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An Institute for Museum & Library Services grant request.
Submitted April 1998

Project To Create and Expand Digital Databases for
Three Collections in the University of Hawai'i at Manoa Libraries


Table of Contents

IMLS Grant Application
Abstract
>> Narrative
National Impact
Adaptability
Design: Goals & Objectives
Management Plan
Personnel
Evaluation
Dissemination
Budget

Print Text-only

See Also

Project Report I
Project Report II
Project Report III
Final Report
WebWise Conference Slide
Presentation.


< < Digital Archives Collection Page
º Hawaii War Records
º Hawaiian Newspapers
º Trust Territory Archives

Narrative

arrow Introduction
arrow Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands Photo Collection
arrow Hawaiian Language Newspapers on microfilm
arrow Hawai'i War Records Depository Photographs

Hawaiian Language Newspapers on Microfilm
From 1947 to 1994 the United States was the administering authority under the United Nations for the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI), an area that originally included the Micronesian archipelagoes of the Marshalls, Carolines and Marianas. Today the Federated States of Micronesia (Pohnpei, Kosrae, Chuuk and Yap), the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau have autonomous governments in free association with the U.S., and the Northern Marianas has a commonwealth relationship with the U.S.

When the Trusteeship began to scale down operations in the 1980s, a collaborative effort between the University of Hawai'i at Manoa (UHM) and the Trust Territory Government was formed to preserve the records of the U.S. administration's programs in education, health, political and economic development. A team on Saipan indexed and microfilmed documents, and a complete set of the film and the final index was deposited with each island government and with the UHM Library. In addition, UHM Library received the Trust Territory Archives Photo Collection of some 50,000 photographs and over 2,000 slides that illustrate the history of the American period in Micronesia from 1947 to 1988. These photographs are stored and only available at the UHM Library.

In 1991 the UHM Library received a Higher Education Act Title II-C federal grant to select significant items from the Trust Territory Photo Collection, add descriptive information to the existing bibliographic records (in the Trust Territory Archives Database, a subsystem of the Library's automated system, UHCARL), scan photographs and slides to produce a digital image file, and link the digitized images to the online catalog records.

The Title II-C grant enabled the Library to preserve the archival photographs and to enhance access for scholars and students. Over 6,600 photographs representing the highlights of the collection were selected by the Pacific Curator after an inventory of all holdings was conducted. The selected photographs were then scanned to create digital images. The digitized images record island cultures (traditional buildings, dances, feasts, costume, art, canoes), political events (opening of the Congress of Micronesia, inauguration of the independent governments), and document the areas of U.S. Trusteeship activity in health, education, economics and other fields.

Currently the images (in TIFF format) are only accessible in the Reading Room of the Special Collections Department at UHM Library from two dedicated workstations connected to a standalone optical jukebox located in the Library's computer room. Nearly all of the images have been converted and saved in JPEG image format as well as TIFF, in anticipation of eventually being able to make them available via the World Wide Web.

This project would complete the conversion of the TIFF images and transfer them to a server dedicated to image file access. This project would also create CD ROM(s) of the images in various formats along with brief descriptive links extracted from the existing bibliographic records describing the photographs. The CD ROM would be distributed to Pacific Island Libraries and research facilities. Web access and CD ROM distribution would make this resource available internationally in as many formats as possible to accommodate a variety of technical levels.

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Send questions and comments to: speccoll@hawaii.edu