Grateful

Raven Tree 2
Originally uploaded by AlaskanLibrarian

I’m grateful I live in a place with so many birds. And this is a light day for what I’ve come to call the raven tree. Taken from my office building balcony.

India Resource Guide from Rice Bowl Class

One of the things keeping me busy is a Lenten course based on the countries highlighted by Catholic Relief Services Operation Rice Bowl. Each week our group makes a meal from the highlighted country and I provide some background on the country. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to have a speaker who has visited or lived [...]

Office Raven

Office Raven
Originally uploaded by AlaskanLibrarian

I actually took my camera to work today and was rewarded with this picture of a raven perching right outside my office!

WorldCat Powered Recommendation RSS

If you come to the blog to view my entries, you might have noticed a new feature in the right-hand column. It’s called “Good Reads/Views.” It’s generated from the RSS Feed of a list I’ve created on Open WorldCat called Books and More Worth a Look. Every time I add to this list over at [...]

A Feminine Touch for Early Alaska

As part of my review of the geography collection at my library, I recently came across the book, Report on the Operations of the US Revenue Steamer Nunivak, 1899-1901 by Lt. John Cantwell. On page 175 of our edition, there are well intentioned but likely sexist compliments towards the non-Native women of Alaska:
In all of [...]

Japanese Libraries in the 1930s: No Maps for You!

The book North Pacific: Japan Siberia, Alaska, Canada by Edward Weber Allen has an entertaining story of the author’s visits to several libraries in Japan back in the 1930s. The chapter is called “libraries” and appears from pages 232 to 236. One part that struck me was the author’s inability to view maps of Japan [...]

Toughy, Bulldog in the Arctic

Today my review of our geography collection brought me to:
Toughy, bulldog in the Arctic.
by Harold McCracken
Publisher:    Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott Co. [1948]
Edition:    [1st ed.]
Holding libraries:    http://worldcat.org/oclc/1579336
The book has great, endearing bulldog pictures. According to the book jacket this is the true (or mostly true) story that tells:
When Captain Bob Bartlett and Harold McCracken made their last [...]

Notes from a pretty morning

I don’t have a photo to document it, but as I write today it is a mostly bright and sunny morning here in Juneau Alaska. There are periods of fog too, but the overall theme is crystal clear sunlight. There are also eagles and ravens plying the skies.
What’s pretty in your town today? Leave a [...]

Japanese, Russian, Spanish in Alaska

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m reviewing my library’s geography collection and finding some good gems along the way. Here are a few more:
A Japanese glimpse at the outside world, 1839-1843 : the travels of Jirokichi in Hawaii, Siberia, and Alaska : adapted from a translation of Bandan
by Katherine Plummer; Richard A [...]

Religion of Peace: Blessed are the Kin-killers

Before we Christians even think about condemning other scripture as bloodthirsty, we need to completely own our own holy text.
Today takes us to a very dark chapter of Exodus where the Bible says the sons of Levi obtained great favor through murdering family members. Here is the story of their crime in Exodus 32:25-28:

[...]