Ka Wai Hāpai

Co-Creating Controlled Vocabularies for Social Justice

Literally translated as “the carried waters,” the phrase Ka Wai Hāpai evokes images of the network of systems that care for our knowledge. This 2-year, IMLS-supported initiative seeks to increase equity for, and improve the well-being of, Indigenous communities within libraries and library services, with a specific focus on Native Hawaiian communities. The project plans to increase and improve intellectual access to Hawaiian collections and materials using Native Hawaiian epistemes to formulate and facilitate their retrieval.

Project goals and objectives

Goal 1: Increase and improve intellectual access to Indigenous Hawaiian collections and materials

  • Objective 1: Co-create components of an Indigenous Hawaiian knowledge organization system
  • Objective 2: Co-create controlled vocabularies for Indigenous Hawaiian collections and materials

Goal 2: Support Indigenous and other marginalized communities in related work

  • Objective 3: Document and share activities, outcomes, and processes throughout the life of the project

See an error? While Ka Wai Hāpai has strived for 100% accuracy across all dimensions of this website, we acknowledge that mistakes can be made and we, therefore, assume full responsibility for any and all errors which may be present. We would welcome any corrections and/or notes that are sent to our e-mail: waihapai@hawaii.edu.