Kapiʻolani CC Library Spotlight

We have a new display in the lobby of Lama Library starting this Spring 2025! It explores illustrations by artist and Kapiʻolani CC graduate, Mari Sakamoto, that showcase the Native Hawaiian plants and trees that each building on campus is named after. 

In the early 1980s, instead of choosing names based on function or people, Kapiʻolani Community College decided to name buildings after native plants with a particular use or significance in Hawaiian culture. All of the plants and trees chosen are either endemic (native only to Hawaiʻi) or indigenous (native in Hawaiʻi and elsewhere). This was done for several reasons: 

• to complement & not compete with the natural beauty of the campus & its Hawaiian identity; 
• to educate faculty, students & visitors about Hawaiian flora; & 
• to protect the remaining Hawaiian forest plants through this education. 

In addition, the names were generally chosen to reflect in some way the function of the building they represent, & many of the plants are found throughout campus! 

Learn more about these crucial Hawaiian plants and explore the beautiful illustrations by visiting the Lama Library lobby! 

Next time you are on campus check out the SHARE SEEDS station near the reference desk. SHARE SEEDS is a project started by Gaye Chan that encourages people to share and save non-GMO seeds. These seeds are free for everyone to use, and every year they will produce more seeds that others can grow and harvest. You can take some seeds and bring seeds back to re-share with others if you wish. We currently have: basil, beans. chile, daikon, dill, green onions, kale, luffa (Chinese okra), papaya, radish, saluyot, soursop, spinach, and tomato. For more info check out Eating in Public.

What is JSTOR?

JSTOR is a digital library that provides access to over 2,000 journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. There are also many images you can use in your research within. Kapiʻolani CC Library has access to the following collections: 

• Arts & Sciences I - XV
• Life Sciences

You can browse titles by subject or browse by title.

Check out special collections: 

• Sustainability
• Security Studies

If you're interested in analyzing text you can try the Text Analyzer tool which has cool features that lets you drag and drop a document (or paste article text into the search field) in order to search for related articles on JSTOR. 

You can also check out JSTOR Labs' Projects page, which features projects such as: the Plant Humanities Lab, where you can "explore the cultural histories of plants and their influence on human societies."

Check out the JSTOR Understanding Series which helps link original works to scholarship by selecting text and passages from works by writers such as Shakespeare, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Mary Shelley, the U.S. Constitution, speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr., and more; and connecting them to articles which have referenced these works.  

The Library is pleased to announce that the University of Hawaiʻi's 10-campus system now has access to JSTOR, thanks to the efforts of UH Mānoa's University Librarian, Clem Guthro.