Hello from sunny Boulder.  It's great to both meet new friends and see old friends again, such as retired members Martha Andrews and Ron Inouye! This year's colloquy has people from the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Denmark, Greenland, Norway, Finland and Japan. We've already been enjoying the local eateries and brew pubs (of course), and the scenic environment at the base of the ColoRockies!

Day 1 of the Colloquy has been packed with sessions and information.  Many of us are staying at the Boulder Inn, which is about a 20 minute walk from the building where  we are meeting, so Shelly Sommer guided us on a morning stroll through the University of Colorado campus to the venue. 

UColorado is much bigger than I had imagined it.  Many of the buildings are new, but have been built of stone from the same quarry as the older buildings, so the whole campus is very attractive, with red rock and big trees. 

The Colloquy sessions began with James White, Director of INSTAAR giving an easily understood explanation of global climate change as his keynote address. One of the highlights of his address was having Shelly stand on a chair and threatening to push her off.  The purpose was to demonstrate was that as surely as we know that she would fall, the laws of physics also tell us that sea level will rise as the ice melts.

Sandy Campbell followed with an update on the UArctic Digital Library.  This project is moving along, with Sandy and Elaine Maloney having a 6:00 a.m. conference call with the UArctic Virtual Learning Tools team this morning.  The good news is that University of Tromso Library has received permission to apply for funding to support work on the UArctic Digital Library project.

Susanna Parikka of the University of Lapland spoke about the Lapland University Consortium which encompasses five libraries, including the Arctic Center Library.  The consortium serves about 11,000 students and undertook a project to deliver materials to remote users by truck.

Lunch was at the amazing Center for Community (C4C), where our swipe cards admitted us to a series of all-you-can-eat buffets offering pasta, sushi, hamburgers, Oriental and Middle-Eastern foods, as well as sandwich and salad and dessert bars.  We're all going to have to hike or we'll gain weight over the next three days.

After lunch, Yoriko Hayakawa of the Japanese National Institute of Polar Research Library Research Organization of Information and Systems described the network of organizations around the Library.  Parts of the network are consortial buying groups which allow the Library to purchase journals.  NIPR has more "other language" books and journals than it does Japanese language materials. 

Marcel Brannemann introduced AWI's discovery service "Eisberg", which provides one-stop access to many resources, including AWI's repository of works created by AWI scientists on the summon platform.. Check it out at awi.summon.serialssolutions.com  He also demonstrated the iphone app.

Alison Hicks of University of Colorado described her work with bookmarking, individual blogs and reflective work as part of an information literacy program for Antarctic Studies students at Colorado State University.  Alison's goal is to move students from being "information consumers" to "information participants".

Sharon Rankin (McGill) gave us an overview of the work that was done between 2008-2011 on making the stories of Nunavik's people available.  Several works of fiction have been published or republished and Sharon has created a bibliography.  Those with sharp eyes will have spotted a copy of it on the Silent Auction Table.

Heidi McCann and Julia Collins described ELOKA--the Exchange of Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic. This project has collected oral history information from people in a variety of sites around the Circumpolar Region, including Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Russia.

Sandy Campbell finished the day with a description of the challenges involved in creating a search filter to identify Canadian Indigenous materials in Medline.  MESH headings for both Indigenous People and Canadian geographic terms are inadquate, so a detailed keyword filter must be developed. 

The Silent Auction table is full and overflowing with interesting things from all across the Circumpolar Region. Instead of an outcry auction this year, the reserved items will be raffled. One of the raffle prizes will be the figurine of the "Jubilee" Queen Elizabeth, whose purse contains a solar cell that powers her waving hand (donated by Hilary Shibata of SPRI).