Libraries, in contrast, preserve printed, recorded, and video’d materials from any time period. Museums focus on artifacts and objects, most of which are not on display at any given time but are curated into rotating exhibits.
“She was adored in England. She could have had an incredibly posh life, traveling to see friends in kingdoms around the world, staying in the finest hotels,” said Jan- sen. “But that was not the choice she made. She sacri- ficed everything for her people. In her will, she liquidated
her entire estate to found the Queen Liliʻuokalani Trust. “to provide opportu- nities for Hawaiian children” . When we talked, Jansen had not yet selected the works that will be dis- played in the Blaisdell’s Pikake Room during the Keiki Hula Competition. But as he walked me through the bewilder- ing complex of rooms that have been secreted over the years behind the Archive’s discreet exterior, it was clear he had much from which to choose. Displaying one of the Queen’s letters to a courtier, written while she was travel- ing, he told a story that he finds reveal- ing of the Queen’s priorities. The Queen had received a plea from
“You can come in and ask to see anything we have. You do not need special credentials. Our duty is to protect these materials and pro- vide access to them to the general public,” said Jansen. The only limita- tions: you cannot take out materi- als, and the Archive is open only on weekdays. “Format is irrelevant,” Jansen said. The collection includes everything from pen-and-ink notebooks to photographs, from audiotape to Harry B. Soria’s vintage record collection from radio’s “Territorial Airwaves,” from documents typed manually on fragile onion-skin paper to magazine pages preserved
State Archivist Adam Jansen
on microfiche film. And there are digital records pro- duced on every possible form of computer device. (An interesting aside: the Archive actually employs people to transcribe cursive handwriting, which many contempo- rary Americans can no longer decipher, even though the writing is in English.) Jansen, who studied architectural science at the Univer- sity of British Columbia and afterward served as deputy archivist for Washington State, came to Hawai’i in 2013 to consult on a sprawling project to digitize thousands of documents in the collection. He meant to spend three years here while finishing his dissertation. But he fell
students at a boys’ school she patronized, complaining that they weren’t getting enough to eat. Fix this, she or- dered in no uncertain terms. Then, in the next paragraph, in an “Oh, by the way” manner, adds an instruction to take care of something for the King of Tonga. “The children came first,” Jansen said, chuckling a bit, “even before a fellow monarch. That was Lili’u.”
in love with Island history and culture, and stayed to take over as State Archivist in 2016 after the retirement of his mentor, Susan Shaner. He also fell respectfully in love with the woman born “Lydia Paki” in 1838 and crowned Queen Liliʻuokalani in 1891, reigning until the American overthrow of the kingdom in 1893. “She stands out as an exemplar of what a true leader is and does,” said Jansen. He pointed out that she was
a wealthy, educated, beautiful, and sophisticated woman, well-trav- eled, and friends with the world’s elite, including Britain’s Queen Victoria.
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2024 QUEEN LILIʻUOKALANI KEIKI HULA COMPETITION
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