Brooks Haderlie, the archivist at BYU–Hawaii, said the University’s archives have a great responsibility not just to preserve history, but to preserve culture. “We are trying to be very careful because the materials we have are important, and we want to keep them for people to have access to for as long as possible,” he said.
“It’s a fascinating job and it’s so enjoyable to have diversity in what I do every day,” Haderlie said of his position. “I’ve been able to learn so much about the history of the area, and the people are the most important.”
The documents, Haderlie said, have been created over the course of the creation of the Church College of Hawaii, now BYUH. Other materials, he said, comes from the Polynesian Cultural Center and local church members.
Haderlie said the area of focus for the archives section of the library includes books, manuscripts, photos, audio and video recordings, and some 1,500 Polynesian cultural artifacts.
“An archive is different from a library. A library has books that have been published. They go out and they order those books. An archive gathers whatever information is available and people are willing to donate,” Haderlie said.
Anyone is allowed to come and use the archive’s materials, he said. “[BYUH students] come into this room and we help them figure out what they’re looking for. We try to determine if we have materials that might be helpful for their project and, if we do, then we will deliver [the materials] and they’ll use them just in that room,” he said.
“We encourage students to use [the archives] understanding that we might not have what they’re looking for. This is a slow process because to try to find possible boxes, photographs or whatever that might be of interest. It takes time.”
Haderlie stated the archive’s materials should not be checked out because the archives are the only place to have those materials. During the pandemic, he said the University restricted the archives section to only current students and employees.
He said, “The archives was able to stay open during the pandemic because we were considered an essential resource. All of our questions have come through email or on the telephone.”
Before the pandemic, Haderlie said they would bring out boxes and have people look through them to see if the information they needed was there. Now, he said, they have to go through the boxes themselves to find possible information, scan it and email it to the person.
Although the way the archives provides assistance has changed, Haderlie said, “Our work did not stop.” He explained the archives are trying to digitize as much information as possible in order to make it easier to access information, even if someone is off island.
“Eventually we’ll have a listing of each item, so people will have a nice photograph and a description of it in English and in Hawaiian. People can search for those materials in multiple languages,” Haderlie explained.
“My wife and I have traveled to each of the islands now and have gone to the Church sites on each of the islands to just kind of help us understand the background of where people came from, what was important and what are the most important events. That is what we would like patrons to know. We have some amazing information.”
Xyron Levi Corpuz, a sophomore from the Philippines majoring in communications, media and culture, said, “The archives are a great place to visit if you are doing research. It is very useful to students for their school work and also for their job.”
Corpuz added he visited the archives when it held an exhibit of an old copy of the Book of Mormon from the early days of the Church.
He said, “When I found out what they were doing, I was interested and had to see the book in person. It was a pretty cool experience.”
Corpuz added the archives have also helped him in his job. “I am a journalist for the Ke Alaka‘i, and when I work on stories about the history of Laie or BYUH, the archives were a really big help.”
Peyton Seiuli, a senior from Idaho majoring in cultural anthropology who works in the Center for Academic Success, said, “It’s a great place to go if you have questions or want to learn more about Hawaiian history and lots of other things.”