Beth Tillinghast-“Web Support Librarian ScholarSpace Manager Hamilton Library”, University of Hawaii at Manoa
The Internet has become one of the major venues for the sharing of culture and knowledge. A growing body of primary source material is being created digitally and distributed on the web. Yet because of the Internet’s fluid nature, often pages or entire sites can change or disappear without leaving a trace. Researchers want to ensure that the content of a website can be viewed repeatedly, at any given time. They need this digital material in order to fully understand the cultural, economic, political and social activities of today and to analyze changes in the future. Consequently, there is a growing awareness of the need to track and archive web content, both as a record of our time and to recreate the web experience for future analysis. During the last three decades of the 20th century, many Pacific island nations have gone through the process of decolonization. As such, they face multiple challenges when it comes to preserving online material. Given the various instabilities that exist in the Pacific — instability of internet connections and servers, instability of public financing (resulting in governments reducing or phasing out printed products in favor of online versions), and instability of governments themselves (resulting in the disappearance of online-only material that serves as the only documentation of a specific government’s actions) — the archiving of Pacific-based Internet content is not only of value to researchers, but serves as a means of maintaining community memory. This becomes even more important at a time in Pacific history that is seeing unprecedented out-migration, in which indigenous Pacific Islanders leave their home islands and travel to all points of the globe. Without the kind of connection that the Internet helps to foster — and the kind of cultural memory that an Internet archive will help to maintain — there is a very real danger of many important aspects of Pacific culture being lost at sea. For the Hawaiian Collection at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library it is especially important to archive websites and blogs related to cultural, social, and political movements in Hawaii, in particular the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, which is already a much-studied movement on the University of Hawaii campus. In the future, the topic will continue to be researched by students, faculty, international scholars, and other indigenous peoples of the world seeking to regain their own sovereignty. Hawaiian sovereignty is not only a concern for the US; it is an international question, and has been discussed and examined in international forums.
Presentation [PPT]