Alaska Native Medical Center Library Blog

The Alaska Native Medical Center Library has maintained a blog at http://anmclibrary.blogspot.com/ for more than a year, but it has just come to our attention. I'm glad it did because it has highlights of practitioner and patient focused medical resources that should be of interest to many in the Alaska library community. It also provides links to other medical-information focused blogs.

Recent posts have included:

• Hakia
• Alaska Place Names in Native Languages
• Web Surg
• ZIPskinny--Grant Proposal Resource
• Fierce Healthcare
• TRIP Database: Evidence-Based Medicine Resource
• Digital Book Index

Check it out. If you have thoughts on this blog or know of other Alaska library blogs, please leave a comment. If you blog for a library in Alaska, there are two ways to let us know about your blog:

1. Write Daniel Cornwall at dan.cornwall@alaska.gov
2. Mention "Alaska State Library" somewhere in a blog posting and our Google Alert will pick up your blog post, allowing us to add you to the AkLA Alaskan Library blogroll.

9/21/08 - Ester: 3rd Annual Li-Berry Music Festival & Berry Pie Throwdown!

Thanks to the Ester Public Library for letting us know about this fun sounding event this weekend:

3rd Annual Li-Berry Music Festival & Berry Pie Throwdown!

Date: Sunday, September 21, 2008
Time: 1:00-6:00 pm
Location: The Blue Loon, 2999 Parks Highway
Cost: $10 at the door

Come celebrate berry season, books, and music at the third annual Li-Berry Music Festival, and join us for some foot-stomping music and a pie-baking contest. This lively event will feature Acousta-Moose, ArlyJylz, Steve Brown & the Bailers, and Fiddlehead Red, and raises money to heat the John Trigg Ester Library. Pie-bakers wishing to enter the contest must bring their entries to the event no later than 2:30 pm. Pies must include berries; $2 entry fee. Fabulous prizes! Pie slices will be shared with the audience (if the judges leave any!) for donations. Contact Deirdre Helfferich at 479-3368 or library@esterrepublic.com, or go to www.esterlibrary.com for more information.

AcOusta-MoOse
The acoustic version of the popular band GaNgly MoOse, Acousta-Moose includes Eric Graves on guitar and George Gianokopoulos on bass, along with Gangly members Kliff Hopson, John Knechtel, and Dave Parks.
http://www.ganglymoose.com

Arly-Jylz
This duo plays regularly at the Silver Spur and other clubs around Fairbanks. Loren Arly Kuhl (Vocals, Guitar, Six String Banjo, Bass, Harmonica) and Stephen Jylz Kircher (Guitar, Fiddle, Bass, Keyboards, Drums, Mandolin, Vocals) have been playing together for around six years, and play country, southern rock, and Americana.
http://www.myspace.com/arlyjylz

Steve Brown & the Bailers
This trio plays "a fine blend of Fairbanks folk." Steve Brown and the Bailers have been working up a good set of timeless originals and old favorites for your acoustical listening enjoyment. Give a listen to Steve Brown’s lyrics, Robin Feinman’s vocals, and Todd Denick’s thumpin’ bass.
http://www.stevenjbrown.com

Far North Fiddlehead Red
Formerly known as Red Square, Fiddlehead Red is an acoustic / folk / newgrass band. Members include Andrew Parkerson-Gray (Guitars, Banjo, Vocals), Shiloh Parkerson-Gray (Vocals, Flute), Rachel DeTemple (Fiddle, Recorder, Vocals, Stomp), and Mandy Booth (Bass, Vocals).
http://www.fiddleheadred.com/

Pie Contest

This oh-so-delicious part of the Li-Berry Music Festival celebrates the annual berry bounty to be found in the Alaskan Interior. Test your pie-making skills to the sound of great music!

Rules:
1. Pies must include berries, and be home-made (no store-bought!) Berries may be those traditionally thought of as berries or any by the strict botanical definition. Savory or sweet pies accepted.
2. $2 entry fee per pie. Multiple pie submissions by the same cook are perfectly fine.
3. Judges may be bribeable, but no guarantees. Cash bribes will be donated to the library (but you earn brownie points for those!).
4. Bring pies to the Blue Loon between 1 and 2:30 and register your entry. Judging begins at 2:30 sharp.
5. Award categories will be determined by the judges at the time of the contest. Winners will be announced at the music festival, and fabulous prizes (of course) awarded.
6. Leftover slices will be offered up to the audience for donation.

John Trigg Ester Library

PO Box 468 • Ester, AK 99725

library@esterrepublic.com

www.esterlibrary.org

This even makes me wish Juneau was on the road system. I'd drive up! If you're within driving distance, consider this Sunday treat.

Concern about "books" brand since 1969

As we all know from OCLC research, people associate libraries with books. Our "brand" is books. This is a source of frustration to many who know that libraries are so much more. But this frustration isn't new. While researching a completely unrelated topic at the Alaska State Archives, I came across a February 12, 1969 letter to State Librarian Dick Engen from Mrs. Jane Williams at the University of Alaska. Mrs Williams was aghast that a recent study of libraries in Alaska failed to touch on A/V materials:

Even tho Phylis Dalton said she would not be able to include much on film libraries in the PAS report I am surprised, chagrined, and down-right angry that nothing - absolutely nothing, was done in this area. Perhaps it was all an afterthought. The whole idea of the new type of Resource Center! Bah! It does not come through in this PAS Report at all. Are we so lock-stepped that we cannot even recognize the approximately two million dollar investment in this state in resource materials -- OTHER THAN BOOKS?

Mrs Williams then discusses current and future technologies including video by satellite and the "Electronic Video Tape Recorder." She then takes the report writers to task for not mentioning:

All the necessary items for a magnificent book library system in Alaska. It did not bear home or suggest enough of a radical innovation toward the trend for "Information Centers", let us not be bashful or reticent to use the word "film" and any other media at every chance we have. Otherwise we drive only deeper that "books" alone is, what we mean.

The letter closes by linking use of new media to creating interest in books, proving that Mrs. Williams was not anti-book, just against being book only. Thirty-nine years later, we seem to be in a similar spot.

Governor Palin's Entrance Interview On-Line

Robyn Russell of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks reports that the UAF Oral History Program has put up Governor Palin's entrance interview on-line. This is the oral history interview she did with Paul McCarthy several months after taking office. The URL is: http://uaf-h2007-04.uaf.edu/. People can listen to the MP3 file and/or read the written summary.

Questions about this resource should be directed to the UAF Oral History Program at Oral History Program; Alaska & Polar Regions Dept.; Rasmuson Library; University of Alaska Fairbanks; Fairbanks, AK 99775. Phone: (907) 474-5355. Fax: (907) 474-6365. E-mail: ffwss@uaf.edu.

New Annotated Polar Bibliography

Thanks to the Polar Libraries Colloquy blog for highlighting this new, 126 page annotated bibliography:

An Annotated Bibliography of Material Related to the Polar and
Arctic Regions in the Special Collections of the Trent University Library (by Janice Millard)
http://www.trentu.ca/admin/library/documents/polarbibliography2007.pdf [513k]

The bibliography is arranged in Library of Congress classification order. Each entry comes with a one or two paragraph annotation like the entry below:

Hubbard, Mina Benson. A woman’s way through unknown Labrador:
an account of the exploration of the Nascaupee and George Rivers.
New York: Doublebday, Page & Co., 1909.
FC 2193.4 .H82 1908b SpC

• Mrs. Hubbard, the widow of Leonidas Hubbard Jr., included much
from her late husband’s diary as well a George Elson’s accounts
in this book. Leonidas Hubbard set out with two companions
(one of whom was Elson) in July 1903 on a canoe trip to explore
and map eastern Labrador. Unfortunately he died in October
1903, while in the interior of Labrador.

• In 1905 his widow undertook the Second Hubbard Expedition to
Labrador and successfully completed the work her husband had
set out to do. Given the times, it was an amazing undertaking
for a woman. Includes a map and photos.

Congratulations to Ms. Millard for creating what promises to be a helpful and well used resource for people interested in the polar regions. My only regret is that links to Open WorldCat were not included so that people outside the university could better locate copies of these materials closer to home or facilitate interlibrary loan requests.

Betting on Newspapers

People reading my postings on this blog know that I don't buy much of the "People aren't reading / Print is Dead / Books and Newspapers will soon die" talk that we hear in and out of the library field.

One person who shares my views on newspapers is communicator Shel Holtz. In a blog entry titled,The future of newspapers (and the $100 I’m going to take from Jose Leal), Shel explains why he is betting a $100 there will still be paper newspapers in 10 years. In part he says:

Print, however, still has strengths. While many newspapers will perish before the industry figures out how to turn things around by playing to those strengths, print journalism will adapt. Print newspapers in 10 years won’t much resemble a newspaper today. My guess is that their focus will be hyperlocal. How good is the web for finding out about the dry clearners opening up down the street or the outcome of the town hall meeting? It doesn’t pay for Joe’s Tavern to advertise on the web when Joe’s customer base is limited to people who live within a two-mile radius. It does pay to advertise in a newspaper that lands on everybody’s front door, that people pick up before they board the train for the city.

Shel's post also has a number of statistics showing the continued strength of print media. Take a look and share it with your friends and especially people who still believe print is a dinosaur. See if they will put their money where there mouth is. And if I'm still blogging here in 2018, we'll revisit this post.