The Alaska State Library and Historical Collections and Talking Book Center are located on the second floor of the Andrew P. Kashevaroff Building in

Juneau The City and Borough of Juneau, more commonly known simply as Juneau ( ; tli, Dzánti K'ihéeni ), is the capital city of the state of Alaska. Located in the Gastineau Channel and the Alaskan panhandle, it is a unified municipality and the s ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...

Mission statement

The Alaska State Library: *promotes and coordinates

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

services to the community of Alaskan libraries, *serves as the primary research library for state government, and *collects, preserves, and makes accessible Alaska-related materials.

About the Library

The State Library coordinates library services throughout the state and serves as the information resource for the state government and the Legislature. It includes the Historical Section, which collects Alaskana and preserves private papers and materials of historical value to the state. The State Library also collects, catalogs and makes available state agency publications. This is done through the Documents Depository, which distributes the publications to depository libraries throughout the state. The State Library administers federal and state grants for

public library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants. There are five fundamen ...

construction and services. It coordinates the Alaska Library Network (ALN), which provides

interlibrary loan Interlibrary loan (abbreviated ILL, and sometimes called interloan, interlending, document delivery, document supply, or interlibrary services, abbreviated ILS) is a service where patrons of one library can borrow materials and receive photocopies ...

s, cooperative

collection development Library collection development is the process of systematically building the collection of a particular library to meet the information needs of the library users (a service population) in a timely and economical manner using information resources ...

, and resource sharing among libraries. The Governor's Advisory Council on Libraries advises on the federal long-range spending plan. Since 1950, the library has offered a mail service that will transport books to patrons in remote areas of the state. The mail services allows for materials to be checked out for up to eight weeks with a chance to renew up to four additional weeks.

Talking Book Center

The Talking Book Center provides blind, visually impaired, and physically impaired individuals, who cannot read standard print, with

audio books An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements. Spoken audio has been available in sch ...

large print Large-print (also large-type or large-font) refers to the formatting of a book or other text document in which the typeface (or font) are considerably larger than usual to accommodate people who have low vision. Frequently the medium is also increa ...

, and

Braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displ ...

materials. The program serves the entire state and is free to those who are eligible. Patrons of the service are also eligible to download thousands of available audio and braille books and magazines via Braille & Audio Reading Download (BARD) service. In September 2013, th
BARD mobile application
for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch became available as a free download in the iTunes App Store. Th
Android mobile application
is also available as a free download.

References

External links

*
Alaska State Library on TwitterAlaska Library NetworkAlaska Talking Book Center on Facebook
{{Authority control 1900 establishments in Alaska Buildings and structures in Juneau, Alaska Culture of Juneau, Alaska Education in Juneau, Alaska Government agencies established in 1900 Libraries in Alaska Public libraries in Alaska State agencies of Alaska State libraries of the United States Libraries established in 1900