The Alaska & Polar Regions Department began making annual reports in 1996, but you have not heard from us for three years. Our excuse is that we have been struggling to keep up with our regular work while Rasmuson Library was renovated top to bottom. A more profound reason is that we lost our ideal reader with the death of Elmer E. Rasmuson on December 1, 2000. We trust that the readers of this report will hold us to the same high standards.

The Building

The renovation is complete! Here are some benefits for collections and researchers:

• The Alaska Film Archives has rebuilt its original vault and acquired another. This doubles collection storage space and provides one climate (50°F, 35%RH) for films and glass plate negatives, another (35°F, 35%RH) for video and audio magnetic tape.
• Archives & Manuscripts and Manuscript Maps have increased collection storage space through compactable shelving and a better floor plan. A vapor barrier enveloping the entire Archives area will make it possible to protect the collections from our dry winters.
• The Research Room and the open-stack reading areas have new paint, carpeting, lights, and furniture plus convenient plug-ins for laptops. Adjoining the Research Room are a reception area, where researchers can examine finding aids and consult with staff, and a locker room, where they can leave coats, backpacks, etc.
• The Rare Books & Maps Vault has been rebuilt with better climate control and protection from fire and burglary. The new Semi-Rare Book Room will provide better security and environment for "medium rare" Alaska books.
• The Photography/Imaging Lab and the Film Archives have added workspace. This was needed because the lab continues to acquire computers, scanners, and printers for digital production while the archives continues to collect used playback equipment for obsolete film and video formats.
• The Oral History Program has its own work and storage rooms adjoining the Research Room instead of camping out in the Archives stacks. Project Jukebox has expanded work and meeting space in a public area next to the curator's office.

With everyone's best efforts, we were able to move everything twice (and some things as many as five times, as shown below) with no loss or damage to collections and only brief interruptions in public service. We thank our 2002-2003 visitors for their fortitude, and hope they will return to enjoy the benefits.

Curators' Choice

These are just a few of our acquisitions since July 2000:

Manuscripts

• The Robert Claus Collection consists mainly of correspondence and financial records for the Sargent & Pinska/Martin A. Pinska menswear store of Dawson City (1899-1918) and Fairbanks (1904-1974). Though written for business purposes, the letters include much local news, especially for Fairbanks from 1905 to 1922. 14 boxes.
• The James Monroe Bean and Genevieve Suydam Bean Papers contain diaries and letters from the 1870s, when James was trying to establish himself as a fur trader first in Saint Michael and later in Nulato and the Harper's Bend region. Genevieve tells of her experiences as the first white woman in Saint Michael and Nulato. James recounts his struggles with the Alaska Commercial Company and describes his wife's death. 2 boxes.
• The Ruthmary McDowell Papers consist mainly of her essays. She reminisces about her childhood in Council and Nome from 1906 to 1917, experiences in Alaska during World War II, and personal growth as an older person. She also remembers her father, who was a miner and entrepreneur, and her mother, who held various jobs in the Nome region. 2 boxes.

Photographs

• The 601 images in the Mary Cox Photographs were taken in the Point Hope region in the 1950s, principally by Mary Cox and her husband, the Reverend Rowland J. Cox. Subjects include St. Thomas Episcopal Church, its parishioners and activities, and community scenes such as whaling, ceremonies and celebrations, and the arrival of supply ships. See two samples below.

Above: The Reverend Rowland J. Cox and his wife, Mary Cox, at Point Hope, Alaska, 1950s. Reverend Cox was priest-in-charge at St. Thomas Church, Point Hope, from 1953-1958. Mary Cox photographs, accession number 2001-129-10, Archives and Manuscripts, Alaska and Polar Regions Department, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Above: The Tigara Play-Boys: Teddy Frankson, Frank Lane, Bertha Koonuk and Joseph Towksjhea. The highlight of the Tigara Play-Boys’ repertoire was Elvis Presley's "Blue Suede Shoes.” 1950s. Mary Cox photographs, accession number 2001-129-62, Archives and Manuscripts, Alaska and Polar Regions Department, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

• The Fort Saint Michael Album contains 398 photographs from 1914 through 1916. Most were taken at the military post near Saint Michael or in the town or surrounding area. There are images of Native Alaskans, reindeer herding, and the professional and social activities of military personnel and their families. There are also images from Fort Gibbon.
• The Elmer and Blanche Sjoblom Papers consist of 498 color slides taken on St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs from the late 1940s through the early 1960s, when Elmer Sjoblom worked there for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Subjects include structures and activities in the village and the government compound, Ss. Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Church, local inhabitants, and wildlife and vegetation. A related collection is in the Film Archives.

Films

• Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game: 16mm/color, 298 reels (119,200 feet), 1950s-1980s
  This collection includes finished programs on hunting, fishing, and wildlife issues as well as raw footage on scientific fieldwork and the state of Alaska wildlife.
• Trodahl/Schwalbe Family: 8mm/b&w, 4 reels (650 feet), 1930s
  These films were made by Moravian missionaries. They show traditional Yupik activities at Bethel and surrounding villages, including men making tools for hunting.
• Hardy Smith: 16mm/color, 2 reels (2000 feet), 1950s
  He flew cargo planes carrying construction supplies for the DEW Line. The footage shows aviation at several camps.
• Vern and Verna St. Louis: 16mm/color, 8 reels (7600 feet), 1930s-1950s
  This collection shows hunting, fishing, trapping, and everyday life at a remote Southwest Alaska home site, as well as aviation and fire footage from Anchorage in the 1940s.
• Marion Hall: 8mm/B&W, 12 reels (2000 feet), 1930s
  She was a Scout leader who recorded bicycle outings and camp activities at Harding Lake.

Rare Books

• Korinth Kinjih Tsut Trututluth Trootshid Paul Chileh Kirkhe ako Kwut Sut Vit Trutuntluth Hibroo Trutuntluth kwu Tsut Kah . London: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1885. This is the final volume of Archdeacon Robert McDonald's translation of the Bible into the Kutchin or Tukudh language. We also hold volumes containing the Gospels and portions of the Old Testament.
• Wegweiser zum Himmelreich oder Vorträge zur belehrung der Neugetauften Christen im russischen Amerika. Odessa: T. Neumann & Co., 1848. This translation of Archbishop Veniaminov's great work on the Aleut language is accompanied by 44 pages of previously unpublished letters by Veniaminov, from Alaska, and Stephan Landischeff, from Tomsk.
• The Gold Seeker March and Two-Step. By J.B. Cohen. New York: George L. Spaulding, 1897. Ours is the only reported copy of this sheet music in the 52,000,000-item WorldCat [alog] database. See the cover at right.
• Hubbard-Elliott Copper Mines Development Company of Alaska: Third Annual Statement . Seattle, 1906. WorldCat shows just two substantial items for this company: our copy of this statement and a group of reports prepared by the Alaska Territorial Department of Mines, 1907-1922, now held by the Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys in Fairbanks.

Rare Printed Maps

• America Russa (America Nord Ouest). Genoa: C Magrini, Inc., 18--. This map bears the series title "Geografia Commerciale." Its detailing of the Alaska coast places it after Aleksandr Kashevarov's expedition to Point Barrow in 1838. Its treatment of the U.S.-Canada boundary in the Pacific Northwest places it not much later than 1846, when the U.S. stepped back from "54 40 or fight."
• North Pacific. London: James Imray & Son, 1866. This map extends from Borneo to the Gulf of Panama and the Seward and Chukchi peninsulas. Our copy was sold in New South Wales. It has pencil marks tracking voyages and questioning the location of various islands, reefs, and shoals, but nothing to show that it was used any farther north than Victoria, B.C.
• Lloyd's Topographical Railway Map of North-America Continent 1867, or the United States in 1900. New York and London: J. T. Lloyd, 1867? Since Alaska is shown as "Russian America" and Canada as "British America," the publication date is probably 1867 rather than 1900. Central America, "Danish America," and Iceland are included. Advertising fees probably determined the selection of shipping routes.

Oral History Recordings

• Robyn Russell and Erika Brown interview Al Pagh about his career in the lumber business in the Interior.
• Ron Inouye talks with anthropologist James Van Stone about his life and career.
• Roger McPherson interviews five pioneering Alaska Women in Mining.
• Karen Brewster interviews eight Alaskans active in Polar Science for a project sponsored by Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center.
  
• Teresa Thomas gathers stories, songs, and Gwich'in-English translations from Fort Yukon and Arctic Village Elders in 1964 and 1965.
• Hiroko Ikuda asks 24 Barrow residents about changes in performance of Inupiaq Dance.
• Kathy Price interviews soldiers and civilians who worked at Ladd Field (now Fort Wainwright) during World War II.
• Charles Fedullo and Dave Donaldson interview outgoing officials of Gov. Tony Knowles's Administration and incoming Governor Frank Murkowski.
  
• David Knapp interviews current and former staff of UA Southeast at Sitka.

Manuscript Map

• Alaska telegraph and radio stations / Alaska aviation fields. [1929?]
  Scale: 1" = 150 miles. Size: 43 x 61 cm. Two maps, each measuring 20 x 30 cm, on a single sheet. The upper map shows telegraph and radio stations in Alaska and includes the routes of the Alaska Railroad, the Steese and Richardson highways, and a submarine telegraph cable. To its right is a bar graph of telegraph and radio system business (message count and revenue) from 1904 through 1906. The lower map shows 56 aviation fields. To its right is a list of the fields and comparative data on their business, 1925-26 and 1927-28. Blueprint on paper.

Projects, Programs, and Services

Visit www.uaf.edu/library/apr/index.html to see us on the new Rasmuson Library web page. In the Online Collections section, click on:

• "Rare Maps" and " Photographs of Alaska Women" to see our contributions to the Meeting of Frontiers Russia-America Project sponsored by the Library of Congress.
• "Oral History" to see Project Jukebox multi-media databases as they come online.

Most Jukebox projects are now available on a public workstation on the main floor of Rasmuson Library. This is in addition to the continuing availability of individual projects at numerous schools, community centers, park visitors' centers, tribal council offices, and other locations throughout Alaska. Projects substantially completed since June 2000 are:

• Denali: documents mountain climbing and the activities that support it. Funded by the National Park Service.
• Fairbanks: presents community people from different walks of life whose interviews were already in the Oral History Collection.
• Don't Forget the Past: Ken and Caroline Frank narrate their photo album of Arctic Village and Venetie in English and Gwich'in.
• Holy Cross: documents the lives of community elders. Funded by the community.
• Raven's Story: puts radio programs on the Web. Funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
• Dry Bay: documents the history of the region. Funded by the National Park Service.
• Reindeer Herders: documents issues related to reindeer decline. Funded by the National Science Foundation.
• Climate Change: presents interviews with Native Alaskans about how they see changes in weather and climate. Part of "Observing Locally, Connecting Globally," a funded project of the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences.
• Geophysical Institute: documents the lives of its scientists. Funded by GI.
• Gileech'agarohookhyaa Shro': documents old photographs from Arctic Village and Venetie. Supported by a gift from Mrs. Beatrice Wenger.
• Pioneers in Mining: presents the memories and photographs of three miners. Funded by the Pioneers of Alaska Igloo #4 Foundation.

A grant from the National Science Foundation to consider "How Public Is Public?" is supporting work with communities on ethical aspects of World Wide Web access to older projects that were developed for local access via CD-ROM, and also funding their conversion for the Web.

Visit www.uaf.edu/library/index.html and click on UAF Library Goldmine to use Rasmuson Library's new online catalog with its internal link to the renamed Alaska/Polar Periodical Index. Remember, though, that most manuscripts, photographs, oral histories, and archival films are not yet in the catalog. Ask staff members to help you find out about them.

In the past three years, 18,322 articles were entered into the Alaska/Polar Periodical Index, bringing the total to 161,545 records of popular, historical, technical, and scientific information.

This includes the second part of a two-year project to index UA's Farthest North Collegian , supported by an Interlibrary Cooperation grant from the Alaska State Library.

The Web version of the Wenger Anthropological Eskimo Database was completed in 2002. Visit it via Internet Explorer (not Netscape) at www.wengereskimodb.uaf.edu/. We must once more thank Mrs. Beatrice Wenger for her generosity and inspiration, and add a tribute to long-time project manager Jim Ketz.

The Photography/Imaging Lab used a grant from the Alaska State Library to purchase a Tarsia copy stand that can photograph originals up to 40 x 60 inches and a PhaseOne scanning back that can create optical files up to 380 megabytes. We are using them to make reproductions of rare maps that are astonishingly good and can be sold at moderate cost. We will also be putting these images on the Web with a zoom feature that will enable the viewer to see very fine detail.

The Archives & Manuscripts unit:

• completed arrangement and description of the Ernest Gruening Papers with an Interlibrary Cooperation grant from the Alaska State Library. We thank the Gruenings for their patience.
• began a three-year project to arrange and describe the Elmer E. Rasmuson Papers. This work is funded by the Rasmuson Foundation.

The Oral History Program cataloged the Here's a Pioneer series from the 1940s and KFAR-AM's Meet a Pioneer series from the 1980s with an Interlibrary Cooperation grant from the Alaska State Library. These and all other catalogued recordings are available statewide on cassette via interlibrary loan.

We launched Alaska's Virtual Library & Digital Archives, in cooperation with other Rasmuson Library units plus the Alaska State Library and the Consortium Library at UA Anchorage.

The Alaska Film Archives completed Alaska Natives on Film, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Bank of Alaska, to preserve and catalog footage made by teachers, missionaries, and government workers in Alaska Native communities from the 1920s through the 1960s. A special feature was to take the images back to Bethel, Nome, Kotzebue, and Barrow in video form. Community showings yielded hundreds of identifications. Copies have been placed in local libraries and in the hands of families who requested them.

The Alaska Film Archives began a five-year project Assuring Access to Alaska's History on Audio, Video, and Film, funded by the Rasmuson Foundation. The key activity is to copy audio-visual materials from obsolete to current formats, then make them known via cataloging.

Use of the Alaska Film Archives increased by half from 2000 to 2003. Video productions using our footage include: The Aleutians: Cradle of the Storms by Natural History New Zealand; The First Great Race to Nome by Big House Productions (Boston); Welt der Wunder by Pro7 (Munich); Seals on Thin Ice by the BBC; Traditional Ecological Knowledge by the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association; Alaska's River Highway by KUAC (Fairbanks); Source of Life: Claire Fejes-Alaskan Artist by the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival; and A Growing Place by KAKM (Anchorage).

About 400 rare books have been housed in phase boxes or placed in acid-free, hard-cover, four-flap enclosures or envelopes. The latter treatment has been especially important for paperbound booklets and very small items that were slumping, vanishing behind larger items, or even slipping through cracks at the ends of shelves. (See examples of this work at left.) Now the manuscript maps are being reviewed to reduce the item count per folder, replace folders that have absorbed acid or dirt, and perform direct care such as cleaning, taping, flattening, and providing mylar enclosures.

Despite construction and the discontinuation of UAF's Elderhostel program, APR staff members provided 15 group presentations for 360 participants in the last year, including:

• UAF classes in anthropology, history, and Alaska Native studies;
• younger students from Randy Smith Middle School and Anderson High School;
• off-campus meetings of community groups such as the Northern Alaska Airmen's Association and the Tanana Valley Master Gardeners.

The Micrographics unit filmed major sections of the Sydney Chapman Papers. This work was assisted by a grant from the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics. The finding aid for the Chapman Papers is included in the Center's Physics History Finding Aids website at www.aip.org/history/ead/k2index.jsp

We organized a two-day conference, Documenting Alaska, to enable more than two dozen representatives of Alaska cultural institutions to consider new forms of collaboration. The group agreed on four priorities: a statewide digital archive, a statewide survey of film and video, a cultural resources component for graduate training in rural development, and workshops in preservation. The meeting was inspired by UA President Mark Hamilton, funded by the President's Office and Wells Fargo, and hosted by the Anchorage Museum of History and Art.

Here is a sampling of recent publications that include our photographs: Gay Salisbury and Laney Salisbury, The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race against an Epidemic (Norton, 2003); Bruce McAllister, Wings above the Arctic (Roundup Press, 2002); and Lisa Marie Morris, Keeper of the Seal: The Art of Henry Wood Elliott (UA Museum, 2002).

We loaned 36 drawings and a 13-page letter in a sealskin cover, all by Florence Napuk Malewotkuk, to the exhibit Eskimo Drawings at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. These items are from our Florence Napuk Malewotkuk and Otto Geist collections. The exhibit explores the relationship of graphics on wood and ivory to drawings on paper and spans from the late 19th to the late 20th century. The exhibit opened in May and will be on view in Anchorage through September, then travel to the Alaska State Museum in Juneau, where it will be on exhibit from May to October 2004.

APR People

Special Friends

• We have long been grateful to Connie Bradbury for assisting family researchers who need more help than we are able to give them. Over the past three years she has also contributed approximately one thousand hours to the Archives as a volunteer.
• What is the second largest historical repository in Fairbanks? Candy Waugaman's personal collection. Just like us, she helps people with research and makes items available for reproduction. Unlike us, she gives away many of her finest pieces - to us!

Interns

• Wendi Lyons completed an archives practicum for her master's in library science from the University of Illinois and then continued with us as a volunteer. Her practicum project was preliminary work on the records of the Cleary Hill Mining Company.
• Jennifer Simpson, graduate student in anthropology, completed an archives internship for course credit and then began work as a student assistant. Her intern project was a finding aid for Alaska Native materials.

Presentations and Publications

• Katherine Arndt, Robert Drozda, David Krupa, Tamara Lincoln, Bill Schneider, and Rose Speranza presented "Ethnohistory in Alaska: A Thirty Year Perspective" at the 2003 meeting of the Alaska Anthropological Association. Ron Inouye and Rose Speranza took part in a roundtable on "Oral History and the Anthropological Endeavor" at the 2001 meeting of the Oral History Association.
• Volumes 11-13 in the Rasmuson Library Historical Translation Series, edited by Marvin Falk and (for 11-12) Kathy Arndt in collaboration with Jennifer Collier of the UA Press, appeared all at once in 2003. Translation and copy editing were supported by gifts from Elmer E. Rasmuson. For titles and translators, see www.uaf.edu/uapress/
• Rose Speranza spoke on "Whalers and Missionaries in Northwest Alaska" at the 2000 meeting of the American Anthropological Association, published a photo series on the same topic in Native Studies Review (2001), and reviewed for Oral History Review (2002).
• Dirk Tordoff published Mercy Pilot: The Joe Crosson Story (Seattle: Epicenter Press, 2002) and presented "Using Clues to Identify Archival Film" at the 2001 meeting of the Association of Moving Image Archivists.

• Bill Schneider published So They Understand: Cultural Issues in Oral History (Logan, Utah: USU Press, 2002), made presentations at two international conferences, and has several papers in print or in press.

• Robyn Russell presented a paper and organized a panel at the 2000 meeting of the Oral History Association, presented "Gardening in Interior Alaska" at the 2002 meeting of the Alaska Historical Society, and published "From the Trapline to the Library" in Oral History Review (2002).
• "Catching the Drift" and "Not All Driftwood is Created Equal" are the titles of Karen Brewster's presentations and publications based on fieldwork with Claire Alix along the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers. Her essay, "Amiqing," appears in Alaska Women Write (Epicenter Press, 2003). Her series of life history interviews with Harry Brower, Sr., is under contract with the UA Press. Her research on "Oral History on the Internet," funded by the Alaska Humanities Forum, was presented at national and international meetings.
• Robert Drozda presented two papers at the 2001 meeting of the American Folklore Society, prepared the maps for Eskimo Architecture (UA Press, 2003), and co-authored www.nunivak.org. An Agattu Island Journal is in press.
• Tamara Lincoln was invited to contribute "Cultural Reassertion of Alaska Native Languages: Libraries' Response" for a theme issue of Cataloging and Classification Quarterly (2002).
• Anne Foster spoke on staff training for "Truly Tiny Archives" at Northwest Archivists, 2003.
• Susan Grigg spoke on digital archives for Alaska to the Alaska Historical Society and Polar Libraries Colloquy.

All-Staff Roster, 1 July 2000-30 June 2003

• Kim Armstrong
• Kathy Arndt
• Danielle Arnold
• Peggy Asbury
• Caroline Atuk-Derrick
• Vita Baker
• Stephanie Baldwin
• Karen Brewster
• Erika Brown
• Bill Burke
• Jill Cadreau
• Loren Champlin
• Medeia Csoba DeHass
• Jarrod Decker
• Daniel Dickerson
• Robert Drozda
• Jennifer Eason
• Rosemary Eaton
• Samantha Elliot
• Marvin Falk
• Jenneca Fevos
• John Fischer
• Bob Forshaw
• Anne Foster
• Crystal Frank
• Phyllis Grant
• Susan Grigg
• John Hagen
• Cori Hansen
• Sara Harriger
• Sharon Hollensbe
• Lynn Horvath
• Hiroko Ikuda
• Ron Inouye
• Angela Jones
• Colleen Jones
• Elizabeth Keech
• Jim Ketz
• Leon Kotsch
• Heidi Kristenson
• Dave Krupa
• Ryo Kubota
• Gretchen Lake*
• Tamara Lincoln
• Wendi Lyons
• P.J. McCracken
• Susan McGoey
• Richard Miller
• Lisa Morris
• Monique Musick
• Brenda Naber
• Carrie Nebert-Topp
• Uyoyou Ogbe
• Kim Ognisty
• Bonny Pagel
• Jeff Pederson
• Ramona Pierce
• Amy Prosser
• Dona Rule
• Robyn Russell
• Sylvie Savage*
• Angela Schmidt
• Joshua Schmidt
• Bill Schneider
• Michael Seyfert
• Matt Sill
• Jennifer Simpson
• Kristen Smith
• Robin Smith
• Veronnica Smith
• India Spartz
• Rose Speranza
• Marla B. Statscewich
• Sherlita Stokes
• Carone Sturm
• Joseph Thomas
• Dirk Tordoff
• Yumiko Uchiro
• Daniel Urquhart
• Nora Vaughn
• Richard Veazey
• Chris Wadeson
• Marvin Washington
• Liam Wescott
• Cal White*
• Wendy Zimmerman

*Retired

And finally, thanks to the best co-workers that anyone could wish for-talented, hard-working, caring for our collections and our patrons and one another.

Susan Grigg, September 8, 2003