The new and improved ulukau.org.

By Lisa Asato / Ka Wai Ola Loa

A good thing just got better with the recent launch of a newly beefed up ulukau.org, a bilingual online archive of Hawaiian materials most popular for its Hawaiian dictionaries.

Adding to its familiar collection of offerings like the Hawaiian Nūpepa Collection and Baibala Hemolele, the 5-year-old resource now features a universal search capability and has added materials on Hawaiian mele, including the music newsletter "Ha'ilono Mele", and 27 curricula for teachers on subjects such as biology, substance abuse, Hawaiians, nutrition, wetlands, voyages and travels, and physical sciences.

"The great thing about Ulukau is that there are constant additions, so as of 6 o'clock this evening there are 183 books online and 11 special features," said Kalehua Mueller of Alu Like Inc.'s Ka Waihona Puke 'Ōiwi Native Hawaiian Library, which partners on Ulukau with Hale Kuamo'o, the Hawaiian language center of the University of Hawai'i at Hilo's Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikōlani.

Mueller was speaking at a Sept. 29 launch party in the OHA boardroom, which was attended by about 40 people, including Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikōlani Director Kalena Silva, assistant professor Keola Donaghy and Alu Like's interim Director Keikilani Meyer.

Peter Hanohano of OHA's Education Hale with, from left, Sara Banks and Norma Jean Stodden of the UH Mānoa Center on Disabilities Studies, showing their curriculum "Kūkulu Nā Uapo", which is one of the new features on ulukau.org. Hanohano recently showed portions of the DVD at two universities in Australia and said the response was phenomenal. Photo: Lisa Asato

OHA's Education Hale provided a $150,000 grant to Alu Like in 2007 to digitize 22 web-ready curricula. The five other curricula are funded by other sources.

"Ulukau is an exceptional repository of Hawaiian knowledge and resource for scholars, teachers and the general populace," said Hau'oli Akaka, OHA's Education Hale Director. "It is an invaluable resource that provides access to Hawaiian literature and curricular resources to not only our Hawaiian community, but to all indigenous communities around the world."

Curricula were contributed by the Edith Kanaka'ole Foundation, Pacific American Foundation, Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, and the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa's Center on Disability Studies.

The Center on Disability Studies provided a culturally based physical science curriculum for sixth graders, "Kūkulu Nā Uapo: Building Bridges", which includes daily lesson plans, WebQuest online learning and videos, including short videos linking kūpuna and Native Hawaiian scientists to the curriculum. The videos are "designed to spark discussion and also to have our students in Hawai'i see Native Hawaiians scientists doing real science," said videographer Sara Banks. "What I do see is when the students get an opportunity to see their kūpuna, their ancestors who were phenomenal scientists, it really engages them, it honors them and it makes them feel that they can do it too."

Herb Lee of the Pacific American Foundation at the Sept. 29 launch party withh David Lassner, University of Hawai'i information technology vice president and chief information officer, and Keola Donaghy of UH Hilo's Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikōlani. Donaghy earlier thanked Lassner for housing Ulukau's two servers in Keller Hall on the Mānoa campus. "We learned very quickly when Ulukau goes down, we start getting phone calls and emails within about three minutes," Donaghy said, noting that connectivity was problematic in Hilo. "We really needed to make sure people have full access to all of the resources on the site whatever time they wanted to, and I'm very grateful to David and the other folks at the Mānoa campus for helping us with that." Photo: Lisa Asato

Silva, the director of Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikōlani, recalling a conversation he had with Bob Stauffer at Ulukau's conception, told the gathering that the long-term goal for Ulukau was "to include in this library all materials that have ever been published in Hawaiian – archived and contemporary materials as well as books that have been written about Hawai'i, in Hawaiian, English, perhaps Japanese someday, Chinese, French, German, Spanish. That was the ultimate, overarching goal of Ulukau, and I think it still holds today. It's a huge goal. We're very far from reaching it, but step-by-step, month-by-month, year-by-year ... It's a really exciting time."

If you missed the party, KGMB9's " 'Āha'i 'Ōlelo Ola," crew was there with their camera rolling. View their story on kgmb9.com.