Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Sealaska Heritage Institute to collaborate on preserving recordings

The Sealaska Heritage Institute has received an IMLS grant to digitize and annotate Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian recordings. By working with Native speakers the project will not only preserve recordings but also work to identify the contents of the recordings. In many cases historic recordings are not well labeled, so it can be difficult to determine the contents of the recording from the written labels (if they exist). As part of this grant ANLA will assist with digitization, while SHI will assist with identifying contents of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian recordings at ANLA. In addition, ANLA will provide digital copies of its Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian collections to SHI.

There's a nice article about the project in the Alaska Dispatch.

Also see the SHI Special Collections Blog.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Yup'ik video tapes arrive from Kuskokwim Campus

Today we received 11 boxes of video tapes from the UAF Kuskokwim Campus. The tapes have been donated by Sophie and Oscar Alexie and document many years of Yup'ik instructional activity in the Lower Kuskokwim region. We will be inventorying these tapes over the next few weeks and prioritizing digitization efforts.

Thanks to Oscar and Sophie for preserving these materials.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Yukon Flats Place Names

We are pleased to announce a new addition to the Archive entitled Compilation of Yukon Flats Athabascan Place Names for Stevens Village, Beaver, Birch Creek and Fort Yukon. Compiled by Adeleine Peter Raboff and James Kari, this manuscript describes more than 800 Gwich'in and Koyukon place names from the Yukon Flats region, based on interviews in Birch Creek, Fort Yukon, Beaver and Stevens Village.

A limited number of print copies with gray-scale maps are available from the author. Digital versions with color maps can be downloaded from the Archive.



Map 2, from the digital document