Off-site storage area shaping up

Leon Unruh provided this photo of the new shelving being installed in our off-site storage area, located adjacent to the Brooks Building on the 3rd floor of the Rasmuson Library. Once complete, this facility will shorten access times to materials in long-term storage.

Public closure April 25-29

Due to staff travel the Archive will be closed to the public during the week of April 25-29. Online resources will still be available, and staff will be available for consultation via email at fyanla [@] uaf.edu.

The Archive will be open as usual during regular university hours beginning Monday, May 2. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this closure.

Vit'eegwijyąhchy'aa Vagwandak Nizįį

Michael Krauss, Richard and Susan Mueller

Today Dick Mueller donated a copy of the new Gwich'in translation of the New Testament. This book is described in some detail in this blog entry.

New storage array

As the Archive's audio and document digitization efforts move forward, our digital holdings continue to increase. The Archive has just acquired an additional 14 TB of RAID level 5 storage. 

First proposal to create a program in Alaska Native languages at UAF

Here's a blast from the past. This document is the first proposal to the University of Alaska calling for the establishment of a program in Alaska Native Languages. It is dated Dec 1960. It would be twelve more years before the Alaska Native Language Center would be created by state legislation. Written by ANLC founder Michael Krauss, the memo recognizes the already extremely endangered status of Alaska's Native languages some 50 years ago, noting that "if the University does not initiate a linguistic research program soon, much of the data will be lost forever." The memo also recognizes the role of the University of Alaska in providing leadership and training in the field of Alaska Native languages.

See item G961K1960

Important new collection of comparative Athabaskan materials

Leer materials being processed

The Archive has just received an important new collection of Jeff Leer's notes on comparative Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit. These materials documents Leer's extensive work on reconstructing the history of the Athabaskan, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Materials are scheduled to be scanned in April 2011. I'll post another announcement once the scanned materials are available.

"Tlingit onset deaspiration hypothesis"

ANLA in Goldmine

Lisa Smith providing on-site training in the
use of SirsiDynix WorkFlows

ANLA has joined the ranks of the libraries accessible through the UAF Goldmine catalog. If you search for books using Goldmine, you will see that one of the choices under "library" is UAF - Alaska Native Language Archive. Don't get too excited: there aren't any books listed there yet. ANLA staff are currently receiving training in cataloging and the use of the Goldmine system. Once this training is complete you will be able to search for certain ANLA materials using Goldmine. In the near term this service will be restricted to published materials such as books; manuscripts and recordings will remain searchable through our regular catalog interface.