UH Manoa Library Collection Strengths
This text is taken from a 2006 essay by Nancy J. Morris that was a revision of a work originally published in the International Dictionary of Library Histories (Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001). For the complete 2006 essay, see History of Libraries, University of Hawaii, Manoa.
Special Strengths and Special Challenges
The library´s areas of concentration correspond to the university´s particular strengths. The Asia collections assembled prior to World War II were later boosted by the support needs of the federally funded East West Center, located on the grounds of the University of Hawai´i. There was considerable wrangling over whether the library´s former Oriental Institute library holdings should be housed at the East West Center or remain at Hamilton Library. Library annals record an infamous "midnight raid" when East West Center personnel pulled up a truck to the back of Hamilton and spirited off the Oriental Institute collection to the new Center. Later when the Center´s library was reconfigured as specific support collections for the Center´s various institutes, the Oriental Collection returned to the university library.
The library maintains membership in five Asia-centered American academic consortia, is one of a handful of University participants in the Library of Congress Asian Cooperative Acquisition Programs for South and Southeast Asia, and has established cooperative links with the Global ILL Framework, Japan, and Beijing University, China, among others. Since the 1930s, the library has collected materials in Russian, European, and Asian languages pertaining to Siberia, the Russian Far East, and Russian relations with Asia and the Pacific. Cataloging of the collection's Chinese, Japanese, and Korean original language materials in their corresponding Asian scripts has long posed a challenge, but is now a reality.
Similarly, the Pacific Islands collection benefited by the establishment of the university´s unique Pacific Islands Study Program and a team of University of Hawai´i Pacific Islands scholars dedicated to developing library resources in their areas. The Hawaiian collection is unequaled in the world. In collecting and preserving materials relating to native Hawaiian language, culture, and history, the library serves as a resource for the ongoing native Hawaiian cultural renaissance. The curator of the Hawaiian collection routinely conducts library instruction sessions in Hawaiian, a language once thought doomed for extinction, but currently alive and healthy. The library´s doors are open to the Hawai´i community and visiting scholars, and collections documenting Hawai´i´s multi- cultural heritage are heavily used. In the sciences, the library has built outstanding collections on tropical agriculture, ocean sciences, and marine biology.
At the urging of a concerned group of the teaching faculty, in 1987 University Librarian John Haak moved to establish a new archives and manuscripts unit. Aside from the heavily-used Hawaii War Records Depository given to the University after World War II, previously the University archives had been treated, unsatisfactorily so, as book materials and integrated into the Hawaiian Collection. A professional University Archivist was appointed and the newly-invigorated unit grew rapidly to include Hawaii Congressional papers. The first of these collections was the Sen. Spark M. Matsunaga papers, followed by gifts of the Sen. Hiram Fong and Rep. Thomas P. Gill. Other significant archival collections added were the Plantation Archives formerly held by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association (housed with the library´s Hawaiian collection) and the Japanese American Veterans Collection.
A related archival collection, the Jean Charlot Collection, came to the library in 1982 as a bequest, then valued at over a million dollars. This collection is a major archive of documents and art work relating to the artist and writer Jean Charlot and to those with whom he came in contact over the course of his career in France, Mexico, and Hawai´i. The collection´s strong emphasis on 20th century Mexican art history has diversified the research strengths of the library and attracted international scholarly attention.
A major 2005 exhibition, "Making Connections: Treasures from the University of Hawai´i Library" organized by University of Hawai´i Art Gallery Director Tom Klobe, was a showcase for some 350 items. As Klobe put it, spectacular as were the rare books, the historical documents and photographs, the letters written by Hawai´i´s monarchs, the poignant messages from AJA servicemen during World War II, the journals, the prints, the drawings, the maps, the posters, and the fine examples of book design, these items could only hint at the wealth of resources accumulated by the library during its 100 years of collecting.
In Hawai´i´s tropical climate, mold and a thriving array of insects seriously threaten library collections. When environmental safety concerns led to the closing of an in-house fumigation chamber, the library´s preservation department converted a large ocean-transport container into a freezer, and thousands of volumes have received the deep-freeze treatment. A pest control team stays on the alert to combat outbreaks of mold and infestation.
The Hawaiian Islands are among the world´s most isolated population centers. Islanders remember a time when mainland television programs were broadcast weeks after the initial airing; the library´s book deliveries were similarly slow. One of the goals of John Haak (1983-2000), successor to Don Bosseau as university librarian, was an improved book delivery schedule. When Haak began his tenure, the average elapsed time between the ordering of a book and its appearance on the shelves was one year. The use of airfreight together with automated cataloging meant that patrons could often expect to find a title on the shelves by the time the first reviews appeared.
As a state-supported institution, the university library is highly vulnerable to fluctuations in the state´s economy. Beginning in 1995, one of the worst downturns occurred as the sugar and pineapple industries collapsed and a Japanese-Hawai´i investment bubble burst. University Librarian John Haak led the staff through the resulting financial crisis, the worst in the library´s history. To protest cuts in library hours and reduced book budgets, students marched to the legislature and staged a sleep-in at the library. The library turned to technological advances for alternate avenues to access other than ownership. An improved interlibrary loan service helped, as did a subsidized electronic journal article delivery service. So successful, in fact, was the electronic document delivery program that library staff members were on occasion forced to explain and justify why a library still needed printed sources in addition to those in electronic form. In the end it was the good will of the library public as well as renewed support by university officials that brought about a gradual recovery from the budget crisis. Construction of a long-delayed third wing of Hamilton library and a renovation program began in 1998, shortly before Haak retired.
Hawai´i´s governmental climate, with its intricate layers of politicized bureaucracy and strong unions, calls for adroit strategies on the part of library managers. During state legislative sessions, the university librarian maintains an active presence at the state capitol, lobbying for funds and new programs. A welcome trend of the late 1990s was the granting of autonomy to the university library. In theory, this meant freedom to manage internal budgetary and administrative affairs without undue external interference.
Following John Haak´s 2000 retirement, Jean Ehrhorn served as Interim Dean until Diane Perushek´s appointment as dean in late 2001. On the evening of October 30, 2004, the library faced a disaster. A swollen, muddy Manoa Stream burst through the ground floor of Hamilton Library. Several library school students escaped the rising waters though a window. Morning light revealed the extent of the devastation. Hardest hit were the government documents and maps collections. The building of the government documents collection dated back to 1907; of the some two million items, about 95% were damaged or lost. Similarly, 65% of the maps and aerial photographs were destroyed. Tens of thousands of mud-covered maps had to be painstakingly cleaned by hand over a period of years. The ground floor also housed collection services; an estimated 36,000 items awaiting processing were lost. Furniture and computers were destroyed. The library's electrical system was destroyed, necessitating emergency generator power for many months. Total monetary damage estimates continue to rise and may reach 48 million dollars. The library's state-of-the-art preservation unit moved quickly to transfer selected items to rented Matson freezer containers until they could be cleaned and restored. Two Texas corporations, the Belfor document recovery company and the BMS CAT company were contracted. BMS CAT personnel were on-site for many months to dehumidify, clean, and strip bare the ground floor. Reconstruction of the ground floor may be complete in 2009.
More than one librarian remarked that the remainder of a career would have to be devoted to flood recovery work.
A century has gone by since the library´s founding. Caroline Green´s encyclopedia set has expanded to a collection nearing the three and a half million volume count. A staff of one now numbers around 160. The library has met the challenge of the electronic knowledge revolution and survived a major natural disaster. It continues as a unit central to the educational mission of the university.