PLC 2018: Day 1, Afternoon Sessions

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Blog Post by Sandy Campbell

Participants had lunch at the Restaurant Felli, the cafeteria in the same building as our meeting hall. It is always fun to eat like the local people. There was an interesting dish of shredded chicken and “root vegetables”, which were mainly beets. Breads and buns in Finland are always remarkable. There are always various buns with poppyseeds, and a variety of rye breads, some very dark – all very good. Hard to resist.

After lunch we heard three presentations on portals, interfaces and engines designed to make access to polar information easier. Leif Longva (UIT – Tromso) updated us on developments with the High North Research Documents https://highnorth.uit.no/ . Leif reminded us that the material in High North is harvested from the BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) metadata harvester https://www.base-search.net/. He also pointed to the need for high-quality metadata to allow for harvesting by these systems and noted the relatively low numbers of Chinese and Russian documents being retrieved. Language differences and/or metadata quality may be factors in this retrieval rate.

Daria Carle (UAlaska – Anchorage) presented on Alaska’s Discovery Portal, a cooperative project involving 3 campuses sharing a catalogue. Daria also spoke about SLED: Statewide Library Electronic Doorway, which supplies an array of services ranging from historical and archival documents, databases site-licenced for all Alaskans and tutoring serices. Find SLED at http://lam.alaska.gov/sled/

Shannon Christoffersen (AINA – UCalgary) brought us exciting news about the development of CCADI: Canadian Consortium of Arctic Data Interoperability. http://ccadi.ca/canadian-consortium-arctic-data-interoperability This consortium of 13 organizations is working to make Arctic data more accessible. In particular they are working towards goals around: a common interface for data, data interoperability, common vocabularies and data sharing standards.

Late afternoon of our first day was dedicated to the Poster session and some final presentations. Each of the four poster presenters briefly described their posters to the group and then answered questions at their poster. Peter Lund (Scott Polar) presented on making theses more available. Sue Olmstead (LAC Federal) spoke about the digitization of documents from the Antarctic Bibliography Microfiche Collection. Abdurhman Kelil Ali (UIT Tromso) described efforts to increase the amount of research data that is collected from professors, particularly those retiring, to be made available for secondary use. Marjatta Puustinen spoke about the research development at the Lapland University of Applied Sciences.

After the poster session, Bev Ager (British Antarctic Survey) presented on a variety of efforts to make the BAS Archives more open and accessible and some of the challenges in this process.

The afternoon was rounded out by a joint presentation from our busy hosts Susanna Parikka and Liisa Hallikainen, who took time out of their colloquy management duties to introduce us to LUC Library and LUC Arctic Centre Library.

Opening day of the conference has been full. We have all had a chance to catch up with our colleagues, be reminded of some of the great work that polar librarians are doing, and to learn about some new developments. Looking forward to tomorrow’s sessions.

PLC 2018: Day 1, Morning Sessions

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Blog Post by Sandy Campbell

The 27th Polar Libraries Colloquy opened with coffee and sweet buns that are a Finnish delicacy, held in the beautiful foyer of the University of Lapland, Faculty of Art and Design. For those of us not able to attend the ice breaker last night, it was a first opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet new friends.

Vice Rector Kaarina Maatta, Vice-Rector gave us a warm welcome to University of Lapland, which has as its motto, For the North, for the World.

Our opening keynote was by Director Timo Koivurova of the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, who addressed the history of Arctic governance and Finland’s role as the Chair of the Arctic Council 2017 – 2019. Finland takes over from the United States. The lecture covered the history of Arctic governance and the changes to the Arctic Council over time, highlighting the role of Indigenous organizations and the growing numbers of observer delegations from non-Arctic countries. In spite of not being able to make legally-binding decisions, Arctic Council has considerable influence. Most recently (Novermber 2017) the Council’s “Declaration concerning the prevention of unregulated high seas fishing in the Central Arctic Ocean” (that area that is not within any country’s 200 mile limit) resulted in a 16 year moratorium on fishing.

For the second half of the morning presentations, it was great to see Joe Bouchard (McGill University) and Stefano Biondo (Universite Laval) again. Joe introduced us to a new web portal, Atiku Northern and Arctic Studies Portal. This is a collaboration of McGill, Laval and INRS Univesite de Recherche. The collection, which has been selected by the collaborating librarians includes: databases, reference works, archives, maps and geospatial data, statistics and video. This new portal can be found at https://inq.ulaval.ca/en/atiku-portal.

Stephano spoke about Story Maps, a product that allows for integration of text, images and other information into cartographic products. As a demonstration work, he showed us a Story Map of Franklin’s Coppermine expedition 1819 – 1922. Clicking on the medallions at specific locations allows the user to see high-resolution copies of engravings from Franklin’s published travel journal. I think many of us could see the potential for using this product and process to create interactive materials for many applications, including teaching materials.

 

 

PLC 2018: Icebreaker Event

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Blog Post by Shelly Sommer

Coming directly from the airport, I slid into the icebreaker late and exhausted from travel. How welcoming it was to enter a beautiful old house, receive a registration packet and glass of wine simultaneously, fill a plate with local delicacies, and catch up with friends new and old. I heard about changes in the lives of people I met at my first Colloquy in 2004, and got to chat with some who were at a Colloquy for the first time.

The location of the icebreaker, Alaruokanen House, also gave us a good introduction to Rovaniemi. The house was built in 1860 and is now owned by the city. It is one of the very few older structures in town; the rest were burned during the Lapland War of 1944-45. Once the home of a wealthy family, it showcases the log construction and floor plan typical of the region and was furnished in historic colors and woven rag rugs that are still favorites here.

Starting the Colloquy by bringing us together as a community was a wonderful way to set the tone for the entire week.

 

26th Polar Libraries Colloquy, 10 July – 15 July, 2016

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Mapping Change, Chitduug gha nen’ ch’etnetl’edz*
26th Polar Libraries Colloquy
July 10 – 15, 2016

Come to Alaska in the summertime!

Polar Libraries Colloquy 2016

The Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks will host the 26th Polar Libraries Colloquy in Fairbanks, Alaska, US.

The conference website is being frequently updated and has information about visiting the university, Fairbanks and Interior Alaska, travel and accommodations.