Travels in Alaska and elsewhere
Final Report on the ESU/CILIP Travelling Librarian Award, September-October 2005 Heather |Lane
Final Report on the ESU/CILIP Travelling Librarian Award, September-October 2005 Summary Thanks to the generosity of the English Speaking Union and CILIP, I was able to travel from the Scott Polar Research Institute, a sub-department of the University of Cambridge, to visit libraries, archives and museums with polar collections in Alaska, Colorado and New York, for a threeweek period, 16 September-8 October 2005. This included my first experience of the Arctic, in the form of a visit to Barrow, the most northerly US settlement, 340 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The Scott Polar Research Institute was founded in 1920 as a memorial to Captain Robert Falcon Scott, RN, and his companions who lost their lives on the return journey from the South Pole in March 1912. During the early years, the Institute's aim was to provide a place where polar travellers and explorers could meet, and where material of polar interest might be collected and made accessible for future research. In the 1930s it became a base for a number of valuable scientific expeditions to the Arctic. During World War II it served the Government as a centre for research into cold weather warfare, clothing and equipment. Since 1945 it has developed further to become an international centre for research and reference in a variety of fields: scientific, social and historical. Although it is now a Department of the University of Cambridge and has a strong teaching and research component, the Institute also functions as the world's premier polar information centre for scholars, scientists, explorers and interested members of the public. The Library also houses World Data Centre C for Glaciology, with special responsibilities for the provision of information to British and European glaciologists, and the SPRI Archives, containing the world's finest collection of unpublished materials relating to the polar regions. The ESU/CILIP Travelling Librarian Award provided an excellent opportunity to develop strategies for collaborative projects with US libraries, on record sharing, exchange of duplicate materials and informal inter-library loan procedures for Arctic materials. I also had the opportunity to discuss how best to make knowledge of our extensive holdings of Inuit material available to indigenous communities in Alaska. I was able to arrange a series of visits with the aim of fostering links both beneficial to the Scott Polar Research Institute and the organisations concerned. As will be evident from the report which follows, this was a hectic schedule, but an enormously enjoyable experience, from which I gained a great deal, both professionally and personally. I was met with extraordinary hospitality, and I was struck by how much I was able to learn about how the Institute and its information resources are perceived elsewhere, not least from the many Institute alumni and patrons I met during my visit. Heather Lane Librarian and Acting Keeper Scott Polar Research Institute Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1ER librarian@spri.cam.ac.uk
Background The Scott Polar Research Institute, founded in 1920, holds the world‟s largest collection of polar information and artefacts, and thus attracts students, researchers and scholars from the international community. Each brings a new perspective, insights and range of enquiries to their time in the Library, Museum and Archives. The Institute has many rare and unique items - diaries, manuscripts, reports, photographs and paintings - even the tents, sledges, kayaks and other equipment used by British polar explorers from the „Heroic Age‟ onwards. Much is still not fully catalogued, but we are in the process of creating detailed electronic descriptions, multimedia displays and online photo galleries to bring polar exploration and science alive for actual and virtual visitors of all ages. I have been Librarian at SPRI since November 2004, replacing William Mills, Librarian and Keeper of Collections who died in May 2004 after a long struggle with cancer. A keen historian, William had made a significant contribution to the Institute by expanding the library collection, and by the publication of his Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia. Having familiarized myself with my new job, I considered it important to understand SPRI‟s relationship with the wider polar library community. Although I have a background in academic librarianship, I was new to the field of polar studies and was keen to visit a number of the polar libraries in the United States, to make contact with their subject specialists; the English Speaking Union/CILIP Travelling Librarian Award could not have been more opportune. My schedule took me to Anchorage, Barrow, Fairbanks and Juneau in Alaska, Boulder, Colorado and New York. With previous experience in cataloguing and systems librarianship, I wanted to ensure that the SPRI collections are made more accessible to offsite researchers by converting our catalogue from a homegrown system to one compatible with international protocols. My main aim was therefore to discuss future collaboration in the field of bibliographic control of English language publications on the Arctic and Antarctic. The SPRI Library is internationally renowned for its provision of analytical cataloguing, indexing and abstracting of polar material from around the world in the medium of English, whatever the original language. Although the Institute has aimed to create a comprehensive collection of relevant published material throughout the twentieth century, this is unlikely to be possible in the twenty-first. In particular, I wanted to investigate how we might prevent duplication of indexing of Arctic material in consultation with, amongst others, the Polar Periodicals Index at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the World Data Center A for Glaciology in Boulder, Colorado. The award was to provide an excellent opportunity to develop a strategy for sharing responsibility with US libraries. Secondly, I was keen to explore how best to make knowledge of our extensive holdings of Inuit material available to indigenous communities in Alaska. Our published, artefact and archival collections from the Arctic are an integral component for the study of northern exploration, the history and material culture of Arctic peoples, and the relationship between British expeditions and the people they encountered. We are developing a number of digitization and outreach projects and I wished to learn from the work that had already been carried out in North American collections to promote access to indigenous Arctic material.
The itinerary Anchorage I was very fortunate in having assistance from colleagues in the Institute who could advise on approaches to the Alaskan library system. They kindly provided an introduction to Dr Gretchen Bersch, Emeritus Professor of Adult Education at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), who offered to host my visit. In turn, she contacted Sally Bremner, Health Sciences Librarian at the Health Sciences Information Service within the UAA Consortium Library, who organised my schedule at the local level. Armed with my wish list, and with help from Cathie Innes-Taylor and Nancy Lesh, longtime members of the Polar Libraries Colloquy, Sally was unstintingly helpful, putting me in touch with local librarians, museum curators and researchers and making and adjusting the schedule constantly as September 16th approached. I planned to have the first weekend in Anchorage, then to fly up to Barrow and Fairbanks, returning by train the following Sunday evening for a further four full days before going on to Juneau and then to Colorado. Over the first weekend, Gretchen and Sally took me to visit the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, where we caught the last day of the Shamanism exhibit, and a photographic display on Sámi Reindeer Herding. By 5 pm we were all glad to sit down at the Marx Brothers Café over hot tea with lemon, and bowls of spicy reindeer soup and Alaska seafood chowder. That evening we had dinner out with Gretchen‟s friends - no thought of an early night - there was too much to experience in limited time! Sunday dawned clear and sunny so Gretchen drove me down the Kenai Peninsula to see the Portage Glacier and to visit the Begich Bogg‟s Visitor Center, returning to Anchorage just in time to take in the Sitka Music Festival‟s Autumn Classics concert. On Monday 19 September, I arrived at the Consortium Library with my luggage, for a brief meeting with Library Dean Steve Rollins. Sally Bremner provided a tour of Library, which included a visit to the Alaska Resources Library and Information Services (ARLIS) to meet librarians Cathy Vitale and Celia Rozen and their staff and to have a tour of the collections amassed from state agencies. The ARLIS collection, which provides universal access to Alaska natural and cultural resources information, was created by merging the staff and collections of nine Anchorage natural resources libraries. Founding agencies were the Alaska Department of Fish and Game; Bureau of Land Management; Environment and Natural Resources Institute (UAA); Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council; Fish and Wildlife Service; Minerals Management Service; the National Park Service and the U. S. Geological Survey in conjunction with the University of Alaska Anchorage. There are many similarities between SPRI and ARLIS, which contains more then 200,000 books; 700 journals; electronic databases; legal materials; federal and state documents; agency archives; maps and atlases; conference proceedings; theses and Ph.D. dissertations; videos, slides, and photos; furs, skulls, and bird mounts and environmental education materials. We were able to discuss the potential for cooperative ventures such as interlibrary loans, enquiry forwarding, links to catalogues and staff exchanges, and as staff member Carrie Holba told me later, “When you are a different kind of library, it is REALLY nice to find someone else out there like you!” I spent the rest of the morning with Kevin Tripp, Senior Archivist at the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association (AMIPA), discussing mutual concerns regarding film preservation, public access, funding and promotion of our respective collections, and taking a look at their storage and reproduction facilities, before Cathie Innes-Taylor drove me to the airport for the flight to Barrow, the highlight of which was an amazing view of Mt. Denali appearing through the clouds. Barrow I arrived later that afternoon in Barrow, the most northerly settlement in the United States, to be met by David Ongley, librarian of the Tuzzy Consortium Library. David had organised a full programme for the twenty-four hours I would spend in Barrow. This was my first taste of the Arctic, 340 miles north of the
Arctic Circle, but in mid-September the freeze had not yet truly begun, despite the odd flurry of snow. Our first call was the Tuzzy Library, in the Iñupiat Heritage Center, which provides library services to the entire North Slope Borough and is the academic library for Ilisagvik College. The library is named in honor of Evelyn Tuzroyluk Higbee of Point Hope, who was a member of the original Board of Higher Education for the college. Resources held by the library include books, videotapes, audio tapes, microforms, newspapers, periodicals, CD-Rom databases, and local, state and federal documents. Special Collections include a growing Alaskana section with particular emphasis on arctic and polar regions information, the North Slope, and the Iñupiaq history, language and culture. The library provides public access terminals to the library catalogue, a variety of databases on CD-ROM and the Internet and even at 8:30pm was busy with children and adults making use of its huge range of materials and services. At 7:15 the next morning, David collected me from the King Eider Hotel and drove me to KBRW Radio, where I gave my first ever radio interview, talking with presenter Earl Finkler about the reasons for my visit to Barrow and work at SPRI. This was an ideal opportunity to convey something about the SPRI collections to the local community, as well as the history of British exploration in the area in the early nineteenth century. Barrow, with a population of 4,500, is one of the largest Iñupiat Eskimo settlements, but is also home to a large number of scientists based at the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium. North Slope oil discovery has brought wealth to the area; most homes are heated by natural gas from nearby gas fields. There are community electric, water and sewer systems, the public radio station and cable TV facilities. Like many other locations within Alaska no roads connect it to other communities; transport in and out is by air. The community consists of 74% Alaska Native or part Native and the majority of permanent residents are Iñupiat Eskimos. Traditional marine mammal hunts and other subsistence practices are an active part of the culture. We then went back to the Tuzzy Consortium Library, where David explained more about the North Slope Borough Inupiat, History, Language & Culture Commission. We discussed library and collection development; digitisation projects; reader profiles and user education. David has been very successful in attracting state and federal funding and there are already plans to expand the library. David also demonstrated the Tundra Times project, which I had been particularly keen to see, as it points the way forward for much of the photographic archive at SPRI. In 1997 the Tundra Times newspaper, written by and for Alaska Natives since 1962, ceased publication. The Ukpeagvik Iñupiat Corporation (UIC) of Barrow acquired its archives and copyrights, including a photograph collection that consists of negatives and over 15,000 black and white prints. A year later the collection was turned over to the Tuzzy Consortium Library and in September 2000 a grant was received from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to archive and preserve the collection. Around 5,000 of the images are being digitized and published on a web site. The Tuzzy Library is also creating an indexed database of the photos, designed to record all known information and archival metadata for each photograph. The entire database and a low-resolution copy of each image will be made available to the public over the Internet. A compact disc of the archives, containing high-resolution copies of each image will also be available to Native groups and other interested institutions for uses such as school curriculum development or historical research. Individuals and family members of those pictured will also be able to request photo-quality printouts of images. We then drove to the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium observatories to meet Executive Director Glenn W. Sheehan. We discussed possible collaborative projects during the 2007-08 International Polar Year, including the IPY Publications Database initiative in which SPRI is a partner, and for which Glenn was able to suggest possible routes to NSF funding. SPRI scientists are frequent visitors to the BASC observatories and it was most useful to be able see the research and educational facilities available to colleagues working on Alaska's North Slope, the adjacent parts of the Arctic Ocean, and Chukotka, Russia. Glenn also outlined the proposed new library development at BASC, which will support the Barrow Global Climate Change Research Facility. There is increasing cooperation between the two institutions and this visit provided an ideal opportunity to examine areas of research support in detail.
The afternoon was spent visiting the mayor‟s office, the film archive of the local television station and a trip out onto the tundra and along the shoreline to Browerville, before returning for a tour of the Simon Paneak Memorial Museum with Collections Manager, Diana Martin. The museum provides a model for SPRI in its innovative integration of the views of the Native community into its exhibits. I was then introduced to Pearl Kiyawn Brower, ECHO Project Manager, with whom I was able to discuss the Federal Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations (ECHO) project, as well as the future reciprocal loan of museum objects. David then took me back to the airport to catch the early evening flight to Fairbanks. The visit to Barrow, although brief, was an exhilarating introduction to northern Alaska. On my return home, David sent me a copy of the local Barrow newspaper, the Arctic Sounder, with a two-page article documenting my visit as well as a tape of my KBRW interview. Earl Finkler and I also discovered a mutual interest in the paintings of E.A. Wilson, of which SPRI holds the world‟s largest collection, and have continued to correspond. Fairbanks My host in Fairbanks was Tamara Lincoln, Associate Professor of Library Science, Curator of Rare Books and Maps, and Curator and Arctic Bibliographer, Alaska and Polar Regions Department at the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her immense knowledge of the Arctic and the collections at UAF, as well as her warm hospitality, were invaluable during my stay and much appreciated. The morning of Wednesday 21 September was spent touring the UAF Library and exploring the Alaska and Polar Regions Department. I discussed the acceptance of a donation to SPRI of historical glaciology materials, the remainder of the W.O. Field collection, with Pauline Wilson in Collection Development, then had lunch with Tamara, Ron Inouye of the Alaska Periodical Index project and Michael E. Krauss, founder of the Alaska Native Language Center. After lunch, Ron accompanied me to the newly opened Museum of the North, where I was met by Molly Lee, Curator of Ethnology. She kindly gave me a tour of the museum and its new storage vaults, opening up areas of the collections not normally on display. We discussed the SPRI Arctic material culture cataloguing (AMCC) project in detail and agreed that I should contact Molly again as soon as the web catalogue goes live, to ensure that information is disseminated to researchers in Alaska. I also had the opportunity to discuss the museum‟s cataloguing policies and processes with Ethnology & History Collections Manager, Angela Linn and in particular to learn details of their condition reporting forms for artefacts. I returned by shuttle bus to the Rasmuson Library, to meet Librarian, Professor Susan Grigg, with whom Tamara and I had dinner before going on to an open house evening in the UAF Historic Collections and Archives. This provided a wonderful opportunity to see demonstrations of the UAF Project JukeBox Oral History Program and to talk to Research Associate Karen Brewster about its development, and also to take a first look at the SLED project http://sled.alaska.edu/. The Statewide Library Electronic Doorway was developed as Alaska‟s virtual archive by the Alaska State Library and the University of Alaska libraries with funding from the federal government, the State of Alaska and the Rasmuson Foundation. Based on ContentDM software, it enables digitised maps, photographs and archival materials to be made publicly accessible via the Internet and provides a useful model for the SPRI archives, particularly in terms of subject access. On 22 September, I spent the morning checking the W.O. Field donation for items not already in the SPRI library and in email correspondence with our Ice and Snow bibliographer about the collection, which would enhance our holdings in early European glaciology. This was followed by a tour of the Archives with Ann Foster and Rose Speranza, then a meeting with Dr James Ruppert of the Alaska Native Studies Department to discuss SPRI collections and the AMCC project. A discussion with William Schneider, Curator of Oral History, concluded with an invitation to visit SPRI during his forthcoming Fulbright Fellowship and an agreement to correspond further about standards for oral history projects. The afternoon was spent touring the Alaska Native Language Center Library collections with their founder, Professor Michael Krauss, Director of the ANLC Professor Larry Kaplan and Research Associate Anna Berge. We
discussed the future direction of their library and archives, cataloguing and classification and the need to adapt to local requirements. I also explained the range of native language materials available in SPRI library and archive and discussed our wish to make the SPRI North American materials catalogue available on-line. This was followed by a convivial dinner at a local restaurant with members of the Arctic/Northern Interest Group from UAF, many of whom I had met during the day. Friday 23 September began with a tour of the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) and the Institute Seismology and Tsunami Monitoring Units and meetings with research scientists, Uma Bhatt and David Anderson, whose work overlaps with that of researchers at SPRI. The rest of the morning was spent in the company of Julia Triplehorn, Librarian of the Geophysical Institute‟s Keith B. Mather Library, and her cataloguer, Chisato Jimura. During a tour of the newly developed library, we discussed SPRI developments, collaborative collection development, Polar Libraries Colloquy, OCLC name authorities and agreed a programme of duplicate exchanges. Tamara had arranged a lunch with local librarians at the Tanana Valley College, which was followed by a series of meetings with UAF Faculty members. Dr Judith Kleinfeld from the Department of Psychology and I discussed collection development in the social sciences and ethnography and the possibility of placement of UAF students at SPRI, a subject which also arose with Professor Phyllis Morrow, Dean of Liberal Arts. The afternoon concluded with a session with Ron Inouye, to talk about the Alaska Periodical Index; collaborative project development, the Polar Libraries Colloquy and a possible Arctic Libraries panel visit to SPRI following the meeting in Rome in May 2006. That evening, Tamara and I watched the Igloolik Isuma Productions film about life in Igloolik, Atanarjuat, the fast runner – a highly appropriate subject, given the discussions of the past few days. Saturday 25 September involved another visit to the Museum of the North to see the rest of the exhibits and, in particular, to study the displays of indigenous clothing. The afternoon was spent working on the IPY Publications Database project to complete the revision of the project guidelines. The entire project has been developed internationally by email between the Scott Polar Research Institute, Arctic Science and Technology Information System (ASTIS), Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary, Alberta and the Cold Regions Bibliography Project at the American Geological Institute. As work on it progressed during my visit to the United States, I was able to elicit responses to our proposal to capture bibliographic information on the research results of the 2007-08 International Polar Year from colleagues and to build on their suggestions to improve the project. At the suggestion of an Alaskan friend, I had booked my return journey to Anchorage by rail on Sunday. The journey takes 12 hours, but takes in some of the state‟s most spectacular scenery, including the Denali National Park. The day was spent taking photographs and talking to other passengers, including a librarian from New York who recognised the IFLA logo on my rucksack, and a pastor form Jacksonville, Florida who runs a Civil War re-enactment society. By 8:00pm, I was glad to be back in Anchorage and to be met at the station by Gretchen. Anchorage (continued) My programme continued with a visit on Monday with Dr Roger Harritt, Archaeologist at the Arctic Environmental Information and Data Center (AEIDC) and Juli Braund-Allen, Librarian with the Environment & Natural Resources Institute (ENRI), where we discussed the move of their collection to ARLIS. Juli also offered duplicate grey literature to SPRI. Kathy Hertel and Jude Baldwin, Director and Librarian, provided a tour of the Anchorage Museum of History and Art Library collection, mainly of Alaskan art and artists, maps and rare books; Mina Jacobs of the Russian Orthodox Museum and Archive showed me the Museum and explained their Library of Congress Frontiers project partnership. The afternoon concluded with a long discussion with Cathie Innes-Taylor and Nancy Lesh, Alaskana Librarian at the UAA Consortium Library, on developments at SPRI and involvement in the Polar Libraries Colloquy. Further planning took place for a possible visit to Cambridge following the PLC meeting in
Rome in May 2006 That evening, a group of librarians took me out for an Italian meal at Sorrento‟s Restaurant. We had a cosy fireside table, and with everyone now well acquainted, it was a relaxed gathering where we talked of Cambridge and the Polar Libraries Colloquy. On Tuesday 27 September, I had time for a flying visit at 10:00am with Janet Klein at the Anchorage Museum to discuss a planned exhibition on Yup‟ik science and the involvement of native elders, before an appointment with National Archives Regional Administration (NARA) Director, Tom Wiltsey. He and his staff showed me around the Archive, which holds deposits for all federal programmes in Alaska. A tour of facility, which is fitted with ceramic filters and silicon door seals, vital in an area prone to volcanic activity, concluded with a joint demonstration of web sites for NARA and the SPRI Archive Hub project, comparing the metadata used and discussing the use of EAD/RAD. We also covered current research use of archives and NARA‟s plans to move to new site. The rest of the day was spent with Dr. Lawson Brigham, Deputy Director of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission and graduate of SPRI, discussing development strategy for the library, archive and museum. Together we visited the offices of the Sea Grant Program, meeting Dr Clarence Pautzke, Executive Director of the North Pacific Research Board, to whom an invitation to visit SPRI was extended. On the way out to his home for dinner, Lawson took me out to Eagle River with a side trip up Hiland Drive into the Chugach Mountains. Wednesday‟s program started back at the Consortium Library to tour the storage facility and conservation workshop with Arlene Schmuland, the Reference Archivist, and to talk about the difficulties of reconciling archival descriptions with MARC21, which might make an interesting topic for a paper for next PLC. A tour with Sally of the Arctic Health Website maintained by HSIS followed, looking at its relationship with NLM, telemedicine and developments in mental health and dentistry. Next came a visit with Daria Carle, UAA science librarian. Daria had lots of useful input into the redefinition of SPRI collection development policy in support of scientific research. We also discussed Daria‟s visit to IAMSLIC conference in Hobart, where she had met another colleague from SPRI, and PLC in Copenhagen. She plans a visit to SPRI during her sabbatical year, 2006-07. At noon, Sally and I visited the Alaska Heritage Museum at Wells Fargo, where Artemis BonaDea gave us a short history of the amazing collection - a library in elegant glass-fronted cabinets opening off a large room filled with carefully arranged Alaskan artefacts. The bank houses the Rasmuson Collection of Alaska native arts and technology, arranged by native group and activity, illustrating life from prehistoric to present, and we were able to discus the possibility of loans to the SPRI Museum. This is a popular attraction for tourists, and school groups, but well worth a visit for locals too - regrettably, I found my lunch hour not nearly enough to explore more than a few display cases and the quality and uniqueness of the artefacts is amazing! Later that afternoon, Gretchen took me to meet Bruce Merrell, Alaskana Librarian at the Z.J. Loussac Municipal Library, where we discussed library design, the effects of staff shortages and collection development on the public library system in Anchorage. That evening, Sally and I were invited to a last supper together at Gretchen‟s home, with dinner guests, Judy Green, Education Liaison Librarian and her husband Paul. We had a most enjoyable evening together, sharing tales from Judy and Paul‟s year in Vietnam, where Judy was a Fulbright Scholar, and laughing over a book filled with amazing photos showing the Vietnamese using motorcycles to transport all manner of goods. Thursday 29 September was my last day in Anchorage and was to prove as busy as all the rest. After a final visit to the Consortium Library to thank Sally for all her help and to plan to meet up with colleagues from UAA at the Colloquy in Rome, I took a few final photographs of ARLIS before heading off to the Alaska Native Medical Center to view their outstanding collection of Alaska native arts and crafts. At noon, I had an appointment at the Institute for Social & Economic Research (ISER) to meet Dr John Tichotsky, advisor to the Governor of Chukotka and another SPRI graduate. He introduced me to Victor
Fischer, ISER‟s first director, who has studied and taken part in Alaska government and politics for over 40 years. He was a territorial legislator, a delegate to Alaska‟s constitutional convention, and later a state senator. He currently directs the Chukotka project, using Alaskan expertise to help improve social and economic development in Chukotka, in the Russian Far East, an area in which SPRI is involved in anthropological research. After an introduction to the work of ISER and discussion of SPRI involvement with Chukotka reindeer herding communities and the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium, I was introduced to Charles Johnson, Chief Commissioner of the Bering Straits Regional Commission and to Vladimir Etylin and his wife. Etylin is Executive Director of the Association of Native People of Chukotka, and has visited SPRI on previous occasions. He kindly took the opportunity to present a gift of a book on Russian native art to SPRI. After a brief shopping trip and a chance to parcel up some of the books and papers which I had gathered on my journey for posting back to Cambridge, Gretchen drove me to the airport for the 8:00pm flight to Juneau. We had developed a real friendship in a very short space of time and I would like to express my gratitude to her and to Sally for making this leg of the trip so memorable and such a success. Juneau Friday 30 September. After waking to an extraordinary view of the Gastineau Channel from my hotel window, my first appointment in Juneau was in the Alaska State Library and Historical Collection, where Laura Wood provided a comprehensive tour of the collections. They have exceptional holdings of maps and early printed sources for Alaska, and it was immensely useful to see how their collections complement those at SPRI. This visit was followed by lunch with State Librarian, Gladi Kulp and State Archivist, Ken Nail, with whom I spent an interesting hour on the subject of SPRI and cooperative projects. This was followed by a visit to the Alaska State Archives, where Archivist Tatyana Stepanova, Ken Nail and I discussed document processing, workflows, the Minisis archive cataloguing system and their proposed move to a new building. The evening was free, but very wet, so after a stroll around downtown and a visit to the local bookstores, I took the opportunity to have an early night. The next morning was spent in the Alaska State Museum, examining the ethnographic collections, which are particularly strong on Tlingit and Haida cultures. The displays provided plenty of inspiration for a redesign of material culture exhibitions back at SPRI. In the afternoon, I had been invited to visit Martha Stevens at her historic home on seaward street, one of the earliest timber buildings in Juneau. Martha had worked with the Alaska State Museum Service until her retirement and generously donated a large number of pamphlets on museum outreach projects on Alaska native themes to SPRI. We discussed the possibility of holding a workshop in Cambridge on object handling collections for schools during her planned trip to the United Kingdom in March-April 2006, which is now under active consideration by the County Museums Service. Martha then drove me out to the Mendenhall Glacier, which has retreated 600 feet during the past few years, then on to Douglas for the spectacular views across the bay. During the evening I explored the waterside and the older areas of the city in brilliant sunshine. One Sunday, 2 October, I woke at 3:30am to be ready for a taxi to the airport at 4:15. The flight to Seattle was delayed by 20 minutes due to freezing fog, which meant an end to my ambition to see the northern lights during this trip. However, the flight was uneventful with good visibility over the ice fields which surround Juneau and glorious dawn skies over the mountains. Arriving in Seattle at 9:15, I changed planes for Denver, where I was met by Allaina Howard, a colleague from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder. In contrast to Juneau, Colorado was in the midst of a heat wave and the 80°F temperatures were something of a shock after the chill of Alaska. Monday morning continued unseasonably warm, but my visit to the NSIDC and the World Data Center for Glaciology, Boulder (WDCG-B) began with introductions to the Librarian, Gloria Hicks and the director, Roger Barry, who provided a tour of the centre with opportunities to meet key scientific staff,
many of whom have long associations with SPRI. A meeting with scientist Ted Scambos led to a long discussion on retrieval of historical artefacts from Antarctic expeditions. Throughout the next few days, the library at NSIDC was to be my base and discussion continued with Allaina and Gloria on a range of topics including the development and use of the Universal Decimal Classification for Polar Libraries (for which SPRI is the lead body); joint contributions to NISC databases, Biblioline and AAR; the future direction of the World Data Center for Glaciology, Cambridge (WDCG-C) and its relationship to its sister organisation in Boulder, as well as joint digitisation and data management projects. I was able to talk at length with Mark Parsons about the IPY Data and Information Service (DIS) for Distributed Data Management and linked IPY Publications Database project (in which SPRI is a partner institution); Universal Decimal Classification and subject metadata. I agreed to attend an IPY Data Subcommittee meeting to be held in Cambridge in March, where we could continue to develop some of these themes for the IPY. Allaina and I were keen to meet Ruth Duerr, to do some work on a projected joint IPY Grey Literature Digitisation project. We agreed on the need to assess the scale of material, time and funding required. SPRI has offered to provide a European mirror site for the database, as part of the work of the WDCG-C. On 4 October, Gloria and Allaina joined me for a visit to the U.S. Geological Survey Library in Denver, where Librarian Tommie Ann Gard explained the effects of recent staff cuts and closure of the photograph and field notes collections, which may be deposited with NARA, but which are of especial interest to researchers at SPRI. In the afternoon, we were invited by Librarian Shelly Sommer to the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research Library (INSTAAR), where we considered possible collaboration on shared collection development policies; a joint poster presentation to PLC on a cataloguing consortium; an informal ILL scheme for non-monographic items, and the development of digitisation projects shared by the WDCs. One major subject that arose was the possibility of restarting a union catalogue project for the Arctic panel libraries. It was agreed that we should investigate open source software and locate a suitable host. We proposed to enquire at the next Polar Libraries Colloquy about the fate of the CD-ROM version of PolarPac and the translation of UDC to LC subject headings, as well as the need to find a joint framework for metadata suitable for all formats. Subsequently, I have agreed to take this forward as one of the speakers in a panel discussion on "International Polar Year information management" to be held during the 21st Polar Libraries Colloquy. By Wednesday, the unseasonable weather had finally broken, in time for a planned tour of NOAA - the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - hosted by John Welsh and Joan Segal. The facilities there contain 40,000 volumes and support over 1000 research scientists. Returning to NSIDC, Gloria Hicks and I continued our discussion of UDC and identified the need for a containing notation for the term Cryosphere. After lunch, I gave a formal PowerPoint presentation to the staff of NSIDC and INSTAAR on the information services at SPRI and afterwards continued my conversation with Shelly Sommer. With a little time left in the afternoon, I took a shuttle bus to the University of Colorado Earth Sciences Library and Map Library, where Suzanne Larsen kindly provided a tour of the collections (a 55,000 volume undergraduate collection and 20,000 maps), including a demonstration of GeoScienceWorld and further information on the role of the PLC in development of PolarPac and GeoRef. On my return to NSIDC, I met Martha and John Andrews, both of whom have long associations with SPRI as research librarian and academic colleague. They had invited me out to dinner, where we spent a pleasant evening catching up with news from Cambridge. Martha was also able to provide background on the PLC and the history of the polar union catalogue and urged me to pursue closer collaboration with American colleagues. On 6 October, after a final morning at NSIDC catching up with email from work, Gloria and I drove to Golden to the Henry S. Hall, Jr. American Alpine Club Library, where we met up with Allaina, who introduced us to Bridget Burke, the Librarian. We viewed the Library and Archive and had some discussion of the development of a new Museum facility. The Library, founded in 1916, is one of the oldest alpine research facilities in the United States, with a special collection of over 20,000 books devoted to mountaineering and rock climbing. The Library overlaps with SPRI in its coverage of
glaciology on Mount Everest and the Himalayas, the Alps, and mountaineering history. Leaving Golden, Allaina kindly provided a lift back to Denver airport in time for the afternoon flight to New York. New York The final leg of my journey began with a visit to the Explorers Club, to meet Archivist and Curator of Research Collections, Clare Flemming. Over lunch with Communications Director, Jeff Stolzer, and Deirdre Stam (Director for the New York Center for the Book), we discussed SPRI library developments and the current exhibition of Ponting photographs. This was followed by a most entertaining and informative visit to the Explorers Club Library and Archive, with further discussion of archival conservation and fund-raising. It is hoped that Clare Flemming will be able to take up a standing invitation to visit SPRI in the near future. My visit to the United States ended with a personal treat, in the form of visits to the Frick Collection and to the Museum of Modern Art. I can think of no better way to round off such a memorable and successful trip. Looking back over my three weeks in the US, I realise there was a wonderful exchange of friendship, polar information issues and projects, as well as shared insights into our countries and cultures. I would like to thank all those who gave so generously of their time to make my stay so enjoyable and helpful. I am also most appreciative of the assistance offered by the English Speaking Union and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, who made the whole thing possible. I shall gauge what impact I had, in part, by the number of my American colleagues who plan to be in Rome for the Polar Libraries Colloquy this Spring, and who choose to stop off in Cambridge to see SPRIâ€&#x;s famous library, archives and museum for themselves. The impact of the Travelling Librarian Award on my professional development will take longer to assess, but has only been positive.
Account of expenditure
Transport
Bus fares 18.75 Flights 910.40 Flights 145.10 Flights 126.10 Metro (New York) 8.00 Newark Shuttle 19.00 Taxi 33.00 Taxi 35.00 Train fares (US) 70.00 Train fares (UK) 57.00 Subtotal £1422.35
AccommodationHotel Hotel (3 nights) Hotel Hotel Hotel
135.00 247.19 80.90 121.34 125.92 Subtotal £710.35
Meals
Subtotal £462.93
Entertaining
Entertaining (meal) 70.65 Entertaining (meal) 39.88 Entertaining (meal) 35.00 Entertaining (meal) 111.10 Gifts for hosts 33.72 Concert tickets 40.00 Subtotal 330.35
Sundries
Books, guides Entrance fees Postage Postage
19.00 6.83 40.75 4.00 Subtotal 70.58 Total £2996.56