2023 HLA Spring Meeting
Saturday, May 27, 2023 from 8:45am-1pm
Platform: Zoom Cost: FREE. [If your membership isn't current, please consider Joining/Renewing Now.] Schedule:
Information about our program, speakers, panelists, and facilitators can be found lower on this page. Questions for the speakers and panelists can be proposed here. Please note, due to time constraints not all questions may be addressed. |
This Year's Theme
Libraries, archives, and museums have always stood for the preservation of information and today they are the keys to much of humanity’s knowledge. Depending on political winds or neglect, societies have either nurtured or made inaccessible this knowledge, including destroying knowledge to suppress culture, history, and democracy. How do libraries persevere? This brings to mind the ʻaʻaliʻi, a humble plant that was praised by the Hawaiians for its tenacity and strength. Often one of the first plants to emerge from a lava flow, it endures dry and windy conditions to grow tall and welcome other plants and living beings under its protection. In fact, forest conservationists plant ʻaʻaliʻi to regenerate forests (The Steadfast ʻAʻaliʻi). The seeds of knowledge can be planted in the worst soil and still thrive. In the ʻŌlelo Noʻeau, it is said “He ʻaʻaliʻi ku makani mai au; ʻaʻohe makani nana e kulaʻi. I am a wind-resting ʻaʻali‘i; no gale can push me over” (Pukui, 1983, #507).
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