Name: Introducing Hawaiʻi Digital Collections Summit
Start: 2026-11-13T14:00:00-1000
End: 2026-11-13T14:25:00-1000

Introducing Hawaiʻi Digital Collections Summit

Friday November 13, 2026 2:00pm - 2:25pm HST

Grand Naniloa Hotel Hilo

Creating, describing, and publishing our digital collections is a task that many cultural heritage institutions face, in Hawaiʻi and everywhere else. While some have established work processes and workflows, others are still developing. Often, these digital cultural heritage resources are trapped within institutional silos, making it difficult for researchers and the public to find, search, and utilize digitized resources. In this presentation, we will introduce the first Hawaiʻi Digital Collection Summit, to be held on Oʻahu (end of 2026, beginning of 2027), bringing together professionals from diverse cultural heritage institutions such as libraries, archives, and museums. The goal of this event is to strengthen the network among these professionals to explore ways to bridge gaps between diverse types of institutions and in how their digital resources are presented online.

The Hawaiʻi Digital Collections Summit will showcase digital library/archives projects and present opportunities to create networks allowing institutions to collaborate knowledge/processes sharing and, ultimately, unify search capabilities. We will share cases of hub and aggregator functions that exist in other states and regions, and present their governance models.

The summit is organized as part of the ongoing community engagement grant funded by the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), intended to investigate the conditions under which Hawaiʻi heritage institutions could consider contributing their metadata to this national aggregator. In collaboration with a related project investigating similar perspectives limited to aggregating finding aids, we created an overall project titled: Pūpūkahi i Holomua: Collaborating Across the Pae ʻĀina to Link Digital Collections and Finding Aids, through which we held a series of town halls across the state to bring together cultural heritage professionals and community researchers in a facilitated conversation on these topics.

The grant will support 10 professionals from neighboring islands to attend the summit, which will be held on Oʻahu.

This presentation serves as a formal invitation for HLA members to join this event to learn more about the potential to build a unified infrastructure for sharing Hawaiʻi’s digital historical and cultural resources.

Speakers

Helen Wong Smith

Archivist for University Records, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Archivist for University Records at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Certified Archivist Helen Wong Smith has over 35 years experience in historical repositories in Hawaiʻi. A B.A. in Hawaiian Studies and MLIS from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, she has held numerous positions... Read More →

Friday November 13, 2026 2:00pm - 2:25pm HST
Grand Naniloa Hotel Hilo 93 Banyan Dr, Hilo, HI 96720

Focus Session

2026 HLA Conference

Helen Wong Smith

Attendees (2)

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2026 HLA Conference

Helen Wong Smith

Attendees (2)

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