Karen Brewster, Research Associate with the Oral History Program/Project Jukebox, Alaska and Polar Regions Collections and Archives in the Rasmuson Library, has published a new book:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tedstevensproject/

This YouTube site features video clips of the late U.S. Senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens (11/18/1923 — 08/09/2010). Most of the clips are from the Ted Stevens Papers Project and the rest are from the Alaska Film Archives.

The newest video is an interview with Stevens in 2005 about his experience after Pearl Harbor.

The video takes place in Senator Stevens’ Washington D.C. office and has never been published before. The interviewer is currently unknown.

Please leave a comment or contact Ted Stevens Project Archivist Mary Anne Hamblen (907-474-7947) if you have more information on this video.

For Preservation Week Library of Congress is offering a free webinar!

Thursday, April 26, at 2 p.m., EDT, webinar: “Preserving Your Personal Digital Photographs.” The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program will present information about learning to care for digital photos. Hosted by the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services. Free, registration required at  https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/666813208.

The Morrill Act was signed on July 2, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War. It established land-grant colleges for the “liberal and practical education” of the people.

Peg Asbury, University Archivist, will be at the Wood Center to talk about the Archives on Saturday, April 21, from 12 to 3 pm, with a historical photograph exhibit.

For a full schedule of remaining events: http://www.uaf.edu/ces/Morrill-Act-Schedule-corrected.pdf

Google Earth, Osama ben Laden and the speed of information

As many were, I was surprised that US intelligence located Osama ben Laden in Abbottasbad, Khyber Pakhtunkkwa, Pakistan far from the North West Frontier area where he was supposedly hiding. About 3 years ago my wife, 2 friends and I stopped in Abbottabad for lunch with a group we were traveling with. We had the opportunity to walk through parts of the market area, cross a one lane bridge where pedestrians, vehicles and horses contested for passage and mingle with an enormous crowd returning from a soccer game.

With the mention of Abbottabad I immediately thought of Google Earth and wondered if I could locate the ben Laden compound. Initially, not much luck in a vast metropolitan area. I then added the words “ben Laden compound” and POW, several marked locations showed up. Most of the “pins” centered on a compound about 1-2 KM SE off Kakul Rd a spur going NE from the Karakoram Highway (N35) as it passes through Abbottabad. The compound and structures were easy to identify then, given the views in the news. In Google Earth there is remarkable detail.

What continues to surprise me, even in this information age, is how quickly information and location spreads even to the point that location of the ben Laden compound is tagged on a tool like Google Earth. In a matter of hours the exact location of the ben Laden compound Abbottabad was highlighted and available to anyone no matter where they be with access to Google Earth

Even though we had high hopes for the digital collections that we have purchased we have been very surprised at how quickly library users have embraced the use of digital books. In the first full year of making the EBL (2010) digital book collection available the use of digital books in the collection now rivals the circulation of physical books. While we’ve purchased access to digital books from the early to mid-90s the addition of some 105,000 digital books recently provided a resource that students and faculty seemed to embrace quickly and use at a much higher percentage that the physical book collection.

We circulated 34,572 physical books in 2010 while EBL in its first full year of use circulated 33,411 book titles. When combined with the library’s other book collections – Safari, Psycbooks, Netlibrary, Springer, Elsevier etc – we expect to see that the use of digital titles now substantially surpasses the circulation of more typical library materials.

The advantage to students and faculty is a choice of a relatively current wide range of book materials that would be impossible to replicate if we had to purchase (and process) physical items.

The advantage to the library is that we can make more volumes available to users than ever before and at a lower cost per volume. With the EBL model we only pay a use fee on the books accessed by our users. The other obvious advantage of digital is our ability now to make these books easily available on a statewide basis. Having access to the library directly is no longer the big advantage is was many years ago.

Any user can now access an increasing larger proportion of the library’s collection anywhere there is internet access.

Thee use of digital is even far more advanced in favor of the digital copy primarily because we started earlier – in the early 90s. Now we only receive a handful of magazines and journals in paper.