Awaiaulu

The Hawaiian-language newspapers, printed from 1834 to 1948, became an intentional repository of knowledge and documentation as Hawai‘i and its people moved through kingdom, constitutional monarchy, republic and territory. These newspapers are the largest native-language cache of published material in the western world and a huge block of Hawai‘i’s own history, yet only 2% of that archive is integrated into the English-speaking world today. In 2001, Ho‘olaupa‘i was created to foster access, but after a decade of minimal funding and little public awareness, radical change was necessary. Awaiaulu, sponsor of Ho‘olaupa‘i, created ‘Ike Ku¯‘oko‘a, a dynamic move to increase public awareness about the resource and build general access. From November 2011 through July 2012, ‘Ike Ku¯‘oko‘a enlisted an army of volunteers to turn newspaper pages into searchable typescripts. Over 6,000 volunteers on all islands and in 12 countries signed up to help, typing up pages to make them searchable. Of the 125,000 pages originally published, only 75,000 are known to exist, and by the end of 2012 that entire repository will be accessible online to everyone in Hawai‘i and the world. There is still much to be done to reconnect this archive of knowledge, but with support from the Cooke Foundation and others, ‘Ike Ku¯‘oko‘a has made an auspicious start.

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