Month: June 2023

Please join us in welcoming Meera Garud to the LIS faculty in a new permanent Instructor position! Meera has served as full-time temporary Instructor with the LIS program since 2019, and she will continue to coordinate the school library preparation program. Her focus is on understanding how educators can help students graduate high school while preparing them for college, career, and life success. Meera served as Co-President of the Hawai‘i Association of School Librarians from 2018–2020, and she also works closely with the Hawai‘i State Department of Education, supporting professional development opportunities for in-service school librarians. She earned her MLISc from UH Mānoa and BA from UC Berkeley.

Please join us in welcoming Assistant Professor Keahiahi Long to the LIS faculty in a new position dedicated to Hawaiian librarianship, starting in Fall 2023!  Keahiahi currently serves as Librarian at Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, and has taught courses in Foundations of Hawaiian Collections, ‘A‘ole I Pau: Kanaka Worldviews and Librarianship, as well as Hawaiian Archival Research.

Keahiahi lives in Maunalua, Oʻahu, is a mea hula no Waʻahila, and is a practitioner of Hawaiian librarianship. A co-founder of Nā Hawaiʻi ʻImi Loa, a Native Hawaiian library association, Keahiahi is dedicated to advancing the wellbeing of our communities through information and knowledge caretaking. As a Co-PI on projects like Lau Ā Lau Ka ʻIke and Ka Wai Hāpai, Keahiahi’s recent work focuses on Indigenous knowledge organization systems. Keahiahi holds a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science and Bachelor’s Degrees in Hawaiian Language and Hawaiian Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She is also currently pursuing her doctoral degree in the Communication and Information Sciences Program at UHM.