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Joseph F. Smith Library
University Archives

Collections

This page provides access to a Collection Listing of our physical collections, available for onsite research in the University Archives, as well as selected digitized collections that may be accessed online. Our staff actively engages in ongoing processing and digitization efforts, and additional digital collections will continue to be added as they become available.

Online Collections
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Church College of Hawaii/Brigham Young University–Hawaii Campus Photographs

A collection of images from the Church College of Hawaii and Brigham Young University–Hawaii. Includes images of campus construction, labor missionaries, faculty, staff, students, and buildings.
University Archives

Clinton Kanahele Collection

July 14, 2021 02:58 PM
A collection of interviews conducted by Clinton Kanahele in the spring and summer of 1970. Interviews are in Hawaiian with transcripts to the interviews in Hawaiian and English.

Douglas and Beverly De Sure Scrimshaw Collection

American commercial whaling began in the waters New England, and flourished from the late 1700’s through the mid-1800’s. The successful profits of whaling, and declining whale populations in the Atlantic, drove whaling ships around the tip of South America into Pacific waters, with whalers arriving in Hawaii in 1819. For Hawaiian ports, especially Honolulu and Lahaina, whaling fleets were the crux of the economy for over 20 years.

Collection consists of 60 scrimshaw (intricately etched whale teeth, bone, and baleen), carved whale bone and wooden tools, and other artifacts produced during the whaling era and since its decline. A donation to the BYU–Hawaii JFS Library Archives by Douglas and Beverly De Sure of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Edward K. Bryant Collection

Photographs from the collection of Edward K. Bryant, a faculty member at Church College of Hawaii who served in the Pacific during World War II in the Naval Construction Battalion (Seabees), from 1942 to 1945. The collection contains images from Samoa, Vanuatu, and Aotearoa/New Zealand during that period.

Ke Alakaʻi Student Newspaper Collection

In 1955, the Church College of Hawaii campus news center began publication of the campus newspaper, The Ke Alakaʻi. A student-run news publication, The Ke Alakaʻi covers stories from campus events to local community features to reactions to international news from our diverse student body.

The Ke Alakaʻi Student Newspaper Collection provides searchable digital versions of the campus newspaper, from 1955 to 2008. Issues of the Ke Alakaʻi from 2008 to the present can be accessed via ISSUU (https://issuu.com/kealakai)

Kenneth Baldridge Oral History Collection

A collection of digitized transcripts of oral histories compiled through the Oral History program at Brigham Young University–Hawaii under the direction of Kenneth Baldridge and William Kauaiwiulaokalani Wallace III.

Laie Plantation and Community Photo Collection

The Laie plantation served as the focal point for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints missionary activity in Hawaii from 1865 until the late 1920s. It remains an important part of the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the islands. This collection includes images of chapels, landmarks, the Laie Hawaii Temple, community members, and community events from approximately 1879 to 1965.

Mormon Missionary Diaries Collection

Digital collection of journals and diaries from Mormon missionaries in Asia, Europe, North America, and the Pacific.

Na Hoa Pono (The Righteous Companion): BYU–Hawaii Yearbooks

Na Hoa Pono is the campus annual published by both Church College of Hawaii and later Brigham Young University–Hawaii. It was released intermittently until it was discontinued from publication in 2000. Na Hoa Pono was published from 1956 to 1971, returned in 1976 and 1978, from 1983 to 1986, and was published again from 1998 to 2000.
University Archives

Records of the Institute of Polynesian Studies - Polynesian Arts and Crafts Filmstrip Series

July 15, 2021 10:45 AM
Collection of 20 filmstrips demonstrating games, skills, and storytelling from throughout the Pacific Islands.

Pacific Studies

Full-text access to Pacific Studies, published by the Pacific Institute at Brigham Young University–Hawaii. Includes issues from September 1977 to June 2002.

Polynesian Cultural Center Photo Collection

The Polynesian Cultural Center opened its doors to guests in 1963. This collection of images documents the construction and early years of the center, including villages, managers, employees, visitors, and important events from 1961 through 1979.

Ralph E. Woolley Pioneer Wagon Train Collection

A collection of wood and cloth figurines composing scenes from a pioneer wagon train common in the mid-1800 American West. Collection donated to the Church College of Hawaii (now BYU–Hawaii) in 1958 by the family of former Laie Hawaii Temple President Ralph E. Woolley. The Church College of Hawaii library was named in his honor: the Ralph E. Woolley Library. When collection was first acquired, the complete 43-piece collection was displayed in a large glass case positioned in the main foyer of the library until 1989, when collection pieces were restored and rehoused in the University Archives.

The Hawaii Sugar Planters Association/Records of Filipino Plantation Workers in Hawaii, 1906 - 1949

The Hawaii Sugar Planter's Association Collection contains over 100,000 individual records of Filipino laborers who came to Hawaii to work on sugar and pineapple plantations between 1906 and 1949. Digitizing this collection is an ongoing project, with over 20,000 records having been added to date.
    • Use the Joseph F. Smith Library online catalog to find books and periodicals held in the University Archives. Click on “BYU–Hawaii Catalog Only” on the left after searching if you want to limit to printed materials.
    • City Directories – Search for “Polk City Directory” in the online catalog to find copies of this important research tool. The Pacific Islands Research Room has copies from 1935 to 2000.
    • The catalog also has more than 1,500 e-books on Hawaii, for example. E-books can only be accessed by current students and employees of BYU–Hawaii.

  • Millions of dissertations and theses from around the world can be searched for and read online at ProQuest’s Dissertations and Theses Global. Full-text coverage runs from 1743 to present. This resource can only be accessed by students and staff of BYU–Hawaii.

    • The University Archives has some publications on genealogy, most of which are housed in the Pacific Islands Research Room. These items can be found using the Joseph F. Smith Library online catalog.
    • The University Archives themselves have very little genealogical information. We recommend you contact the Laie Hawaii Family History Center.

  • Issues of the school newspaper Ke Alakaʻi between 1955 and 2008 have been digitized and are available here: Ke Alaka'i Magazines

    • Our collections include more than 100 diaries and journals kept by early missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific between 1825 and 1963. Many of the items are photocopies or typescripts of the originals. We hope to provide a complete listing of missionary diaries here soon.
    • You can use the Joseph F. Smith Library online catalog to search for a particular missionary, although not all of our holdings are in the catalog.
    • Diaries from more than 200 early missionaries serving around the world can be viewed in the Missionary Diaries database at BYU.
    • Another excellent resource is the 1830-1930 Missionary Database, managed by the Church History Department of the Church.
    • Clinton Kanahele conducted 20 interviews with kupuna in Hawaiian in 1970. The audio files and transcripts (in Hawaiian and English) are located Clinton Kanehele Collection page.
    • Ken Baldridge and William Kauaiwiulaokalani Wallace III and their successors conducted over 400 interviews with people from Hawaii and the Pacific region between 1971 and 2004. Transcripts from those interviews are available at KENNETH BALDRIDGE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION.
    • The records of Filipino plantation workers between 1906 and 1949 have been digitized and can be accessed at the Filipino Laborers Collection. This information has also been uploaded to FamilySearch.org
    • It is our understanding that the Chinese and Japanese plantation worker records are housed at the Bishop Museum Library.
    • Nearly 4,000 videos and films are housed in our University Archives, in a wide variety of formats. All of the 8 mm and 16 mm films to which the university owns the copyright and more than 500 videos in VHS format have been digitized. We are developing a system to enable this video content to be viewed from within the Joseph F. Smith Library.
    • A majority of the videos in our collection are in formats for which we have no equipment to play them. You can request that a particular video be digitized, although we might ask that you contribute to the costs of having third-party vendors convert that content.
    • Videos can be best searched for using our in-house finding aid.

  • All issues of Na Hoa Pono have been digitized and can be viewed on archive.org. It was published 1956-1971, 1976-1978, and 1983-1986.

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Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy

The information available on this site—including text, data, artwork, video, audio, images, and graphics (collectively, the “Materials”)—may be protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws.

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We encourage the use of these Materials for non-profit and educational purposes, including personal research, teaching, and private study. For these limited purposes, Materials from this website may be viewed, downloaded, displayed, and printed, provided that all copies include the following attribution:

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Courtesy, BYU–Hawaii University Archives, Joseph F. Smith Library, BYU–Hawaii, Laie, HI 96762.

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Except as stated above, or as otherwise permitted under fair use (Title 17, § 107, U.S. Code), Materials from this website may not be reproduced, republished, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any physical or digital form without prior permission from the copyright holder.