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.

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.

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

North Slope Iñupiaq Dictionary now available

After decades of work a near-final draft of North Slope Iñupiaq to English Dictionary (Iñupiatun Uqaluit Taniktun Sivunniuġutiŋit) is now available in the archive. The dictionary was compiled by Edna Ahgeak Maclean. Completion of the project was supported by the National Science Foundation International Polar Year Project Documenting Alaskan and Neighboring Languages, PI Michael Krauss.

ANLA Item IN(N)971M2011

Andrew Balluta remembered in radio story

Andrew Balluta at the 2005 Dena'ina
Language Institute (photo: Gary Holton)

An Alaska Public Radio story last week by Lori Townsend remembers Dena'ina speaker Andrew Balluta. We have added the recording to the archive, item TI960B2011.

A complete transcript of the story is available at the Alaska News Nightly site.

You can also read a recent post about Andrew on TalkingAlaska.

Disk space quota exceeded

This morning we received notification that our server disk space quota has been exceeded. As a result we will no longer be able to upload digital files for direct access. Files already uploaded will remain in place for the time being. If you require access to other documents which are not currently online, contact the Archive so that we can arrange for alternate distribution.

Please bear with us as we work to address this situation.

Yukon Flats School District visits archive

Paul Williams, Jr., William Tritt, Sr., and Allan Hayton review
photographs at Rasmuson Library APR

On Sept 14 Gwich'in language teachers from the Yukon Flats School District visited ANLA to locate language resources. Thanks to the efforts of Ed Alexander and the team ANLA will now be able to make available more than 337 archival recordings and numerous documents which the district can then distribute via its new "Dropbox" system.

Some of the participants followed up the ANLA visit with a trip to the Alaska and Polar Regions collection to view historical photographs.