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.

Team Members

Jennifer Beamer Co-Investigator and Emeritus Project Manager Librarian, Desktop Network Services jbeamer[at]hawaii[dot]edu	Jodie Mattos Co-Investigator Librarian, Hawaiian Collection, Public Services jodie[at]hawaii[dot]edu
Kapena Shim Co-Investigator Librarian, Hawaiian Collection, Public Services	Dore Minatodani Newspaper Historian Librarian and Head, Hawaiian Collection, Public Services dorem[at]hawaii[dot]edu
Beth Tillinghast Technical Advisor Librarian and Head, Desktop Network Services	Daniel Ishimitsu Programmer Technological Coordinator and Programmer, Desktop Network Services
Kathleen Luschek Technical and Historical Advisor Digitization Coordinator, Desktop Network Services	Alice Kim Graduate Research Assistant Digitizing Project Support, Desktop Network Services
Martha Chantiny Emeritus Co-Investigator Former Librarian and Head, Desktop Network Services	Joan Hori Emeritus Co-Investigator Former Librarian and Head, Hawaiian Collection, Public Services

Current Contributors

Jennifer Beamer, Kathleen Luschek, and Alice Kim–members of the library’s Desktop Network Services Department–develop and manage this website. Ms. Beamer initiated this website.

Daniel Ishimitsu maintains the newspaper pages on eVols as the library’s programmer for digital collections. Beth Tillinghast provides technical support.

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.

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

Co-investigators Jennifer Beamer and Kapena Shim will apply for the fourth phase, and Alice Kim, Daniel Ishimitsu, Kathleen Luschek, and Beth Tillinghast will continue their contributions. 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.

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