Guest blogger: Al-Amin Smith, HIST 497 independent study student The Olavi V. Kukkola papers is a new collection at Archives and Special Collections that consists of Kukkola’s professional papers, engineering schematics, a developmental proposal, a technical diary, and several photos of his campsite. The subject of the collection is the…
This isn’t an April Fools Day joke, but in the spirit of the day… We had a researcher in recently trying to track down some photographs that appeared in a publication by William Laughlin. We have his professional papers. Unfortunately, the images the researcher wanted weren’t in the described part…
It’s not been a quiet week here in A&SC! In fact, at one point yesterday I think our research area was probably the noisiest room in the library. Lots of people having some great discussions about collections, research, and archival practice. Since it’s been a while since we’ve updated you…
When teaching archival research methods, one of the things we frequently talk about is assessing the value, the authenticity of a document. Nothing high end, necessarily, no need to pull out the electron microscopes, but using internal or external evidence to assess the value of the information in the document.…
Often when promoting A&SC’s resources to faculty or students I’ll say something like “There’s not a topic taught at this university that we can’t provide archival material to support. Well, except maybe math.” Hokey, I know. Occasionally it gets a laugh. I usually also follow that up with an explanation…
In my office is a framed print of one word: “Exhale.” It’s not that I have it as a regular reminder, but sometimes… 2010 was one of those sometimes for us here at the Archives. A very busy year. And since I forgot to breathe and exhale a few times,…
A little over a week ago, I was in Kodiak on a consulting job with the Kodiak College library. They’re going to be creating a Kodiak room, and wanted some advice on organization, facilities, so forth. I always learn a lot on consulting jobs, but what really stuck out in…
A few months ago, I received a phone call from one of our long-ago donors, Ellen Hays. Daughter of Andrew Hope, she’d given us a collection comprised of her father’s papers and her own. Most of the papers related to their activities with the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood as…
Last May, Betsy Tower came to find me in my office one day. Many of you know of Betsy: she was recently inducted into the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame. A physician, she moved to Anchorage in 1954 with her husband. She retired from medical work in the 1980s and…
