$3.22M Mellon grant boosts Native Hawaiian knowledge at UH Mānoa Library

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library is advancing its goal of becoming a Native Hawaiian Place of Learning with the help of a $3.22 million grant from the Mellon Foundation.

This funding will support the development of a Hawaiian Knowledge Organization System and a Hawaiian language newspaper index, aimed at integrating Native Hawaiian knowledge into the library’s collections.

UH Mānoa is among the first institutions in the country to incorporate Indigenous knowledge practices into its academic resources, creating new opportunities to preserve and share Hawaiian cultural knowledge within the academic community.

“It is my expectation that this work will be transformative not only for the UH Mānoa Library and the UH System libraries, but also for the Native Hawaiian community, who will see their traditional knowledge system reflected in how we describe and categorize library collections,” said University Librarian Clem Guthro.

The initiative, known as “Kahoʻiwai: Reclaiming Hawaiian Knowledge Sovereignty,” builds upon several successful pilot projects led by Native Hawaiian librarians Shavonn Matsuda (UH Maui College), Kapena Shim (UH Mānoa), Annemarie Paikai (UH Hilo) and Keahiahi Long (Library and Information Science Program, UH Mānoa).

Over the next three years, the project, based at UH Mānoa Library, will develop a Hawaiian-language-controlled vocabulary system for organizing and describing library materials.

Creating Hawaiian language catalog system

A key part of the project is the co-creation of a Hawaiian language newspaper index, or “Nūpepa Index,” designed to improve access to community-indexed information found in Hawaiian-language newspapers.

The new Hawaiian Knowledge Organization System (HKOS) will also be applied to catalog the John Charlot Papers, an important archive of works by an influential scholar of Hawaiian religion and culture.

The project will also fund three new librarian faculty positions to support the development of the HKOS, further strengthening the university’s commitment to Native Hawaiian knowledge sovereignty.

“By incorporating traditional Hawaiian knowledge systems, we are not just cataloging materials—we are reclaiming and honoring our cultural heritage in a meaningful way,” said Shavonn Matsuda, head librarian at UH Maui College and program director.