Alaska Resources Library and Information Services

Carla Garner

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!  Well, perhaps not lions or tigers, but there is a bear along with other mounted animals, furs, and skulls available for checkout (you read that right) at the Alaska Resources Library and Information Services (ARLIS) in Anchorage. ARLIS opened in 1997 when librarians from seven Alaskan libraries combined resources to mitigate the effects of budget cuts. In 2001, ARLIS received the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ National Award for Library Service. SLIS student Kelly Page is interning at ARLIS this fall semester, and has been posting her experiences on the LIBR 294 discussion board log. Newly transplanted from San Francisco, Kelly moved to Alaska when her fiancé, a tugboat captain, was transferred to Anchorage.

Kelly, I see from your LIBR 294 internship log that you are focusing on cataloging tasks. What sorts of projects are you working on?

My assignment is to work on the library’s digital document archiving project. My first project entailed adding a link to a style sheet on each HTML page and editing the HTML to ensure that it would work correctly.  I then moved on to a project working with digital copies of Department of Fish and Game Regional Information Reports. For each serial, I had to create an index page in HTML.  I was working on these for a while when my supervisor switched me to a higher-priority project.  Now I am working on a group of documents from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council. 

What skills from previous MLIS courses have you been able to put to use in your internship?

Well, cataloging, for sure.  And I also use what I learned in LIBR 240 [Information Technology Tools and Applications].  The HTML editing is pretty basic here, and I got the foundation that I needed from that class.

Do you have any work experience that has been helpful?

Well, my undergraduate degree was in cultural anthropology.  And while living in San Francisco, I worked in the digitization department at the Academy of Art University, doing everything from training to marketing and promotion. 

How did you find the internship?  Was it posted somewhere or did you arrange for it on your own?

I actually got it in a kind of roundabout way.  After reading an article about someone in our program who did a library internship with the National Park Service [see the spring 2007 issue of The Call Number], I contacted Amalin Ferguson, who is the Library Program Manager for the Park Service in Alaska. At the time, my family had just bought a home on a couple of acres in Alaska, and we were about to move. So I was looking for an internship up here.  Amalin introduced me to another woman, Cathy Vitale, who works for ARLIS.  I met Cathy and had lunch with her. As it turned out, ARLIS was interested in bringing me on as an intern.  So that is how I ended up here.

Did you go through an interview process, and if so, do you have any words of advice for SLIS students?

No, I didn't have an interview. I would guess that there aren't a whole lot of people looking for library internships in Alaska because there isn't a library school here.  But I did meet Cathy by taking her up on the offer to have lunch. Though it wasn't an interview, it was definitely an opportunity to present myself. I suppose my advice would be to take advantage of those opportunities to meet people already working in the field. Have lunch with them if they are interested! Cathy has been a great resource and a great help to me.

Your library is unique in that it has a large collection of maps and technical reports, as well as circulating natural history specimens.  What are they used for?

Cathy said that people check out the [animal] mounts for all sorts of different reasons. Art students might have a need for them, for instance. I believe that the Boy Scout troops check out the wolf hide at the end of the year to have their pictures taken with it.

You mention in your log that you casually walked past a walrus skull that was sitting on someone’s desk awaiting cataloguing. Is there anything that has really thrown you for a loop?

Well, there is a black bear right at the entrance, and I remember thinking, "Ahh…my nemesis!" when I first saw it. I had just recently moved to Alaska and had taken a week-long camping trip with a friend of mine. We weren't used to being in a situation where bears were a concern. We probably spent more time than necessary worrying about how to avoid the bears!