August was quite a busy month for us in the Archives. We finally finished our legacy conversion project, gave tours to students who dropped by to see what we have, and spoke to donors and new faculty. Here’s a closer …
In episode 4 of Archiving AK, Veronica interviews Kevin Tripp and Greg Schmitz, audio/visual media archivists with Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association (AMIPA). We discuss the various collections held by AMIPA, their users, and the difficulties of preserving A/V …
In the second episode of Archiving AK, archivists Gwen and Veronica interview researcher Pierce Bateman. Pierce has been visiting the Archives as a researcher since 2015: first as an undergraduate student, and more recently as a graduate student writing his …
Occasionally when we are filling reference requests, describing photographs for Alaska’s Digital Archives, or describing new collections, we come across photographs, documents, and audio recordings that lead to more questions than answers. Like what are those two little boys in …
At first glance, February does not appear as busy as January, but all three of us are currently in the middle of various projects, and both Gwen and Veronica have been busy writing grants. We also interviewed and hired two …
It’s May, which means it was time for our Fourth Annual “Eating from the Archives”. This year we decided to feature military menus from our collections. Most of the menus, however, were from Thanksgiving or Christmas, with two being from …
When we tell people we permanently remove material (mostly news clippings) from collections, you can almost hear them gasp. When I have had to explain why newspapers are not archival according to our collection policy, they seem to understand. …
When collections arrive there is a certain level of excitement. We love to get our hands in them, begin describing, and always look forward to what we will find. We also tend to learn something new with each collection, and …
Note: This blog post contains many references to parts of a finding aid. It may help to reference another blog post, So, what is a finding aid? if you have any questions.
How many archivists do you know? If you’re …
Finding aids. If you have never used an archive, you may have never heard this term used in this, or any, context before. Many first-time users of archives are often confused by the term “finding aid,” and then once they …
