Native language goes online (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

fyi,

here is the link to Greenstone, a free digital library software, that
was mentioned in the article below.

http://www.greenstone.org/cgi-bin/library

phil cash cash
UofA, ILAT


> ----- Message from cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU ---------
>     Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 10:08:58 -0700
>     From: phil cash cash <cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU>
> Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology
<ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
>  Subject: Native language goes online (fwd)
>       To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
>
> Posted on: Sunday, April 4, 2004
> http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Apr/04/ln/ln21a.html
>
> Native language goes online
>
> By Vicki Viotti
> Advertiser Staff Writer
>
> The word is out on Ulukau, an online digital library that's placing
> Hawaiian vocabulary, and some literature, a click away from the
> world.
>
> The Bible, two Hawaiian-English dictionaries, a journal of archival
> Hawaiian texts, a collection of Hawaiian-language newspapers and a
> book
> about Kamehameha are posted at Ulukau: The Hawaiian Electronic
> Library
> (ulukau.olelo.hawaii.edu/english.php). Its developers say there's
> more
> to come.
>
> The dictionaries on the newly launched e-library, which in recent
> weeks
> has been getting well more than 10,000 hits a day, are by far its
> most
> popular element, the creators say. The site is posted in mirror-image
> Hawaiian- and English-language versions: You switch back and forth
> from
> a link at the top of every page.
>
> It's the brainchild of two parents: the Native Hawaiian Library, a
> program of Alu Like Inc.; and the Hale Kuamo'o Center for Hawaiian
> Language at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo.
>
> And, continuing the family metaphor, it's a cousin of a similar Maori
> e-library — appropriate, given that Hawaiian and Maori are linguistic
> kin.
>
> A team at the University of Waikato in New Zealand five years ago
> developed the free digital program Greenstone, the software that
> underlies the university's Maori Language Newspaper Project, as well
> as
> Ulukau.
>
> Stefan Boddie, one of the team members in New Zealand, remains on
> call
> as a consultant for Ulukau. He helps the Hawai'i staffers make their
> own enhancements work with the base program, which Boddie said is
> kept
> very simple so that less-developed nations can use it on the kind of
> computer system they have.
>
> "One of the main goals was that it would be free and easy to run on
> old
> computers," Boddie said in a telephone interview, adding that digital
> libraries can be saved on CDs for use in places where the Internet
> isn't available.
>
> But in Hawai'i, where computers are pretty slick and high-speed Net
> access is popular, Greenstone can be upgraded with bells and whistles
> developed to make Ulukau resonate better with the Hawaiian language.
>
> For example, said Keola Donaghy, technology coordinator at the
> UH-Hilo
> language center, an add-on keypad on the page enables users of the
> online dictionary to tap out Hawaiian diacritical marks — the 'okina
> and the kahako — regardless of their own computer gear.
>
> And, he said, the search mechanism will hunt for words that appear as
> stand-alone entries as well as parts of other words — a boon for
> those
> researching compound Hawaiian personal or place names, he said.
>
> "It does an inclusive search," Donaghy said. "Say you were looking
> for
> the word ali'i. It could give you that and any word that contains the
> word ali'i."
>
> Some files are viewable directly through a Web link; others must be
> downloaded as Adobe Acrobat files that can be opened later. There are
> images stored online as well, so that the visitor can view the
> archival
> (sometimes handwritten) document as well as the searchable text.
>
> Donaghy is one of those leading the Web site's team locally, along
> with
> Robert Stauffer of Alu Like, an organization that provides services
> to
> Native Hawaiians. Stauffer heads Alu Like's Legacy project, producing
> Ka Ho'oilina, a journal of archival texts in Hawaiian that is one of
> the publications posted at the e-library.
>
> Because there are Hawaiian and English versions of all library
> sections,
> they have been able to tell that roughly half the hits have been
> people
> who understand Hawaiian but are doing research or just need a little
> nudge.
>
> "Besides giving you the definition, it gives you the spelling, with
> the
> marks," he said. "They may know the word, but they don't remember
> where
> the kahako is."
>
> Ulukau can be used to produce compact discs of the content, but its
> online edition can be kept up to date, Donaghy said.
>
> "The beauty of doing it online is we can continually add to it and
> not
> have to produce new CDs," he said.
>
> Coming in the next few months is a new section that will house
> academic
> papers written by current scholars and new titles, including the
> Hawaiian-language version of "Kamehameha and his Warrior
> Kekuhaupi'o,"
> already on the site in English.
>
> The hope is that the e-library can house treasures of Hawaiian
> literature and new writings in one place, works that otherwise are
> found in collections scattered throughout the Islands, said Kalena
> Silva, director of the Hawaiian language college at UH-Hilo.
>
> The name of the library, Ulukau, derives from "ulu kau," a term in
> the
> dictionary referring to supernatural interpretive powers that can be
> divinely given to a person. The sharing of knowledge through
> cyberspace
> has the same sort of ethereal sense, Silva said.
>
> "It really is otherworldly," he said.
>
> "It's miraculous, when we think about it. People just wouldn't have
> thought this would have been possible, even 10 years ago."
>
> Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti at honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.
>
>
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