As I lay in bed this morning, listening to the snowplow roaring down the street and staring blindly into the frosty darkness, I wondered about libraries in Alaska - I guess I was having a little trouble getting up - were libraries in Alaska cozy little outposts in the snow? Big city gathering places? Did they have inter-library loan, books delivered by dogsled? Quick...to google...
I ended up in Barrows, Alaska, the northernmost town in the United States, at the Tuzzy Consortium Library. Barrows, incorporated in 1958, is really out there, 320 miles NORTH of the Arctic Circle and surrounded on three side by the Arctic Ocean - makes Wilson and the Great Lakes look positively sultry. Alaska is organized into boroughs instead of counties and Tuzzy is not only the academic library of Ilisagvak College, a two year college dedicated to providing job skills and strengthening the culture of Inupiat (Eskimo) culture but also the public library for the entire North Slope Borough (a mere 94,000 square miles and home to 4,500 people). The great library name is in honor of Evelyn Tuzroyluk Higbee who was on the original board of the college. While the town was named for Sir John Barrows in 1825, the location has been home to Native Inupiat People for over 1,000 years, they call it “place where snowy owls are hunted”. In addition to snowy owls, there is also a problem with the grizzly bears who are currently overhunting the musk ox population. Intrepid hunters can get a grizzly bear hunting license in Barrows, which might result in an even bigger adventure than going to the library for the afternoon.
I was excited to read that Tuzzy is embarking on an expansion and renovation project that will enlarge its children’s room and add rooms for studying, teens and archive materials - altogether the project will add 4,000 square feet of usable space.
So if you can get to Barrows, there are no roads connecting it with the rest of Alaska, you can count on a top notch, modern library, offering book clubs, newspapers, movie nights, technology and best sellers - not an outpost in the snow. And yes, they do have inter-library loans - they are connected, through OCLC, with 9,100 libraries around the world.
I ended up in Barrows, Alaska, the northernmost town in the United States, at the Tuzzy Consortium Library. Barrows, incorporated in 1958, is really out there, 320 miles NORTH of the Arctic Circle and surrounded on three side by the Arctic Ocean - makes Wilson and the Great Lakes look positively sultry. Alaska is organized into boroughs instead of counties and Tuzzy is not only the academic library of Ilisagvak College, a two year college dedicated to providing job skills and strengthening the culture of Inupiat (Eskimo) culture but also the public library for the entire North Slope Borough (a mere 94,000 square miles and home to 4,500 people). The great library name is in honor of Evelyn Tuzroyluk Higbee who was on the original board of the college. While the town was named for Sir John Barrows in 1825, the location has been home to Native Inupiat People for over 1,000 years, they call it “place where snowy owls are hunted”. In addition to snowy owls, there is also a problem with the grizzly bears who are currently overhunting the musk ox population. Intrepid hunters can get a grizzly bear hunting license in Barrows, which might result in an even bigger adventure than going to the library for the afternoon.
I was excited to read that Tuzzy is embarking on an expansion and renovation project that will enlarge its children’s room and add rooms for studying, teens and archive materials - altogether the project will add 4,000 square feet of usable space.
So if you can get to Barrows, there are no roads connecting it with the rest of Alaska, you can count on a top notch, modern library, offering book clubs, newspapers, movie nights, technology and best sellers - not an outpost in the snow. And yes, they do have inter-library loans - they are connected, through OCLC, with 9,100 libraries around the world.
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