ʻUluʻulu: The Henry Kuʻualoha Giugni Moving Image Archive of Hawaiʻi

We are pleased to announce the newest addition to our permanent collections, the Joe Fumio Konno Collection, which includes 16mm and 8mm motion picture film reels shot by Konno in the 1950s-1960s. Konno was one of the first television news cameramen in Hawaiʻi working for the Maui News, KULA Television (later KHVH and now KITV) and KHET (now PBS Hawaiʻi). Konno’s production credits include “The Pau Hana Years” (KHET 1966-79) and “China Visit” (PBS Hawaiʻi 1977).

Janel Quirante, Leslie Konno, Joe Konno and Mary Bitterman

Mr. Konno met with Archives’ staff recently and reminisced about his friendship with Henry Kuʻualoha Giugni. He recalled travelling to Washington DC in 1965 to cover President Johnson’s inauguration. Giugni met him at the train station and brought him to Senator Inouye’s house and offered him a chance to shoot exclusive photos of the the Senator and his new baby. Konno declined and explained to Giugni that he should also invite newsmen from AP and UPI as this would encourage good public relations with the national media. The next morning Konno woke to see a front page article and photograph of Senator Inouye sitting in a rocking chair with his baby — an image that reached a much wider audience than Konno’s exclusive could have.

Janel Quirante, Heather Giugni, Joe Konno, and Mary Bitterman

The Joe Fumio Konno Collection complements the Archive’s collection of another of Hawaiʻi’s television news pioneers, the Ted Shibuya Collection, and offers a unique glimpse into the early years of Hawaiʻi’s television history. The collection is currently closed to researchers as Archives staff works to catalog the materials and prepare them for public access.

Senator Dan Inouye and Irene Hirano with Jacob Rosen, Janel Quirante, Heather Giugni and Robbie Omura

Senator Dan Inouye, Irene Hirano and members of the Senator’s staff visited the Archives on Aug 10 to tour our facility and to see the progress that we’ve made since starting operations in 2010. Sen. Inouye has always been a strong supporter of our moving image preservation efforts and was instrumental in the formation of the archives which honors his longtime aide Henry Ku’ualoha Giugni.

Irene Hirano watches a passenger disembark from a 1920's Interisland Airways flight. The footage is from a 16mm film from the Lyman Museum.

Staff gave demonstrations of our video cataloging, cleaning, and digitizing equipment and showed the Senator clips from our Pilot Project including footage of the Senator himself in the 1960s welcoming Jacqueline Kennedy as she arrives at the Honolulu airport.

Robbie Omura and Sen. Inouye

We were honored and thrilled by the visit from the Senator and his wife Irene!

Sen. Inouye and Irene Hirano with Heather Giugni

Before... Original 16mm film reel from the KGMB TV collection

After... Image of Bill Paty from newly digitized film

Archival footage from the KGMB TV collection was recently used in PBS Hawaii’s Long Story Short. Bill Paty, who presided over the Hawaii Constitutional Convention in 1978, talked with Leslie Wilcox on the July 5 episode. The original 16mm film footage of the convention was preserved and digitized as part of the HKG Archives Pilot Project. Don’t worry if you missed the show, it will be re-broadcast on Sunday, July 10 at 4:00 pm.

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.