Panel 2: Connecting Archives and Communities through Technology
“Out of the Whale’s Mouth”: Creating Online Access Points to the Douglas S. DeSure Scrimshaw Collection

Presenter: Gailyn Bopp is the Associate Archivist at the Brigham Young University-Hawai`i Archives and Assistant Professor in the BYU-Hawai`i Faculty of Culture, Language & Performing Arts.  She has formally served on various boards and committees of the Association of Hawai`i Archivists, the Hawai`i Library Association, the Society of American Archivists Graduate Archival Education Committee, and Na Hawai`i Imi Loa.  Gailyn graduated with her MLISc degree from the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa in 2016 with an emphasis in Archives, and is a member of Beta Phi Mu.

Presentation Description: A significant but largely unknown collection of more than 1,500 Hawaiian, Polynesian, and Pacific Rim artifacts is housed in the Joseph F. Smith Library Archives and Special Collections at Brigham Young University-Hawaii.  This session will describe recent efforts to completely digitize, describe, and increase discovery of the Douglas S. DeSure scrimshaw collection, a collection made up of various pieces of scrollwork, engravings, and carvings done in whalebone and whale tooth ivory.  Highlighting our use of MUKURTU over the past year, BYU-Hawaii will provide a practical (and implementable!) workflow for creating online access points for other artifact and records collections using this open-source content management system, including suggestions for photographing artifacts on a budget, digital file management, team roles, and batch-uploading of descriptive metadata.