2022 Public Library Survey Data Now Available from IMLS
Every year, Alaskan public libraries submit an annual report to the Alaska State Library. This data is compiled, checked for discrepancies, and submitted to the American Institute for Research on behalf of the Institute of Museums and Library Services.
IMLS publishes the data for use by government agencies and other organizations. It is a long process, IMLS just published fiscal year 2022 data on their website. This was data collected in FY2022, submitted to the Alaska State Library by September 1, 2022, who then submitted the collected data to AIR in the spring of 2023.
Raw data is available on the Alaska State Library’s website. If you are interested in looking at the 2022 data for Alaska libraries, you can find it on the IMLS website. There is a compare feature so you can see how Alaskan libraries compare to each other or to other public libraries around the country.
KTOO recently produced a video about the history of Alaska’s State Capitol. This 15 minute video features commentary by architect Wayne Jensen and former legislator John Coghill. It also features a couple dozen photographs from the Alaska State Library Historical Collections, as well as video provided by the Sealaska Heritage Institute. Learn about state history and see how historical photos continue to be useful decades after they were taken.
Three Alaska women whose names have become synonymous with Yup’ik cultural preservation were recently recognized for their contributions to literature in the state.
Collectively, Marie Meade, Ann Fienup-Riordan, and Alice Rearden have authored and translated dozens of books documenting traditional knowledge in Western Alaska.
The list includes everything from bilingual histories of Yup’ik parkas and maskmaking, to medicinal plant guides and first-hand accounts of supernatural entities known as “little people.”
This year, the Alaska Center for the Book selected the women as recipients for their Contributions to Literacy in Alaska, or “CLIA” awards. The Alaska Center for the Book is an affiliate of the national Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
The Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage finished up the final touches of a major renovation on Tuesday. The center now has four new exhibits, and a remodeled main building adorned with sealskin lamps, a mural modeled after porcupine quills and a custom carpet by an Alaska Native artist.
“We really wanted to pay attention to the details and uplift our Alaska Native artist community,” said Emily Edenshaw, the center’s president and CEO. “I just love the outcome, it’s so beautiful.”
The renovations and new exhibits are just one slice of a bigger project to celebrate the center’s 25th anniversary. The ongoing work is meant to serve both visitors to the museum, as well as Alaska Native people, by preserving traditions and creating space for healing.
Local nonprofit, Friends of the Talkeetna Library, was one of three Alaskan groups to be presented with a CLIA award this past weekend. CLIA stands for “Contributions to Literacy in Alaska” and the award is granted each year by the Alaska Center for the Book. The award is granted for making a significant contribution in literacy, the literary arts, or the preservation of the written or spoken word.
For almost ten years, The Friends of the Talkeetna Library have conducted the Reading Mentors Program. Each semester, about ten to fifteen children in 1st through 3rd grade, are partnered with local volunteers for one-on-one reading sessions. The pair meets once a week at the library to read books together after school. Sandra Ehrlich, a member of the Friends of the Talkeetna Library, says that having fun together is the number one priority.
“We take turns. You know, I read to them, they read to me. And so it might be a line that they thought was really funny and I might read it three different ways, and then just making them giggle because then I start giggling and then that’s all over.”
This library contains thousands of hours of recorded sounds from across the state of Alaska. The collection largely consists of soundscape recordings that record all the sounds from specific places at a given moment in time.
Search the database by location, date, and time.
You can help us identify individual sounds by submitting information about recognized sounds through the “Submit an identified sound” link available when listening to a selected clip.
Alaska’s libraries provide a vast network of shared resources in digital, print, and audio formats to residents of all ages. Rural and remote communities may be the most impacted by Alaska Governor Dunleavy’s veto of funding for the Alaska Library Network and the Statewide Library Electronic Doorway, or SLED.
Alaska Library Association Advocacy Committee Member Steve Rollins says the role of the Committee is to secure legislative support and funding for SLED and the Network, which support all of Alaska’s public libraries. Funding for the Network and SLED once came from the University of Alaska. But after that was cut, the Committee went straight to the Legislature to request funding.
Rollins says SLED is like an information dividend. It provides access to databases for car repair and home improvement, among many other topics. SLED has provided these databases for about 25 years now.
A new citizens’ advisory committee tasked with examining challenged books in Matanuska-Susitna Borough public libraries selected its first title for consideration during a meeting Monday and scheduled the review date for early next month.
The committee is the first government-ordered citizens’ advisory group empaneled to review books in the region's public libraries. A similar committee was created by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District last year to review questioned books only in school district libraries.
The panelists voted during Monday's meeting to consider "Identical" by Ellen Hopkins at their first review session, scheduled for Aug. 12. It is one of three books listed on a borough website as awaiting review.
A citizen’s committee charged with reviewing challenged books for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District has completed its work. The committee reviewed 35 books over the last year and voted to permanently remove 19 from school libraries. A lawsuit over the removed books is ongoing, and is set to go to trial next year.
The Mat-Su School Board has not taken action on all committee recommendations, but has voted to remove seven so far.
In the spring of 2023, Mat-Su residents raised questions to school board members about whether certain library books violated obscenity statutes. The 56 challenged books were pulled from shelves last spring while the committee conducted its review.
Theresa Quiner, the Kuskokwim Consortium Library Director at the Kuskokwim Campus in Bethel has received the UAF Chancellor's Cornerstone Award.
The Chancellor's Cornerstone Award recognizes University of Alaska Fairbanks staff for sustained outstanding contributions toward accomplishing and enhancing the UAF mission and strategic plan.
Under Theresa's direction, the Kuskokwim Consortium Library won the National Medal for Museum and Library Service in 2023. The National Medal is the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries that demonstrate excellence in service to their communities.
The Delta Community Library received a grant from the Alaska Community Foundation to add some pizzazz to the traditional summer reading program. The theme of the summer program is “Adventure Begins at Your Library,” and the staff has had fun developing some programs around this concept.
Two weeks of the Summer Reading Camp just wrapped up on June 21. Eighty-seven kids participated in this program which featured reading, crafts, hiking, games, and more. They learned about things like beekeeping, fire starting, and rockets. The final day featured a bounce house, book shopping, and a picnic.
Summer learning at the library can’t be limited to just two weeks of intense fun, so there is also a summer-long reading challenge. Children register for the challenge at the library and complete READO cards by finishing a variety of reading and activity goals. These goals lead to being entered in a drawing for a variety of prizes purchased with funds from the grant. All those completing a READO will be entered in the grand prize drawing for a new bicycle.
The Tri-Valley Community Library was highlighted in this article about the recent Riley Fire.
Tuesday was also the Summer Reading Program at the Tri-Valley Community Library, which is located in Tri-Valley School.
“The space was also being used by fire evacuees who were kind enough to volunteer to help the kids do crafts and scavenger hunt,” said Michelle Femrite. “It was a great mix of young and old.”
It was also a huge help because some regular library volunteers were helping with fire relief efforts and couldn’t assist with the reading program.
She shared a photo of one evacuee, who slept in the library on a cot the previous night, helping a youngster with a craft on Tuesday.
Bethelites and their guests gathered together to go on an ethnobotany outing to forage for fiddlehead ferns on BIA Road. The second annual Finding Fiddleheads walk was sponsored by the Kuskokwim Consortium Library last Tuesday and was led by Carey Atchak and family. Foragers of all ages participated in the family-friendly event to gather the bright fresh greens. The delicious ferns can be sautéed like veggies or boiled and made into some tasty akutaq.
This batch of children’s books about the coast and ocean illustrate how far picture books have come. The authors and illustrators of these fiction and nonfiction books know how to tell a story well. But each book also provides a launch pad for critical thinking—for science classes, creative writing exercises, political and environmental discussions, and art projects, too. Almost every one of these books includes extensive endnotes with added content such as positive actions that a person can take to, say, help whales or the rainforest or coral reefs; glossaries and ideas for where to find more information; or the real story behind the one portrayed in the book. These books are not just an entertaining and informative way for a child to pass some time alone or with an adult, they’re also books to keep on the shelf and dip into for information when you have a question about why whales leap or what causes coral bleaching, and to return to again and again.
The Rasmuson Foundation, Alaska’s largest private charitable funder, announced this week it will resume grantmaking after a pause that began in January that followed a major change in its leadership structure.
The organization is expanding its grant programs to increase award sizes and speed up award schedules, the foundation said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Our mission is to empower Alaskans to help each other,” Gretchen Guess, Rasmuson Foundation president and chief executive.
The next time you have a student doing a report on volcanoes, or just someone interested in volcanoes in Alaska, point them to the Alaska Volcano Observatory Image Search.
If you are looking for images that you can reuse, make sure the “public domain” box is checked. If you click inside any of the search fields, suggested terms will pop up.
Any photos or videos you find will come with a short article providing context to the item. If you do reuse a photo or video, the Alaska Volcano Observatory requests that you cite the photographer and the Alaska Volcano Observatory / U.S. Geological Survey when using an image from their online collection.
A few that staff at the State Library found interesting were:
Under “Image Types”: Field operations, Personnel/People
Under “Keywords”: Eruption cloud/ plume/ column, Lava fountaining
In addition to being a searchable repository of their digitized holdings, the site will have a rotating set of featured exhibits and collections.
As of July 11, 2024, the featured exhibit was “Courage to Deliver - The story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only Black WAC battalion to serve overseas during WWII” and the featured collection was “The archival collection of Lt. Col. Charity Adams, the commanding officer of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion and one of two Black female lieutenant colonels during WWII.”
Yaayuk Bernadette Alvanna-Stimpfle was born to a King Island family in 1955. She wasn’t raised on the Bering Sea island, but her family kept it as close as they could in her upbringing.
“My generation were the first ones to be raised away from the island, but we were still raised on the east end of Nome,” she said. “They still spoke to us in the language.”
In 1959, the Bureau of Indian Affairs closed the school on King Island and made the children move to Nome. By 1970, all King Island people were living in Nome year-round.
But before all of that, one visitor to the island, a Juneau man, took hundreds of photos of the people and their way of life. A few of those photos appeared in National Geographic in 1954. Then in 2005, more were published in a book.
Yvonne Krumrey, June 26, 2024. KTOO.org.
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