Processing:
1 cubic foot addition to the Robert C. Kallenberg papers.
Subject guides:
Arlene created a guide to the Anchorage Community College and University of Alaska Anchorage student newspapers. Most of the collection inventories were rewritten to meet current standards.
Now online:
The University Reporter, the joint ACC and UAA newspaper from 1977 to 1979 has been digitized and tables of contents created (thanks to Shelby Lawson) and placed online in UA Scholarworks, thanks to Erik Carlson and Arlene. Funding for the digitization of student newspapers was made available by UAA’s Institutional Effectiveness, Engagement, and Academic Support office.
In late 2019, Rachel Epstein of the UAA Bookstore transferred to the Archives the audio, video, and documents related to the long-lived Bookstore presentations series. While the podcasts of the events had been hosted on iTunesU, with the closure of the Bookstore this summer, it has become more difficult to find those podcasts as a group. Rachel approached us about providing a more permanent and stable online home for the recordings. Erik Carlson, the Consortium Library’s Metadata Librarian (better known to us archivists as the Institutional Repository Guru), set up a collection in UA Scholarworks to host these recordings. Arlene loaded up 10 of the recordings: only ~595 to go! (Hint: it might take awhile).
One other item we’ve taken online is our Digital Access and Preservation Policy. We’ve had a few requests for this document, mostly from other archivists, so it’s now in Scholarworks too. This document, co-written by Veronica Denison and Gwen Higgins, lays out our standards for the handling of archival digital records, whether born digital or digitized. For more information on how we set up that system, Veronica wrote up a blog post last September with those details.
Our researchers:
Our researchers in July and August have included high school students, UAA alumni, PhD candidates, genealogists, and many many more. Some have been from here in Anchorage, others as far-flung as Paraguay and Brazil. We are providing distance services online in virtual meetings, phone calls, email, and we’re also offering on-site appointments. It can be challenging (as seen in this photo of our setup to capture some quick snapshots of oversize materials for an off-site researcher) but we’re doing what we can to assist our researchers whether they can come in or not.
Ladder, lamps, and oversize plans
Teaching and presentations:
Gwen presented at the Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting, held virtually. Her presentation, titled “Shake It Off: Lessons in Recovery and Planning from the 2018 Alaska Earthquake,” discussed Archives and Special Collections’ response to the 7.1 magnitude earthquake in November, 2018.
Gwen also led two self-care sessions, consisting of desk yoga and a mindfulness exercise, for the virtual Alaska Library Association conference.
Arlene recorded an interview with one of the English faculty for use in an online fall class. (By the way? So much fun. We’ll share it with everybody when we get permission). We’re creating some building-block type of resources that we hope faculty can incorporate into classes and we’re happy to explore other instructional options for students and faculty–just contact us!
Arlene, in her role as statewide project manager for the Alaska’s Digital Archives, conducted a few training sessions with colleagues at the Museum of the Aleutians, the Digital Archives’ newest partner.
Professional Development:
Gwen and Arlene both attended a full-day Teaching with Primary Sources workshop,
Gwen attended a Society of American Archivists (SAA) workshop on data analysis using Excel, as part of her recent appointment to the SAA Committee on Research Data and Assessment.
Grant Projects:
Gwen compiled and submitted the report to the Council on Library and Information Resources for the Recordings at Risk Grant to digitize audio, video, and film related to public health in Alaska.