What happened in September and October?

A LOT!

Nearly all of our collections are moved off-site in preparation for our renovations (if you missed it, here’s a description of the project). This took about 9 days for our terrific professional moving crew from Worldwide Movers to complete. This took up a fair amount of our time as well since we had to have at least one person both here and at the destination (in some cases to ask people to move cars from spots designated for the moving trucks!) and to deal with any technicalities that might come up. And it doesn’t matter how much you plan, and we planned, a lot, there’s always something unpredictable that happens. But it’s all safely in the temporary space, and the moving crew didn’t seem too horrified at the idea that they’d be back in February/March to reverse the move.

Then in early October, a crew from Southwest Solutions (our shelving contractor) came to take down the existing shelving. Almost all of it is going to be re-used in the new shelving system, so it’s currently all staged in piles taking up a rather large chunk of the third floor library hallway. That project took 5 days to complete.

We held back some collections for us to work on as well. Most of those are pretty labor-intensive projects, ranging from needing a lot of additional transcription, to rehousing boxes of negatives and photographic prints, to digitizing student newspapers, and moving electronic files saved to many cds and dvds to our server. They’ve been backlogged because they take a lot of concentrated focus time and that’s not always something we have a lot of during “normal times.” We’re definitely making progress. And we’re still answering a lot of phone calls and emails from researchers, offering appointments for research in collections that are on-site, and we started doing a few Archives pop-ups (because we really do miss working face to face with people) but more on that below.

Newly described:

HMC-0441: Polly Petty Sharp memoir; circa 1956. Memoir of a woman who lived and worked in Anchorage during World War II.

HMC-0686: George T. Harper papers; 1923-2004. Papers of historian who researched African American history in Alaska. [New description added!]

HMC-1429: August G. Hiebert papers; 1964-1999. Photos and documents related to 1964 earthquake damage in Anchorage and Kodiak. Papers of an early television and radio broadcaster in Anchorage and Fairbanks.

HMC-1430: Alaska Heritage Review records; 1981-1985. Records of an organization that produced educational and entertaining shows about Alaska.

HMC-1431: Phyllis D. Carlson papers; 1911-1982, bulk 1967-1982. Papers of an Alaskan historian and researcher.

HMC-1432: Edwin B. Parker telecommunications papers; 1969-1980. Papers of a telecommunications consultant who supported providing telephone services to rural Alaska.

HMC-1433: Unidentified Juneau photograph album; circa 1933-1934. Photograph album depicting the landscape, boats, and mining operations in Juneau.

EPH-0511: Chugach Native placenames map; 2003.

EPH-0512: Marianne Wieland’s Endicott art print; 1987.

EPH-0513-AHS: All Alaska Sweepstakes sled dog race photograph; circa 1903-1904.

EPH-0515: Alaska-Yukon Chapter National Railway Historical Society’s Moose Gooser newsletters; 1967-1977.

EPH-0516: Alaska Historical and Transportation Museum, Inc. newsletters; 1983.

EPH-0517: Sitka Troika newsletters; 1973.

EPH-0518: Kodiak Baptist Mission KBM News newsletter; 1983.

EPH-0519: Covered Bridges from Alaska’s Past article by Glenn Hayes and Joseph Conwill; 1980.

EPH-0520: Pacific Alaska Airways Alaska Services brochure; 1939-1940.

EPH-0521: Crash of the B-29 Clobbered Goose photographs; 1947.

EPH-0522: Kodiak Chamber of Commerce information guide; 1972-1973.

EPH-0523: Alaska cocktail napkin collection; circa 1945.

EPH-0524: Teamster Local 959 service center opening program; circa 1974.

EPH-0525: Alaska Highway memorabilia; 1992.

EPH-0526: Pope John Paul II: His First Visit to Alaska commemorative book; 1981.

EPH-0527: The John F. Kennedy Dinner program; 1960 September 3.

EPH-0528: Sleeping Lady records Free Alaska/D-2 to You Too Rag vinyl record; 1979.

EPH-0529: King Career Center 2001-2002 Program of Studies; 2001-2002.

EPH-0530: United States. General Land Office Alaska map; 1908.

EPH-0531: Iditarod Trail map; undated.

New online:

210 additional images added to Alaska’s Digital Archives from the Bill Bacon photograph files and the Atwood family papers.

Events:

Arlene and Becky hosted three Archives pop-ups in the lobby of the Consortium Library. We featured a few archival collections and rare books. Keep your eyes out for our random pop-ups: we’ll try to announce them on our Facebook page but chances are those announcements will go out just before we set up!

And lastly,

one of our favorite things to do every October is to get a staff portrait taken. This year we took our inspiration from a photo from the Lawrence and Olga Doheny papers. Thanks to our annual portraitist, Kevin Tripp of the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association (AMIPA) who ably wrangled us into posing something like the original photo. Can you spot all of our archival substitutions in the image?