Communities assembling for singsing celebrations, ethnographic interviews conversing on grammar and vocabularies, elders discussing daily affairs - these are just a few snippets of at-risk sound recordings held at the Archives comprised primarily of the personal papers of anthropologists, documenting research on the cultures of Melanesia. The recordings will be digitized over the coming year due to a recent grant received. The nearly 800 reel-to-reel and cassette tape field recordings from seven collections include rare interviews, songs, performances, linguistic material, and oral histories collected in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands from the mid-to-late 20th century.

This presentation provides an overview of the project, including the details of the language and the type of recordings in each collection. It also engages in a discussion on partnerships and models for sharing the recordings once digitized and explores ways to build and strengthen collaborations made possible in the digital era.

The Papua New Guinea patrol reports are important primary sources for the pre-independence history of the country and continue to be useful in contemporary PNG.  In the 1980s, the University of California, San Diego Library (UCSD) initiated and supported a project to provide better access to the reports housed in the National Archives of Papua New Guinea, resulting in production by the Archives of a large set of microfiche, with copies that were eventually purchased by institutions in Australia, New Zealand and the US.  Over the last several years, UCSD’s Digital Library Development Program has been engaged in a project to digitize the reports and make them accessible online, working from the microfiche.  This presentation will provide an overview of the materials, the intricacies of their organizational structure, research interest and use of the collection, and the processes used to bring the project to fruition.

Presented at the Pacific Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (PARBICA), Pearl Harbour, Fiji, September 5, 2017

This talk given at the National Museum and Art Gallery of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby covers some general best practices in the digitization process, as well as the management of born-digital materials. It provides an overview of digital projects at the Tuzin Archive for Melanesian Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego and a brief demonstration of the UC San Diego Library’s Digital Collections website (library.ucsd.edu/dc), where many digitized materials from the Tuzin Archive are accessible. Specifically, it uses the digitization of the Papua New Guinea Patrol Reports as a case study.

Founded in 1982 as the Melanesian Archive and renamed in 2012, the Tuzin Archive for Melanesian Anthropology has evolved into a major repository for research materials created by anthropologists and other scholars working in Melanesia.

Driven by internal and external institutional changes surrounding diversity, new strategic approaches are needed in order to position libraries as diverse and inclusive organizations. As diversity in higher education and libraryland is trending, many libraries have formed diversity committees. What is the purpose of these committees? What is their impact? Have we seen any progress? Or do we look around and say ‘same as it ever was’?  This poster focuses on  a case study at the UC San Diego Library. We took a deep dive into the Librarians Association of the University of California, San Diego (LAUC-SD) Archives to learn more about our past. As our Library Diversity & Inclusion Committee has evolved, we examine what we have accomplished, how we have changed, and what we hope for the future.

Poster presented at the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color, Albuquerque, NM September 26-30, 2018