Winterfest kicked off this week at UAA! Winterfest features lots of different activities on campus and around Anchorage – and it has us thinking more about the winter celebrations in Alaska – we’re highlighting a few of them here on the blog!

Kivgiq (Messenger Feast) has been celebrated by the Inupiaq for centuries. Kivgiq would be hosted by a whaling captain who would send kivgak (messengers) to invite other nearby communities to participate. The celebration would include an exchange of gifts, trading of goods, dancing, and storytelling, building relationships between communities. In the early 20th century, previous iterations of the festival were discontinued – although it’s not entirely clear why, it was likely due to the collapse of commercial whaling after 1915, pressure from missionaries to abandon traditional practices, the flu epidemic, and later the Great Depression (Ikuta 347-8).

In 1987, the North Slope Borough Mayor George Ahmaogak Sr. began a revitalization effort. He and other elders were concerned about the potential loss of cultural practices and values in the face of increased Westernization and assimilation policies in the 20th century, so they sought to create an event that could lift the spirits of the community. After collecting interviews about Kivgiq traditions from elders and researching oral history and ethnographic sources, a new iteration of the celebration debuted in 1988 (Ikuta 344). You can see a video from that celebration – the first in 70 years – below!

Now, Kivgiq is celebrated at the discretion of the North Slope Borough Mayor – and they celebrated most recently this year! Read more about Kivgiq and the impact that its revitalization has had in Utqiagvik in the article Iñupiaq pride: Kivgiq (Messenger Feast) on the Alaskan North Slope, written by Hiroko Ikuta, which you can access through the UAA/APU Consortium Library databases.

Ayyu Qassataq, who earned an M.A. in Rural Development from UAF, also wrote about Kivgiq, among other dances and ceremonies in her Master’s project When Uŋalaqłiq danced: stories of strength, suppression & hope. She explores the historical factors that led to cultural traditions no longer being practiced in Uŋalaqłiq (Unalakleet) with the goal of understanding how to “lay a foundation to promote healing and strength through the potential revival of ancestral traditions” (2). In her work, she writes about the revitalization of Kivgiq in Utqiagvik and Nuurvik and how understanding those efforts might aid in community healing in Uŋalaqłiq. You can read her project and browse those of other students through Scholarworks @ UA.

References for this post:

Qassataq, Ayyu. When Uŋalaqłiq Danced: Stories of Strength, Suppression & Hope. 2020. University of Alaska Fairbanks, Masters Project.

Winterfest kicked off this week at UAA! Winterfest features lots of different activities on campus and around Anchorage – and it has us thinking more about the winter celebrations in Alaska – over the next week we’ll highlight a few of them!

For those who live in Anchorage, Fur Rondy might be the most familiar. In 1935, Vern Johnson and friends started the first ever Fur Rendezvous (aka Fur Rondy) festival, timed to coincide with miners and trappers coming back to town with their yields. This year is the 90th celebration of Fur Rondy, and the festival has evolved in include a plethora of activities for people of all ages.

At the UAA/APU Consortium Library, we have copies of the Fur Rendezvous and Dog Mushers Annual, a book that was released each year highlighting the activities from that year’s festival. It’s a really fun peek into the history of the celebration! Check out the covers of the 1976 and 1987 copies and find these (and more!) in the Alaska Collection – call number REF ALASKA F 914.A4 F9:

You can also search for photos in the Alaska Digital Archive to get a sense for what Fur Rondy was like at different times in Anchorage’s history – like this photo of snowshoe softball in 1992, taken by Susan Winton.

Want to try out a prize-winning recipe from the 1982 baked good competition held during Fur Rondy? We have the cookbook – and Liz’s Supreme Kringler (1st Place, Division Winner, Best of Show!) looks incredible. Find it in the Alaska Collection at call number TX 715.A559 1982.

Stay tuned for more posts about winter celebrations in Alaska!

If you are writing a paper and trying to keep track of your references and citations, you have probably tried a citation tool to help. There are several different options that we highlight in our How To Guide for Citation Tools. In this post we wanted to highlight one you may not have tried yet – Zotero!

Zotero is a free to use open source program that allows you to easily save, organize, and cite your sources. It includes an application that you can download to your laptop as well as a browser plug-in called Zotero Connector.

Zotero Connector detects research and you can click it any time you find a useful source to save it – whether it’s a newspaper article or a scholarly work you found in one of the Library’s databases.

Once you save a source, you can find it in the application. There you can organize all your sources by project or topic. Zotero also integrates directly into Word and GoogleDocs so you can easily create in-text citations and a works cited/reference page.

Another perk to Zotero is that it is free to use for everyone – which means you can continue to use it after you graduate!

Find more information about Zotero in this handy Guide to Zotero or visit the Zotero website. If you need help getting started with Zotero, they provide an easy quick start guide.

Have you ever wanted to get access to a book or article that isn’t available at the UAA/APU Consortium Library? You may have used a hold or inter-library loan (ILL) to have it sent to you! The two processes are a little different and dependent on circumstance – so what’s the difference and how do you know which to use?

What’s a hold?

A hold is a process of requesting an item that you can find in the catalog but that isn’t available at the Consortium. Many libraries in Alaska, both public and academic, are part of the Alaska Library Consortium (ALC). Libraries in the ALC agree to share many of their books, DVDs, and other resources with each other. When you search for an item in the catalog, you might notice that some of them are available at other libraries in the state – they might be at UAF, or in Kodiak, or Juneau! Most of these items are available to be put on hold. You can do this right in the catalog by clicking the “Place Hold” button on the right side of the screen.

If you aren’t logged in already, you’ll be asked to enter your UAA or APU username and password.

You’ll then be able to choose which library you’d like to pick up your item at. The default is the Consortium Library, but if it’s more convenient, you could pick up at your local public library branch.

When the item has arrived at your library of choice, you’ll get an email notification. You will have one week to pick up the item. When you’re finished, you can return the item to your public library branch or Consortium and it will make its way back to its home library.

Holds can also be used to get on the waitlist for items that are checked out. If you put a hold on an item that is checked out, you will be added to the waitlist and notified when the item is ready for you to pick up.

Have questions about placing holds? Contact us or stop by the Information and Research Help Desk and we’d be happy to help!

What’s an ILL?

An inter-library loan (ILL) is a way to request a book or article (or dvd or cd) that cannot be found in the catalog – i.e. something that none of the libraries in the ALC owns. If you don’t find the book in the catalog or there isn’t access to the full text of an article that you find in a database, you can use an ILL to request that the item be sent to Consortium from another library out of state.

Start by navigating to the ILL page from the UAA/APU Consortium Library website (the link is under “Services”) and log in to the ILL portal with your UAA/APU login.

Click on the link for a New Request on the right side of the screen and choose which type of item you’d like to request (article, book, etc.). You’ll be directed to a form where you should fill out as much information about the item as you can. You’ll be asked to put in a date after which you wouldn’t like the item – this could be the date the relevant assignment is due or the last date of the course.

After submitting your request, you’ll get updates about the status of your ILL sent to your UAA/APU email. ILLs for articles can be relatively quick because you may be sent a scan of the article rather than a physical copy. However, ILLs for physical items generally take longer than a hold to get to you – it can be anywhere from a couple of weeks to more than a month – so be sure to plan ahead!

Have more questions about ILLs? You can check out this guide to ILLs here.

Your Wolf Card can get you a lot of places but it can sometimes be helpful to have an Anchorage Public Library card as well. One of our favorite resources available through APL is LinkedIn Learning. LinkedIn Learning gives you access to online courses on a wide variety of professional skills – everything from learning Excel, Adobe Suite, or web design to project management and leadership. No matter what career field you are hoping to enter, you’re sure to find a course that will help you build skills and be a competitive candidate.

Courses on LinkedIn Learning are divided into three broad themes: business, technology, and creative. In all three themes, there are courses that appeal to beginning, intermediate, and advanced learners. In addition to individual courses, there are also Learning Paths available, which are sequences of courses to help you gain mastery in a particular subject. LinkedIn Learning also offers some professional certificates that include assessments and give you credentials that you can share with employers.

One feature that makes LinkedIn Learning courses particularly helpful is that many of the more technical courses include files that help you put into practice the concepts from each unit. For example, Excel courses come with Excel files pre-filled with data so that you can practice using different functions.

APL has access to a number of databases and services that are available to all Anchorage residents – and getting an APL card is free and easy. Find more information about how to sign up for a library card here and browse the available databases and online resources (including LinkedIn Learning) here.