The University of Alaska Fairbanks is a public land-grant research university in College, Alaska, a suburb of Fairbanks. It is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska system. UAF was established in 1917 and opened for classes in 1922. Originally named the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, it became the University of Alaska in 1935. Fairbanks-based programs became the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1975.
The Alaska Film Archives, located at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, holds the largest collection of film related material about Alaska. The archive was established in 1968, and consists almost entirely of 16mm film dating from the years 1920 to 1959. Since 1993, the archive has been maintained as a unit of the Alaska and Polar Regions Department in the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library.
The Moorland–Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) in Washington, D.C., is located on the campus of Howard University on the first and ground floors of Founders Library. The MSRC is recognized as one of the world's largest and most comprehensive repositories for the documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world. As one of Howard University's major research facilities, the MSRC collects, preserves, organizes and makes available for research a wide range of resources chronicling the Black experience. Thus, it maintains a tradition of service which dates to the formative years of Howard University, when materials related to Africa and African Americans were first acquired.
The Noel Wien Public Library, operated by the Fairbanks North Star Borough, is located in Fairbanks, Alaska. It has a branch library in North Pole, Alaska. Its current director is Melissa Harter. The library has more than 100,000 titles in its collections. It is the second-largest library in the Fairbanks area after the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Elmer Edwin Rasmuson was an American banker, philanthropist and politician in the territory and state of Alaska. He led the family business, National Bank of Alaska, for many decades as president and later chairman. He also served as Mayor of Anchorage from 1964 to 1967 and was the Republican nominee for United States Senator from Alaska in the 1968 election, losing the general election to Mike Gravel.
Oral history preservation is the field that deals with the care and upkeep of oral history materials, whatever format they may be in. Oral history is a method of historical documentation, using interviews with living survivors of the time being investigated. Oral history often touches on topics scarcely touched on by written documents, and by doing so, fills in the gaps of records that make up early historical documents.
The University of Alaska Museum of the North is a cultural and historical museum on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.
Anfesia Shapsnikoff was an Aleut leader and educator born October 1, 1901, at Atka, Alaska, in the Aleutian Islands. Renowned for her weaving of Aleut grass baskets, Anfesia flew to many communities throughout Alaska to teach children the lost art of Attu basket weaving.
Dan O'Neill is an Alaskan writer. Born in San Francisco, California, in 1950, Dan O'Neill came to Alaska in the 1970s. Settling in Fairbanks, he did a variety of things, such as building log cabins, dog mushing, working as a laborer, conducting oral history interviews, and as a producer of radio, television, and video productions dealing with history, science, and politics. Now a full-time writer, he is the author of three Alaskan themed books. From 1985 to 1995 he worked for the Oral History Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, including doing project interviews about the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, digitized at Project Jukebox. These interviews formed the basis of his book A Land Gone Lonesome, which was awarded an "Editor's Choice" at The New York Times Book Review. He was an opinion columnist for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner from 1998 to 2002. O'Neill twice won the Alaska Library Association's "Alaskana of the Year Award" for the best book on Alaska published anywhere. He also was named Alaska Historian of the Year by the Alaska Historical Society. In 2015, the University of Alaska Press published his first book for children, Stubborn Gal: The True Story of an Undefeated Sled Dog Racer.
The Institute of Arctic Biology or IAB of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is located in Fairbanks, Alaska, US. The institute was established in 1963 by the Board of Regents of the University of Alaska, with Laurence Irving serving as its founding director. The mission of IAB is to advance basic and applied knowledge of high-latitude biological systems through research, education, and service. The Institute supports faculty, post-doctoral, and graduate research in wildlife biology and management, ecology, evolutionary biology, physiology, genetics, biomedicine, bioinformatics, and computational biology. IAB faculty hold joint appointments within other departments at UAF in the College of Natural Science and Mathematics and the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences.
Carrie Mary McLain was an American writer and teacher known for her histories and memorabilia of Alaska.
The Michael E. Krauss Alaska Native Language Archive (ANLA) in Fairbanks, Alaska, is an extensive repository for manuscripts and recordings documenting the Native Languages of Alaska. The Archive was created as part of the Alaska Native Language Center by state legislation in 1972. In 2009 the Archive was administratively separated and now exists as a sister organization to the Alaska Native Language Center, collaborating on numerous language efforts in Alaska.
The Margaret Herrick Library, located in Beverly Hills, California, is the main repository of print, graphic and research materials of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). The library contains a digital repository and has historical materials that include those relating to the Oscars awards show.
Evangeline Atwood (1906–1987) was an American historian, activist, and philanthropist. She was the co-founder of numerous organizations in Alaska, including the Alaska Statehood Association, the Anchorage League of Voters, the Alaska World Affairs Council, Parent-Teacher Council of Anchorage, and the Cook Inlet Historical Society. She was awarded Historian of the Year by the Alaska Historical Society in 1975. In 2009, she was named to the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame. Her husband was Robert Atwood and was the co-owner, alongside him, of the Anchorage Times.
Helen Marie Fischer was an American politician and activist. She fought for Alaska Statehood and women's rights. A Democrat, she served in the Alaska Territorial House of Representatives in 1957-1959 and then the Alaska House of Representatives 1959-1961 and 1971-1975 before and after Alaska became a state. In 2009, she was inaugurated into the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame.
Dorothy Awes Haaland was an American lawyer and politician. She served in the final Alaska Territorial Legislature when Alaska was still the Territory of Alaska. In 2009, she was added to the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame. She was the first woman to be admitted to the Alaska Bar Association.
The Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center (YPCC), also known as Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center and Museum, formerly known as the Yup'ik Museum, Library, and Multipurpose Cultural Center, is a non-profit cultural center of the Yup'ik culture centrally located in Bethel, Alaska near the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Kuskokwim Campus and city offices. The center is a unique facility that combines a museum, a library, and multi-purpose cultural activity center including performing arts space, for cultural gatherings, feasts, celebrations, meetings and classes. and that celebrates the Yup'ik culture and serves as a regional cultural center for Southwest Alaska. The name of Yupiit Piciryarait means "Yup'iks' customs" in Yup'ik language and derived from piciryaraq meaning "manner; custom; habit; tradition; way of life" Construction of this cultural facility was completed in 1995, funded through a State appropriation of federal funds. Total cost for construction was $6.15 million. The center was jointly sponsored by the Association of Village Council Presidents (AVCP) and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and at the present the center operated by the UAF's Kuskokwim Campus, AVCP and City of Bethel. The building houses three community resources: the Consortium Library, the Yup'ik Museum, and the Multi-purpose room or auditorium. The mission of the center is promote, preserve and develop the traditions of the Yup'ik through traditional and non-traditional art forms of the Alaska Native art, including arts and crafts, performance arts, education, and Yup'ik language. The center also supports local artists and entrepreneurs.
Siri Tuttle is the former director of the Alaska Native Language Center, the Alaska Native Language Archive, and a former Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She specializes in Dene (Athabascan) languages of interior Alaska and has contributed to the fields of acoustic phonetics, phonology, and morphology. She retired in 2021.
Irene Reed, was an American anthropologist, linguist and educator, central in preserving and promoting the Yup'ik language in Alaska.
Hannah Paul Solomon was an American community leader and artist. She was the first female mayor of Fort Yukon, Alaska, helped organize the Fairbanks Native Association, and was inducted into the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame in 2012. Her traditional beadwork is in the collections of several museums.
