The application period for the Alaska State Museums’ Grant-In-Aid Program is now open.
Projects supporting consultation with Alaska Tribes as required by the new Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) regulations are strongly encouraged this grant cycle.
Curator of Statewide Services Mary Irvine is happy to meet with you to brainstorm, discuss, and even review draft proposals: "We can brainstorm right up to June 1, when all proposals are due; and I’m happy to review written documents if you send them to me by May 10."
Public library workers of all types in Alaska are invited to register for a monthly virtual Alaska Public Library Chat. Valarie Kingsland, Head of Library Development and Public Library Coordinator at the Alaska State Library, will host these informal meetings.
Public library workers are encouraged to register, even if the current time doesn’t work for them, to receive email updates and participate in a poll to determine the best time for those registered. The meeting details, topics or themes, Zoom link, and updates will be emailed to each registered participant. Meetings will not be recorded.
A U.S. District Court judge heard arguments Monday on whether to grant an injunction in a lawsuit over the Matanuska-Borough School District’s decision to remove 56 books from school libraries.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Northern Justice Project sued on behalf of eight plaintiffs last November, claiming that the district’s removal of library books without prior review was unconstitutional, and violated the free speech rights of students. The lawsuit alleges that the district sought to suppress ideas they did not agree with, as many of the books contain LGBTQ+ or non-white characters.
Northern Justice Project attorney Savannah Fletcher represented the plaintiffs in court.
A new citizen committee will take over the review of challenged books in Matanuska-Susitna Borough library collections after the suspension of a prior committee amid chaotic public hearings.
The Borough Assembly voted 5-2 on Tuesday night to create a seven-member committee made up of borough residents nominated by Borough Mayor Edna DeVries and approved by the Assembly. No members of the new committee are required to be librarians or have expertise in literature or books.
The new body replaces the longstanding challenged material review committee that included librarians and members of the borough’s library advisory panel selected by the borough’s recreation manager.
Kodiak Public Library hosted the island’s second-ever popular culture convention, Fan Con, on March 22 and 23. Attendees competed in video game tournaments, watched movies, made various crafts together, and heard from a published author. KMXT’s Brian Venua stopped by and has this story.
Libraries are usually known for being quiet. But last weekend, the Kodiak Public Library was anything but, as dozens came out for Fan Con. Volunteers in blue shirts walked back and forth, running various booths and announcing when events would start.
One popular booth was manned by Guy Bartleson from the village of Port Lions. He brought some of his most valuable pieces from his decades-old comic book collection to show off.
Brian Venua,March 27, 2024. KMXT.org.
Book flea market to raise funds for library
The Friends of Sitka Public Library is hosting a book flea market and rare book auction to raise money for Sitka Public Library programming next Saturday, March 30. Organizers Kari Sagel and Jessica Ieremia joined KCAW’s Erin Fulton to talk about how Sitkans can support the public library and find some new reads.
The Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward has hired Wei Ying Wong as its new president and CEO. According to a press release, Wong was hired after a nationwide search with support from the Foraker Group, a hiring agency that works with Alaska nonprofits. The center’s new CEO starts nearly six months after her predecessor, Tara Riemer, resigned.
Wong joined the center at the end of 2021 as its chief science and education officer, helping expand the center’s science and education programming. She said her commitment to the center’s mission has grown during her time there and wrote in a press release, “We can become a new driving force for positive global change.”
She also helped launch the Community Organized Restoration and Learning Network, a group of six organizations aimed at connecting science and cultural competency resources to communities impacted by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Other groups in the network include the Alaska Sea Grant, Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository, Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, Chugach Regional Resources Commission and the Prince William Sound Science Center.
Books in school libraries were again the main item during last week’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District (MSBSD) school board meeting as the board voted to remove two more books.
In a 7-to-1 vote, the school board voted in favor of the Library Citizens’ Advisory Committee (LCAC) recommendations to remove “Call Me by Your Name,” by author Andre Aciman and “Verity” by Colleen Hoover, from school library shelves during the March 20 school board meeting.
The LCAC had voted in an earlier meeting that the two books met the Alaska State standards for obscenity, though the vote was not unanimous as two members had abstained from voting.
The history of the Kodiak Alutiiq/Sugpiaq people is the subject of a new book released Wednesday by the Alutiiq Museum. The 188-page paperback, titled Imaken Ima’ut—From the Past to the Future, traces the history of Kodiak’s Native people over more than seven millennia. Written for a public audience, it provides an accessible account of Alutiiq history told by local scholars and with Alutiiq perspectives. It was funded by a grant to Koniag by the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
“A few years ago, the museum held a tribal summit where we shared Alutiiq history,” said April Laktonen Counceller, the Alutiiq Museum’s executive director and one of the book’s authors. “We gave presentations to delegates from ten tribes and then asked what the museum should be sharing. Up to that point, we’d focused on teaching about Alutiiq traditions and had not delved into recent history. Many people were surprised by what they learned and everyone urged us to tell a fuller Alutiiq story. That discussion was part of the impetus for this book.”
A free downloadable eBook of Imaken Ima’ut is available.
Lucy Pitka McCormick’s relatives cooked salmon, moose, beaver and muskrat over an earthen firepit on the banks of the Chena River, just outside Fairbanks, as they honored her life. They whipped whitefish, blueberries and lard into a traditional Alaska Native dessert, and dolloped servings onto a paper plate, setting it in the flames to feed her spirit.
The family prayed as McCormick’s great-grandson built a small plywood coffin that was filled with gifts and necessities for the next world, such as her granddaughter’s artwork and a hairbrush.
The weeklong Koyukon Athabascan burial ceremony in September was traditional in all ways but one: McCormick died in 1931. Her remains were only recently identified and returned to family.
A federal subsidy that has helped low-income families afford broadband is running out of money.
The Affordable Connectivity Program provides discounts of $30 per month for most eligible households. Some 25,000 Alaska households were receiving the benefit in February. But the government has announced that April will be the last fully funded month.
Congress included the subsidy in its 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. The Biden administration has been pushing Congress to fund the program again. Some Republicans oppose, pointing to instances of fraud.
In the language of the Gwich’in people of northeastern Alaska, the word for month known in English as July is Łuk choo zhrii, meaning “the month of king salmon,” said Rochelle Adams, an Indigenous advocate who grew up in Beaver and Fort Yukon.
With Yukon River king salmon runs diminished to the point where harvests of the species were not even allowed, that name now poses a dilemma, Adams said.
“If we can’t fish in the month of king salmon, what are we living in?” Adams said at a conference last week. “How we navigate the world is in our languages? Do we have to change the name of our month?”
To help explain the changes caused by a warming climate that people are seeing on the land and in the water, Adams and language scholar and educator Annauk Olin are embarking on a project to compile a glossary of Indigenous environmental terms.
Yesterday, New York City’s American Museum of Natural History unveiled a new rotating exhibit featuring works from five contemporary Indigenous artists from Canada and Alaska.
Grounded by Our Roots, the exhibit containing 13 works was guest curated by Aliya Boubard (Sagkeeng First Nation) and is featured in the museum’s Northwest Coast Hall. The Hall received a complete overhaul in 2022 after five years of consultation and reinterpretation with Pacific Northwest Tribal Nations to better incorporate Indigenous perspectives and focus on living cultures...
The artists featured in the exhibit include Hawilkwalał Rebecca Baker-Grenier (Kwakiuł, Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh); Alison Bremner Naxhshagheit (Tlingit); SGidGang.Xaal Shoshannah Greene (Haida); Nash’mene’ta’naht Atheana Picha (Kwantlen First Nation); and Eliot White-Hill Kwulasultun (Snuneymuxw First Nation).Church and State by Alison Bremner Naxhshagheit
Pictured: Church and State by Alison Bremner Naxhshagheit
How do Native youth activists envision a sustainable future? How are Native communities uniquely affected by climate change? This Earth Day, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian presents Youth In Action: Indigenous Ecosystems, a conversation with Seneca Johnson (Mvskoke) and Sgaahl Siid Xyáahl Jaad (Marina Anderson [Haida/Tlingit]) moderated by Jade Begay (Tesuque Pueblo/Diné). The panelists will discuss their work to create a more equitable and sustainable future...
Johnson (she/her), a 21-year-old community organizer at the nonprofit Earth Care, began her involvement with social justice and community organizing at the age of 15. In 2019, she worked with other youth and Earth Care staff to found the youth-of-color-led environmental justice organization Youth United for Climate Crisis Action (YUCCA). YUCCA’s mission is to create equitable pathways for a just transition to a livable future and to hold elected officials accountable for action on the climate crisis. Johnson is from the Mvskoke and Seminole Nations of Oklahoma and grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Jaad is from Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. She previously served as the vice chair of her tribal council and the administrator of her tribal government. She currently directs the Sustainable Southeast Partnership, an Indigenous values-led collective impact network in southeast Alaska that works to support community-led initiatives to reach a regenerative and sustainable economy that works in balance with the environment.
Begay works at the intersection of climate and environmental justice policy and Indigenous rights. Begay has worked with Indigenous-led organizations and tribes from the Amazon to the Arctic to advance Indigenous-led solutions and self-determination through advocacy campaigns, research, storytelling and narrative strategies.
Through the program, The Met will host two Alaska Native artists—Erin Gingrich (Iñupiaq) and Earl Atchak (Cup’ik)—for a weeklong visit in March
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today a collaborative initiative with The CIRI Foundation, a nonprofit education and heritage foundation promoting culture and heritage among Alaska Natives, particularly in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska. Through the collaboration, The Met will host two Alaska Native artists from March 24 to 30, 2024. This initiative is part of the Foundation’s Alaska Native Cultural Heritage and Artistic Sovereignty in Museums Program, which connects Alaska Native people with museums that hold items relevant to their cultural heritage. This year’s selected artists are Erin Gingrich (Iñupiaq) and Earl Atchak (Cup’ik). Bard Graduate Center (BGC) and the Gochman Family Collection will generously provide housing, and BGC will host a talk for its students highlighting the artists and their work on Friday, March 29.
March 20, 2024. Met News.
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