programming resumed. “We still get good solid numbers,” Nofziger says, noting an average of 620 listeners per episode....

“There are portions of our service area [of 12,000 residents] that are across the bay, people who are living out in the mountains and don’t necessarily get into town with any regularity,” Nofziger says. “Radio has a long history in this community. It’s low-tech. You don’t need Wi-Fi.”

Terra Dankowski, March 1, 2023. American Libraries.

Native artists are finally gaining visibility in museums and galleries—upending long-held stereotypes in the process

Up until recently, you could count on one hand the number of Native American artists valued by the contemporary art world. One of them, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, 83, has called it “the buckskin ceiling”—a rather vivid term for the institutional barriers or systemic racism preventing Native artists from landing regular exhibitions in mainstream art galleries and museums.

That much is finally changing. Thanks to work by artists and activists like Quick-to-See Smith, as well as the larger cultural reckoning that put the “I” in BIPOC, that buckskin ceiling has some serious cracks in it, with animal hides actually making an appearance in big galleries and museums. Also showing up: techno-themed Navajo weavings, abstract paintings inspired by Lakota quillwork, and more, as several artists are bringing ancestral techniques and materials into a contemporary art context, often overturning stereotypes about Native cultures in the process.

Image credit: Nicholas Galanin, Loom, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York; photograph by Jason Wyche.

Jori Finkel, February 8, 2023. W magazine.

IRS and its partners offer free options to help taxpayers file their returns. Qualified taxpayers can find one-on-one tax preparation help nationwide through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance and Tax Counseling for the Elderly programs.

IRS Free File is available to any person or family who earned $73,000 or less in 2022. For taxpayers who are comfortable completing their own tax forms, Free File Fillable Forms may be a good option. MilTax is a free tax resource available to the military community and is offered through the Department of Defense. 

(Source: IRS Outreach Connection FY23-04, 1/31/2023)