Hawaiian & Pacific Collections

In late January 2017 digital and print copies of several genealogies from the  Jack Tobin Papers  were given to the Council of Iroij (Council of High Chiefs) of the Marshall Islands. The previously-made agreement relating to access was reconfirmed, this time by the entire Council. As part of the agreement the Pacific Collection created print copies for the Library at the College of the Marshall Islands, for the Historic Preservation Office, for the Alele (National Library, Archives and Museum), and for the Council. This is the conclusion of several years of work between the UHM Pacific Collection and Wilbert Alik, the head of the Department of Marshallese Studies at the College of the Marshall Islands. The originals of these genealogies were donated to the University of Hawai'i-Manoa Library by Dr. Tobin in increments over several years, and will be permanently archived by the Pacific Collection. Dr. Tobin first went to the Marshall Islands in 1950 as a student of Dr. ...

With the help of the UH-M Library's Desktop Networking Services department , an important, unpublished manuscript has been digitized and mounted online as part of the library's Open Access Initiative. Ruben Alcantara's "Filipino History in Hawaii before 1946: The Sakada Years of Filipinos in Hawaii," which he'd previously donated to the Hawaiian Collection, can now be accessed online via Scholarspace, at the URL: http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/17651 The photograph illustrating his manuscript (which is also reproduced here) is from the Hawaiian Collection's other digitized collection on Filipinos in Hawaii, "Filipino Workers in Hawaii 1926" at http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/fil-labor/index.php

Hawai'i's newspaper publishing history dates back to 1834. Between that date and the year 2000, more than 1,200 distinct titles were published in the Islands. More and more newspapers are finding their way online in digital form, but just as many remain available only in print. Hawai'i Specialist librarian Dore Minatodani has created an online Library Guide to help navigate the many resources available for researching within Island newspapers. You can find that guide by clicking here . For more on researching in Hawai'i newspapers, see also our previous blog entries on the subject, by clicking here and here and also here .

In observance of U.S. Census month, Hawaiian Collection librarian Dore Minatodani has created an exhibit on Hawai'i 's censuses. Dore writes: "The U.S. Census Bureau first included Hawai'i in its decennial census in 1900. Prior to that, censuses had been conducted in Hawai'i since the time of Umialiloa. Reports of such counts date back to the missionary censuses of 1831-32 and 1835-36, and appear in published reports in increasing detail, revealing increasingly sophisticated methodology, through the 19th century. On exhibit are selections from theses reports, graphs depicting demographic trends in Hawai'i , and a 1910 enumeration sheet listing the household members of Queen Liliuokalani's residence." The exhibit will be on view throughout April in the Hawaiian and Pacific Collections reading room. For detailed information on materials relating to the history of the Hawai'i census, see also Dore's online library guide, "Hawai'i Cen...

Until relatively recently, those looking for information in Hawai'i newspapers published before 1929 had limited options. That was the year in which the first indexes for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and Honolulu Advertiser were published; for newspapers prior to that, indexing was at best sporadic (and often non-existent), leaving researchers in many cases to pore over issue after issue of microfilmed paper in search of specific information. The Ho'olapa'i: Hawaiian Nupepa Collection (a joint venture of Alu Like, Inc., Bishop Museum and UH-Hilo's Hale Kuamo'o) now provides unprecedented online access to Hawaiian-language newspapers published between 1834 and 1948. Meanwhile, two projects being undertaken by the UH-Manoa Library are aiding in access to the early English-language newspapers (which also began publishing in the 1830s). The Bob Krauss Index : In 2006 the Hawaiian Collection received the private research index created by the late Bob Krauss, lon...

The Hawaiian Collection often services community members who are researching genealogies. One popular tool is Ka Palap a la , the University of Hawaii-Manoa yearbook, which was published from 1916 through 1968. Recently, such a researcher was poring through yearbooks for photos of her uncle, a star athlete in the 1930s. In addition to finding numerous photos of her relative, the young woman also discovered a rare photo of famed kumu hula 'Iolani Luahine, who was a freshman at the University in 1936. These kinds of serendipitous finds not only point to the research value of Ka Palapala , but are the type of small event that make our work so gratifying. (Even more gratifying: Our visitor learned that her uncle, in addition to being a student-athlete, also went on to be a multi-sport coach at the University of Hawaii -- something she had not previously known.) In this photo, kumu Luahine (second from right) poses with other members of the Freshman inter-class basketball team. For...