In preparation for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, I chose to reflect on the intersections of my past and present work in Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) collections, with historical connections to my home in Hawaiʻi. Part of my primary duties as a Conservation Technician with the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives is to stabilize objects before and after digitization for BHL. When I joined the team in 2018, I was assigned the task of mending the library’s 4 volumes of the 1853 edition of William Ellis’ Polynesian Researches During a Residence of Nearly Eight Years in the Society and Sandwich Islands. The idea was to kick off my new job with a project that would inspire me on a personal level, as an introduction to the value of both the digital and physical preservation responsibilities of our institution.
