THE IMPORTANCE OF ARCHIVING MEDIA
Koa Luke, Assistant Archivist Cataloger, recaps the presentation from ʻUluʻulu: The Henry Kuʻualoha Giugni Moving Image of Hawaiʻi's staff at the Hawaiian Media Maker Series held on March 5th.
On Saturday March 5, a packed room full of community members and filmmakers gathered at the PIC conference room to learn from the ‘Ulu‘ulu staff about what they do and how the community can access this rich resource full of moving image treasures. ‘Ulu‘ulu: The Henry Ku‘ualoha Giugni Moving Image Archive of Hawai‘i is Hawai‘i’s first archive dedicated to the care, preservation, and access of Hawai‘i’s memory captured on analog moving image formats. Located on the campus of University of Hawai‘i-West O‘ahu in Kapolei, ‘Ulu‘ulu’s mission is to “perpetuate and share the rich moving image heritage of Hawai‘i through the preservation of film and videotape related to the history and culture of Native Hawaiians and the people of Hawai‘i.” ‘Ulu‘ulu accomplishes this by digitizing analog formats to preserve and give access to this rich history.
Heather Giugni, founder and Cultural Collections Specialist / Producer at the archive, gave an overview of the archive. After she spoke, Heather shared a six-minute piece she produced for ‘Ōlelo Community Media public access channel that brought the audience virtually into the archive and explained each part of the archive through interviews with the staff. Head Archivist Janel Quirante spoke about copyright and access of the collections and how the archive’s policy follows the four values of UH West O‘ahu which are: Aloha aku, aloha mai (Diversity), Laulima (Collaboration), ‘Imi Na‘auao (Teaching Excellence) and Mālama a ho‘omau (Stewardship). Specifically, Janel talked about how collections are digitized and managed for access and preservation within fair use guidelines. She ended her talk by discussing collaboration between the donors, patrons, and the archive. Media Specialist Robbie Omura described the nuts to soup process of videotape migration; starting from when an analog videotape enters the archive, how it is cleaned, and finally digitized. Koa Luke, the Cataloger / Assistant Archivist talked about his process of cataloging and describing the material before and after it is digitized. Koa also talked about the challenges of cataloging Hawaiian material. Because cataloging standards are created by the Library of Congress and adopted by regional archives and libraries, they oftentimes do not fit the worldview of the local user. It is for these reasons that Koa is creating Hawaiian Language subject headings and crowd sourcing information to make ‘Ulu‘ulu’s collections more searchable. The workshop ended with Janel discussing the long-term preservation of the analog and digital material and a virtual demonstration of ‘Ulu‘ulu’s website.
All in all it was a great event with lively dialog happening between the ‘Ulu‘ulu staff and community members. The staff at ‘Ulu‘ulu appreciates the opportunity to share with the public what we do and how we care for and make available the material that we preserve. We take our role as stewards very seriously and recognize that our collections, from local television news, to independent documentaries to personal family home movies all make up the precious memory of Hawai‘i. Because of these treasures our history will live on through generations of people locally and internationally.
For more information about our collections or if you have material you want to donate, contact us through our website. Mahalo nui to the awesome PIC staff for this opportunity. Remember to attend upcoming Hawaiian Media Makers Series events and hulo to PIC for making 25 years!
Categories: Newsletter, Training