Archivist Jason Ford of Kauaʻi Community College's Kikuchi Center last month was voted president-elect of the nonprofit Association of Hawai‘i Archivists.
He will assume the role next year.
Ford already has big plans. His first initiative is working with the six-member AHA Board of Directors to address the firing of U.S. Archivist Colleen Shogan.
He said in a statement that the mission of the association is to advocate for archives that preserve the historical record in a way that is supposed to be unbiased and political.
Ford is also working to create a statewide consortium of repositories aiming to return Native Hawaiian cultural artifacts to their original islands.
“Native Hawaiians have specifically expressed that it is their preference that Native Hawaiian cultural items be returned to the original island location,” he said in a news release. “By having a consortium of repositories working collectively, we may be able to achieve that.”
Ford has a background in ethnography and Hawaiian translation. He’s been Kauaʻi Community College’s Kikuchi Center archivist for more than two years.
He has a degree in Hawaiian language and a graduate degree from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library and Information Science program.
