New documentary about Antarctica

Review of - Encounters at the End of the World (2008). by Werner Herzog.

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20206283,00.html
from Entertainment Weekly magazine.

Posted by:

Elise Chodat
Bibliographic Systems Librarian
INAC Library

22nd Polar Libraries Colloquy - Friday, June 6, 2008

How the colloquy hours this week have flown by this week with interesting presentations. Day 5 was no exception.















The morning plenary session 10 began with a presentation by John Gilbert a former radio operator and arctic veteran who has been instrumental in collecting photographs, memorabila and documents from those who have served in the joint (Canada & US) weather stations. Edward Atkinson, Nunavut Archives acquired this their first digital collection and Steve Schafer, Athabasca University Library, is working to provide access to the collection in ContentDM. This collaborative project is called JAWS - Joint Arctic Weather Stations.




Shelly Sommers (Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research/INSTARR) a solo librarian, described how a joint exhibit with neighbour library - National Snow and Ice Data Centre/NSIDC resulted in new connections and interest with new users. An inspired storyteller, information scavenger hunt and database searches linked to the contents of the exhibit were all part of the event.






Each year the PLC Colloquy group photograph is taken. The weather cooperated and before the morning coffee break we headed outside the Telus Centre for a photoshoot.






Plenary session 11 contained two papers by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). David Walton introduced us to his bibliometric study of trends in science publications. Using data from Web of Science and the publications list of the BAS, David analyzed the production by countries who take part in antarctic research and compared their output and citation rates from the 1970s to the present across subject disciplines. This work will be continued using the Antarctic Bibliography.





David Hyett, Head of Information and Records Management, described the project to create an open archive repository for the scientists who are funded by NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) using ePrint software. All scientific output funded by NERC must be deposited in an OAI archive. The NORA archive provides this depository for postprints and grey literature. Authors self deposit and verify publisher permissions in SHERPA's Romeo database http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php NORA can be viewed at http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/




After lunch, plenary session 12 focused on media. Lindsay Johnston (University of Alberta Library) reported on an ongoing study to analyze the media portrayal of the welfare of polar bears in North American newspapers. The research team used Survey Monkey for their content coding and as the librarian on the project team Lindsay was instrumental in providing search strategies and information resources for the work.






Mary Katherine Jones (University of Tromso) reviewed the international media coverage of the 2007 Arktika Russian expedition to the North Pole. This expedition planted a Russian flag on the seabed and claimed the Arctic as Russian.

David Walton began the PLC closing session with a personal summary of the week's events. Having fun, meeting old friends, making new ones and exchanging information are at the heart of the PLC Colloquy. Many new groups and project initiaives have begun at this meeting and the challenge is to continue with these collaborative efforts in the years until the next colloquy.

PLC Steering Committee group photo.

The next PLC will be held in 2010 in Bremerhaven, Germany. Marcel Brannerman provided an overview of the conference venue and places the visit in Bremerhaven.









Heather Lane, incoming PLC President summarized on behalf of all attendees their appreciation of Sandy Campbell and her team's wonderful arrangements and organization of the PLC Colloquy.

The day ended with dinner and the outcry auction. Auctioneer David Walton amused and engaged diners, and all items were sold to the highest bidder amid laughter and good company.






Posted by Sharon Rankin, McGill University Library, June 7th, 2008.

22nd Polar Libraries Colloquy - Thursday, June 5, 2008

Several talks focused on the North today. Bjorn Skancke talked about NORAS, which is a planned service that provides access to open scholarly documents that are geographically defined in the North, rather than by subject. Sandy Campbell discussed how they define "The North" for their Canadian Circumpolar Collection at the University of Alberta. Peter Geller and Stan Gardner talked about how a regional library system was being built in Northern Manitoba for the University College of the North. Members from the University of the Arctic instructors talked about their program and some of the problems that are encountering with getting library materials to their students. As a partner with the University of the Arctic, the PLC has an important role to play in helping with this dilemma. We also heard about the Caninuit Database from Sharon Rankin.

There was a panel discussion about the Future of Polar Libraries and an lively discussion took place about our role in this ever changing environment. Phil Cronenwett also talked to us about the spiraling costs of polar literature and made some suggestions on how we as collectors of polar literature for our libraries could cope with this situation.

It's official - Marcel Branneman from the Alfred Wegener Institute extended an invitation to the PLC for 2010 and so it will be in Bremerhaven, Germany then. Birit Jakobsen from UNIS in Norway also extended an invitation for us to travel to Svalbard in 2010. Everyone agreed that Svalbard would be a fantastic locale for the PLC, but there were reservations about the costs of air travel and fuel and the fear that the costs would only escalate rather than remain the same or be less. The Steering Committee felt that many of the members would not be able to travel to Svalbard because of the costs.

Also at the PLC Business Meeting, Daria requested contributions from the membership and there were several panel discussions held at this PLC, including the one today about the Future of Polar Libraries. David Walton, the chair of that session, suggested that those on the panel write up something from their own perspective to be included in an issue of the Bulletin.

New steering committee members added to the PLC are: Shelly Sommer from INSTAAR, Ross Goodwin from ASTIS and Marcel Branneman from Alfred Wegener Institute.

Everyone was given the opportunity to sign up to be on a committee that they were most interested in - I signed up for the committee for making a union list of polar digital projects or initiatives. We will meet after the formal conclusion of the PLC on Friday to discuss how we should get started. Others that are not at the meeting are welcome to join the committee and probably any other committee that is organizing. Look for information about the committees in the Bulletin or contact Judy Triplehorn who is the keeper of the lists of volunteers.

Lynn Lay

22nd Polar Libraries Colloquy - Wednesday, June 4, 2008

The third day of the Colloquy began with a joint PLC/University of the Arctic session on the IPY. Elena Sparrow, Director of the University of the Arctic IPY Coordination Office provided us with details on the wide range of IPY projects that the University is involved in. David Hik, University of Alberta, provided an overview of the IPY in Canada and Scott Forrest, UArctic Secretariat, demonstrated the UArctic Atlas.

The PLC then had a breakout session on IPY beginning with a report by Ross Goodwin on the progress being made on the International Polar Year Publications Database, a collaboration of five organizations attempting to track all of the publications that result from the IPY. To date about 630 IPY publications have been identified and any researchers or librarians that know of publications resulting from the IPY are encouraged to report the publications to one of the collaborators at http://biblioline.nisc.com/ipy/html/report.htm.

Reports on the IPY at various organizations followed: Susan Olmsted from NSF reported on the NSF IPY web site, Anna Fiolek from NOAA demonstrated some of the polar videoclips being made available on the NOAA website, and Berit Jakobsen reviewed the Norwegian IPY website.

The afternoon was devoted to a pleasant stroll through Fort Edmonton Park where we walked through history. The Park represents four distinct time periods: a fur trading post, 1885, 1905 and 1920.

After our return to Edmonton, we joined the University of the Arctic and celebrated with dinner and dancing at the Oldtimer’s Memorial Cabin

Sharon Tahirkheli, American Geological Institute

22nd Polar Libraries Colloquy - Tuesday, June 3, 2008

The second day of the PLC in Edmonton started with a wonderful performance by an aboriginal trio by the name of Asani. Their beautiful songs were a great start of a day with a very full program.

The keynote speech this day was by the Cree author Larry Loyie and his partner Constance Brissenden. Larry is a writer of children's fiction books, and told us about the challenges of being an aboriginal writer and getting your writings published.

The first session started with Lia Ruttan's talk on Locating literature. When working in the area of northern history, there is a great difference in the way Western literature documents the events in the North, and the way the local people experience their own history. The writings of explorers and adventurers are often based on very short stays. The indigenous people's history on the other hand is passed on in an oral tradition. The challenge is to get the oral history recorded in a way, where it is a partnership created to re-story the past in an ethical way.

Next Rae-Lynne Aramburo told us about book publishing in Nunavut. There are but four publishers in Nunavut, of which one has now been dissolved. Most publishing is concerned with teaching materials in Inuktitut, mostly as bilingual English/Inuktitut publications. As the publishers are non-commercial and funding is a problem, the challenge is the distribution of these materials.

After lunch session two started with Sharon Tahirkheli and her talk on: Do we really need the Cold Regions Bibliography Project when we have web-based search engines? A vey relevant question as many students and researchers are prone to think the they get all the necessary information through Google Scholar. Sharon had compared different searches in CRBP and Google, and although Google came out with quite good results in some of these searches, the CRBP proves to be more focused. This is based on a well defined coverage and a controlled vocabulary.

Arto Vitikka then told us about information and database management in the Barents region. The Arctic Center in Rovaniemi maintains the portal http://www.barentsinfo.org/. New web technologies are being introduced and Arto told us about semantic web technology, which makes contents of the information understandable and processable by machines.

Session three started with Lynn Lay's talk about the Byrd Polar Research Centre's project of collecting images and documentation from researchers at the center. It proved not to be that easy to get researchers to take the time to collect and hand over their archival material. The idea is to create a database which will document the history of the Byrd Center, and make available the scientific outcomes.

The session concluded with Heather Lane's talk on: Beyond text - using library and archival collections at the SPRI to contextualise the visual image. SPRI has launched a project of preserving historic polar images called the Freeze frame project. 20.000 images from SPRI's historical collection together with manuscript materials and photographs from the museum collection are added to a database. The aim is to promote the understanding of polar history. Another aim is to preserve the very rare and fragile materials.

This was a short summary of the day's session. In half an hour we shall be joining the University of the Arctic attendants for an Icebreaker at the Timms Center.

Vibeke Sloth Jakobsen, Danish Polar Center

22nd Polar Libraries Colloquy - Monday, June 2, 2008

When I first woke up this morning, I admit I had second thoughts about volunteering to take Monday as my day to blog about the Polar Libraries Colloquy. My flight into Edmonton didn't arrive until late on Sunday night, so I was feeling a little too sleep-deprived to focus on the day's events with enough attention to record it all. Fortunately though, I picked a great day after all, for the opening day of the 22nd PLC proved to be captivating, and I quickly overcame my fuzzy-headedness.

We began the day with many greetings – from representatives of the host institutions and local library associations. Feeling very welcomed, we then went through introductions of the delegates, and of the steering committee. Reportedly there are 56 attendees this year, and this is the 3rd time the Colloquy has met in Edmonton.

Our opening keynote session was delivered by anthropologist, film-maker and author, Niobe Thompson. He treated us to the first North American screening of his documentary film about the sea mammal diet of the Chukchi people in Siberia. Throughout the screening, he shared his thoughts on the role of documentary film-making in polar studies, noting that film can act as a bridge between academia and polar communities, and also suggesting how and why keepers of polar collections might use films in their work. This session was certainly the highlight of the day for me, and it was a great way to kick off the week.

Thompson joined us again after lunch for another film screening, this time of the documentary, Tar Sands: Canada for Sale, a thought-provoking look at the oil boom in Fort McMurray, Alberta covering a variety of players and perspectives. Afterwards, the audience and Thompson had some time to engage in questions and discussion generated by the film.

Next up on the agenda was a presentation on the University of Alberta's impressive William C. Wonders Map Collection by David Jones, the map librarian. Jones described the cartographic resources found in the collection, the online bibliographic access to the resources, and he showed us samples of the works within, from the very old to the new. Later after his session, we were able to view the collection in person, on our walking tour of the University of Alberta campus.

Before we broke into groups for our campus tour, the winner of the 2nd William Mills Book Prize was announced...or rather, winners. For this year, the quantity and quality of nominees for the prize was such that one winner was chosen and another author was recognized with an honourable mention. Beau Riffenburgh won for the Encyclopedia of the Antarctic, and Ann Fienup-Riordan was awarded an honourable mention for Yuungnaqpiallerput / The Way We Genuinely Live: Masterworks of Yup'ik Science and Survival.

For some, the PLC activities for the day then ended with the stroll through the campus in the sunshine...for others, the opening day polar libraries fellowship continued in true Canadian style – at the local pub, with malt beverages and a hockey game.

Posted by: Rae-Lynne Aramburo, Nunavut Arctic College

Obituary: Roy "Fritz" Koerner

Fritz Koerner, Glaciologist and polar explorer who with Wally Herbert's team made the first surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean, 29/05/2008.


www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2050482/Fritz-Koerner.html

Posted by:
Elise Chodat,
Bibliographic Systems Librarian,
INAC