What’s going on in library associations around the country?

Check it out. Go to the ALA list of state library associations and click on a few links. If you see anything good - be sure to let your AKLA roundtable and committee chairs know.

Sticker shock presentations...Wow!

We all hear about the growing costs of serials, and about some amazing titles in particular, but this graphic representation from the Engineering Library at Cornell University really brings it home. This site also includes links to an earlier version and to a similar exhibit from the Health Sciences and Human Services Library at the University of Maryland.

While shocking, it's kind of fun. I don't know whether seeing such extreme cases makes all journal price increases seem bad, or if it puts a whole different perspective on "normal" prices and price increases.

4th Annual John Trigg Ester Library Lallapalooza & Book Bash

The fourth annual John Trigg Ester Library Lallapalooza fundraiser will be held from 1 to 6:30 p.m. Sunday, March 30 at the Annex gallery, 2922 Parks Highway, near Water Wagon.

This fun event features live music, a lasagne feed and silent auctions of jewelry, art, clothing, gift certificates, baskets of items, and, of course, books. A few specific examples: Alaska memorabilia such as a Fireplug sled dog stage race patch, a four-person silver salmon fishing charter, rhubarb wine, a Guy Noir bobblehead & vintage mystery basket. Musical performances will be given by guitarist Chuck Brainerd, jazz pianist Desmond Cole, rock trio GRL Jam, and saxophonist Nelson Felix.

Proceeds from the event will go toward a new library building. Construction is to begin this summer; preliminary designs and a site survey will be available to view at the fundraiser.

For more information, contact Melinda at 455-4349/378-6744 or e-mail library@esterrepublic.com.

PNLA Institute Accepting Applications

Applications for PNLA Leads 2008 are currently available on the PNLA website.

DATES: Sunday (evening) October 26th through (noon) Friday, October 31st

FACILITATORS: Becky Schrieber & John Shannon, Schreiber ShannonAssociates

QUALIFICATIONS FOR APPLICANTS: *Employed in a library organization within PNLA's seven state/provincial region: Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon,Washington*At least five years work in a library setting*Current member of PNLA or one of the affiliated state/provinciallibrary associations

For more information go to: http://www.pnla.org/institute/index.htm

Doggone Helicopter - CC Photos by Army

Alaska
Originally uploaded by soldiersmediacenter

Here's a good Friday treat -- The US Army has a presence on the photosharing site Flickr at http://flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter. The photos are taken and posted by Army photographers and carry a Creative Commons Attribution license. That means you can use the photos in whatever way you like provided you give the photographer credit.

Doing a search on the word "Alaska" brought up 30 photos, including the one pictured here with the capition:

"Meki, an air Force military working dog, is hoisted up to a medical evacuation helicopter during training held at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Matthew T MacRoberts) (Released)"

Learning 2.0 presentation- blog available

If you attended the Learning 2.0 presentation on Sunday given by Natalie Forshaw and myself, you might be interested in looking at our Learning 2.0 blog. I understand it is now out from behind the firewall, so it should be accessible. If you can't access it, let me know and I'll attempt to troubleshoot.

Learning 2.0


Feel free to use it, copy it, whatever you'd like to do with it. If you have questions, let me know.
Karen Jensen
karen.jensen@uaf.edu

AKLA Conference 2008 - All work and no play?

No way! The conference programs were fantastic plus our hosts in Fairbanks planned the perfect mix of work and play. I had the chance to visit Muskox at the Large Animal Research Station, the new Cold Climate Housing Research Center Library, the World Ice Art Championships, and a K-6 science fair in North Pole.
Where did you go?

Collection Development Makeover: Rethinking Buying and Weeding Patterns

My thanks to the wonderful Michele Leininger from the Iowa State Library [and Aja for recommending her as a presenter]. Michele inspired me to think, make a plan, and begin immediately. Weeding has never been so much fun!

Copyright resource for educators

In the Copyright Q & A, at conference, someone asked about resources for teaching copyright to elementary or high school students. I didn't have much to offer, because the basic resources that I've seen are either very dry or very biased. I mentioned this on the forum at the Copyright Advisory Network. There, Carrie Russell of the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy suggested a neat resource: ReadWriteThink, a service of the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English. When I did a search on copyright, I got some great copyright lessons, mostly geared towards grades 6-12. Check it out!

Purchase ideas

There was a lot to see in the exhibits area, with great books, DVDs and more from longtime and new vendors alike. I also discovered quite a few titles mentioned in the various sessions attended. Here are some of the titles I found jotted down in my notebook. I may post again if I find more goodies as I sort through my notes.

Books
Labels for Locals: What to call people from Abilene to Zimbabwe, by Paul Dickson, rev. ed. 2006
I actually had this listed as Names for Locals, but this is the closest I could find on Amazon,
where it has 5 stars (albeit from one review). Basically, it helps you be culturally respectful by letting you know the correct naming convention for residents of various locales, so we don't all
fall for JFK's classic mistake of calling himself a jelly donut (ein Berliner).

Don't Make Me Think: A common sense approach to web usability, by Steve Krug, 2005

Prioritizing Web Usability, by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger, 2006

Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman, 2002

Emergency Response and Salvage wheel and Field Guide to Emergency Response
The text for the wheel is available at http://www.fema.gov/plan/ehp/response.shtm, or it can be purchased in combination with the guide at https://www.heritagepreservation.org/catalog.

List
PRESERVENW: An unmoderated list for discussing "the preservation of archival, library, and museum collections in the Pacific Northwest." To subscribe, go to https://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/preservenw.

What titles did you find when going through your notes?

Blogging conference

As I was attending sessions at the wonderful AkLA conference last weekend in Fairbanks, watching people with laptops interspersed with those with notebooks, I thought, "wouldn't it be great to share all of this information more widely by blogging the conference, as I've seen with ALA, Internet Librarian, and more? We should do this next year!" Then, upon returning to Juneau, it finally dawned on me that the conference didn't need to be ongoing to do this, and we could blog the conference now! We even have this sleeping but functional blog to use! So, I'll work on getting some posts together for the sessions I attended, and I encourage others who attended the conference to add posts and comments as well. Conference is such a whirlwind, that I imagine 10 people attending the same session would probably have 15 different things to share from it!

If you haven't yet posted on the AkLA blog, please contact Elise Tomlinson at the UAS Egan Library so she can register you. Her email is elise dot tomlinson at uas dot alaska dot edu, where all the spaces are removed and punctuation words are turned into actual punctuation. It might help her if you mention the AkLA blog in the subject line.