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Koniag Cultural Library

The Alutiiq Museum is home to the Koniag Cultural Library, a tribal library specializing in resources documenting the Alutiiq world. Our reference materials include books, articles, photos, maps, archives, and more. Many of these materials are gifts from the personal libraries of Dr. Lydia Black and Dr. Donald Clark. The library is supported by grants to Koniag from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Curator of Collections Amanda Lancaster, 844-425-8844, serves as our librarian and can assist you with access to library materials.

Library Management

The Koniag Cultural Library is governed by a library policy. This policy affirms our commitment to ethical library management and maintaining user privacy. For management and security purposes, we ask users to sign in. However, we do not collect any other user information. Our library users have the right to open inquiry, without examination by others. Learn more in our library policy and the museum’s more general privacy policy.

Lori Walker in the Koniag Cultural Library.


Visit the Library

The Koniag Cultural Library is open to the public by appointment during the museum’s regular business hours. To request an appointment, please complete the digital form linked below or request assistance finding a reference from Amanda Lancaster.

Medical ledger, ca. 1900. Gift of Donald Clark.


Library Materials

The library collection includes over 3,800 books, journals, article reprints, catalogs, conference papers, magazines, maps, newsletters, speeches, pamphlets, presentations, recordings, technical reports, transcripts, and unpublished manuscripts—both original and copied. We care for more than 200 linear feet of reference materials.

Ouzinkie boys on bikes, ca. 1940. Courtesy of Tim and Norman Smith.


Photographs

There are over 11,000 photographs in the library. We do not hold the copyright for these images.  Some are pictures given to the museum or the library for reference purposes. Others are images of copyrighted or privately owned works, like pictures of artifacts in another museum. Library users can study these images, but they are not available for duplication. Many of these collections have finding aids to help users explore their contents.


Special Publications

The Koniag Cultural Library creates special publications to help to tell the Alutiiq story. These publications are produced with assistance from Elders and culture bearers to create educational resources for our community and share accurate information on Alutiiq culture, history, and language with all people.

Produced with support from the Institute for Museum and Library Services.


Iqsani’s Trout Hook

Qanitiisa and her brother Iqsani are young, but they have important jobs at fish camp. There are salmon to carry, a fire to feed, plants to collect, and trash to dump. Follow these Alutiiq children as they help their parents with fall fishing and have lots of fun along the way.

While Qanitiisa and Iqsani are imagined, their world is real. Their story is set in an old Alutiiq fish camp on Kodiak’s Karluk River. Archaeologists studied the camp, and their finds provided clues about Alutiiq life three hundred years ago. Enjoy the story and then learn about the sod houses, artifacts, and animal remains that inspired it.


Giving to the Library

We welcome gifts to the Koniag Cultural Library and accept materials within the thematic scope of the collection. Our guidelines for accepting library materials are outlined in our library policy. To make a gift to the library collection, please contact Amanda Lancaster, 844-425-8844, or fill out the form linked below to start the process.