about hdnp

Free Access to Historical Hawaii Newspapers At ChroniclingAmerica.com

The University of Hawai’i at Manoa Library has digitized Hawaii’s English-language newspapers before 1923 and made them freely accessible on the Chronicling America website. On the website, users can browse and search digitized American newspapers and read essays about them.

In a twenty-year period, the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) will digitize significant newspapers from all U.S. states and territories published between 1836 and 1922. NDNP is a partnership between two federal government agencies: the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress. The former provides funding for the program, and the latter will maintain the website.

Along with Chronicling America, the project also uploaded the newspaper pages to eVols, UH Manoa’s institutional repository, to provide another access point and backup.

The UH Manoa library has digitized and uploaded at least 301,097 pages as of June 2016 in three phases, each lasting several years.

Contributors

Jennifer Beamer and Alice Kim–members of the library’s Desktop Network Services Department–developed and managed this website and the project’s social media. Ms. Beamer initiated this website.

Daniel Ishimitsu maintains the newspaper pages on eVols as the library’s programmer for digital collections.

Hawaiian Collection Librarian Jodie Mattos and Dore Minatodani coordinated public outreach and developed historical essays about the newspapers and topic guides with Alice Kim.

Past Contributors

Initiating the grant proposal and managing HDNP, Martha Chantiny and Joan Hori made HDNP possible. Ms. Chantiny managed digitization and public outreach, managed HDNP’s funding, integrated her technical expertise into HDNP, supervised and trained team members, and coordinated with the Library of Congress. Renowned for her research prowess, with Alice Kim, Ms. Hori developed the historical articles about the newspapers and managed public outreach.

Project Managers Jennifer Beamer and Erenst Anip have oversaw HDNP’s digitization production for a few years, coordinated public outreach, and developed the website’s information. Mr. Anip subsequently served as the head librarian of the Vermont Digital Newspaper Project.

Beth Tillinghast provided technical support.

Project History

First Phase

Co-Investigators Martha Chantiny and Joan Hori and graduate student assistant Monica LaBriola developed the grant proposal, and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded $200,000 to the University of Hawaii at Manoa Hamilton Library to begin digitizing Hawaii’s English-language newspapers and chronicling their history.

In May 2009, UH Manoa Library received an additional award of $140,920 to digitize more newspaper pages.

Second Phase – July 2010 to August 2012

The library digitized 100,000+ newspaper pages. To fund this endeavor, The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded the library $270,000.

In the first two phases, the project made the following newspapers available in Chronicling America as of 03/12/2013:
• Austin’s Hawaiian Weekly – 1899;
• Daily Bulletin (1882-1895 pre-cursor to Honolulu Star-Bulletin);
• Daily Herald – 1886-1887;
• Daily Honolulu Press – 1885-1886;
• The Democrat – 1910;
• The Evening Bulletin (1902-1912 pre-cursor to Honolulu Star-Bulletin);
• The Garden Island 1911-1922;
• The Hawaiian Gazette – 1865-1877, 1880-1918;
• Hawaiian Star, 1893-1912
• Hilo Tribune – 1902-1906
• The Honolulu Republican – 1900-1902;
• The Honolulu Times – 1902-1911;
• The Independent – 1895-1905;
• The Independent – 1895;
• The Maui News – 1900-1922;
• The Saturday Press – 1880-1885

The total number of uploaded pages was 208,773.

Third Phase – 2012 to 2014 to now

The program digitized the predecessor of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, The Pacific Commercial Advertiser (1856-1921). For his phase, the library received $265,018 from NEH and digitized the following newspapers:

• Pacific commercial Advertiser – 1856-1906
• Garden Island, 1911-1922
• Polynesian, 1840-1864

Project Manager Jennifer Beamer expanded the public outreach, and Alice Kim continued to develop more articles about Hawaii’s newspaper history.

A sample of a digitized image of the Daily Herald.

Fourth Phase – After 2017

The project tentatively plans to digitize additional issues of The Pacific Commercial, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and Hilo Tribune (1900). The project hopes to digitize non-English newspapers.

Team Members

Kapena Shim
Co-Investigator
Librarian, Hawaiian Collection, Public Services

Jodie Mattos
Co-Investigator
Librarian, Hawaiian Collection, Public Services
jodie[at]hawaii[dot]edu

Dore Minatodani
Newspaper Historian
Librarian and Head, Hawaiian Collection, Public Services
dorem[at]hawaii[dot]edu

Alice Kim
Graduate Research Assistant
Digitizing Project Support, Desktop Network Services

Daniel Ishimitsu
Programmer
Technological Coordinator and Programmer, Desktop Network Services

Martha Chantiny
Emerita Co-Investigator
Emerita Librarian and Head, Desktop Network Services

Joan Hori
Emerita Co-Investigator
Former Librarian and Head, Hawaiian Collection, Public Services

Jennifer Beamer
Project Manager for Phase 3
Librarian, Desktop Network Services

Erenst Anip

Project Manager for Phases 1 and 2
Desktop Network Services

Beth Tillinghast
Former Technical Advisor
Librarian and Head, Desktop Network Services

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