HKG Staff Attend Archives Conferences

In the past month, HKG Archives staff attended two professional conferences. The Association of Hawaii Archivists held its annual meeting Feb. 19, 2011 at the Bishop Museum. This year’s theme was “News from Our Neighbors” where we learned about current projects at the Lana’i Culture and Heritage Center, the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kauai, Kalaupapa National Historical Park, and the Lyman Museum. Not only were we happy to eat the delicious malasadas and lunch that was provided, but we were also thrilled to see some of our Pilot Project participants at the meeting!

HKG Archives staff was also present at the 25th Annual Preservation Conference of the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland Mar 16-17, 2011. The theme of this two-day conference was “Conservation2 = Preserving Collections X Our Environment.” Presentations focused on various strategies and solutions for sustainable, green practices that can be implemented in archives when caring for collection materials. Speakers stressed an interdisciplinary approach and encouraged cooperation and dialogue between archivists, facilities managers, architects and equipment manufacturers. Conference attendees were also very fortunate to be able to tour the preservation and conservation labs at the National Archives at College Park. The Special Media Preservation Lab was especially interesting as this is where videotape and motion picture film reformatting efforts take place. The HKG Archives collection is certainly not as vast as the National Archives, but NARA serves as one of our models and it was great to see that we’re using some of the same equipment (SAMMA Systems) as they are!