Category Archives: Uncategorized

HKG staff with Gov. Neil Abercrombie

Governor Neil Abercrombie paid a visit to the HKG Archives on June 15, 2011. He toured our temporary facilities and learned more about our planned move to our permanent home at UH West Oahu next year and our efforts to preserve, catalog and digitize obsolete videotapes and film. We were very excited to show him samples of newly digitized collection materials including footage of Gov. Abercrombie from 1987!

We’re extremely grateful to the Governor for his continued support of our project and were thrilled to be able to show him the results of our work. You can see more pictures of Gov. Abercrombie’s visit on his Flickr page.

HKG staff were lucky enough to get a special guided tour last month of the future UH West Oahu campus. Chancellor Gene Awakuni led the tour which also included Sen. Carol Fukunaga and Sen. David Ige. It was very exciting to see all the progress that’s been made in the construction of the central campus including classrooms, the student center, and the Main Library which will eventually house the HKG Archives collection. Here’s the new archives space below, still just a concrete slab but an impressive concrete slab!

By the Fall of 2012, this will be transformed into a functional archives with a humidity and temperature-controlled vault to store fragile media collections, a public research area, a curtained screening room, private study carrels, a video digitizing lab, and a processing area for inspecting and cataloging collection material. We can’t wait!

The UH West Oahu webpage also has a live construction webcam where you can watch all the action unfold.

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!

As we begin a New Year, we want to share with you the most recent update on the Henry Ku‘ualoha Giugni Digital Archives. We are pleased to report several milestones have already been accomplished as we continue Phase II of this project and begin planning for Phase III. First, after an international search, Janel Quirante has been hired as Head Digital Archivist. Janel earned her Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and worked as a videotape preservation technician at the Bay Area Video Coalition in San Francisco and as the Visual Materials Archivist at the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University before joining the HKG Archives. The other good news is that the Archives has secured a permanent home at UH-West O’ahu’s Library, scheduled to open in Fall 2012. Finally and most recently, the Archives has acquired SAMMA videotape digitizing equipment to help with preservation needs.  Staff continues its work in preserving, cataloguing and preparing media content for an on-line research environment.

John Walco, from our vendor SceneSavers, will be leading a workshop on audiovisual digital preservation. The workshop is part of the Congressionally-directed grant the HKG Archives received through the US Department of Education. For more information about the workshop and the registration download the Digital Workshop Form (.doc file) and return it by the July 23rd deadline.

The HKG Archive will be moving into a new space on July 1st. While awaiting the construction of its permanent home in the Library of the the newly planned University of Hawaii, West Oahu (UHWO) the HKG Archive will be operating out of a space it has rented from KGMB/KHNL. Located at 420 Waiakamilo Road in Honolulu, the space was chosen because of the favorable environmental conditions for media storage as well as security issues.

We are currently cleaning the space, setting up shelves, and preparing equipment to make it an efficient and effective base of operations. It is anticipated that over the next 2-3 years the space will be used to acquire, arrange and catalog collections, digitize materials, and act as a secure physical storage area. The Archive maintains its main office at the Manoa Innovation Center.

From Cornell University – Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Download it at eCommons@cornell.

Below are the individuals and organizations I visited during my first research trip (May 13-28, 2009).  I want to send a hearty Mahalo to everyone who was so generous with their time and met with  me.

Maenette Ah Nee-Benham; Pi’ilani Kaaloa; and Marvlee Naukana – Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa

Ruth Bolan – Pacific Islanders in Communications

Joan Hori, Dore Minatodani – University of Hawaii at Manoa Library, Hawaiian Collections

DeSoto Brown – Bishop Museum

Lynn Davis – Preservation, University of Hawaii at Manoa Library, Preservation Department

Ruth Marie Quirk, Linda Engelberg, Alexis Weatherl – University of Hawaii at Manoa , Sinclair Library

Dolly Strazar – Lyman Museum, Hilo

Lance Murata and his team – Campus Docs

Chris Conybeare – Center for Labor Education and Research (Rice & Roses)

Joy Chong – Independent filmmaker

Kepa & Onaona Maly – Lana’i Culture & Heritage Center

Maile Loo – Hula Preservation Society, Kane’ohe

Candace Lee – Kamehameha School Archive