Guampedia
Posted 1 September 2010 // Guest blogger Shannon Murphy of Guampedia
The other day we received a note from Shannon Murphy, managing editor of Guampedia, which is the online encyclopedia for Guam. Guam is the largest of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific. It is a territory of the United States, with 162,000 people at the last census. Shannon’s note to us was so interesting that I suggested that she add it as a comment on one of our maps, and also invited her, as a fellow encyclopedist, to tell us a little more about Guampedia. So this is her response.
A community project
Guampedia, Guam’s Online Encyclopedia, is a community project to create a comprehensive online encyclopedic resource about the history, culture and contemporary issues of Guam.
Guampedia Foundation, Inc. is an independent non-profit organisation. The creation of Guampedia was funded through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Guam Preservation Trust, the Bank of Guam, the US Department of the Interior, Gannett Foundation, Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency and other sources. The project was founded by the Guam Humanities Council in 2002. In 2009 a new non-profit organisation, Guampedia Foundation, Inc. was incorporated and Guampedia became independent of the council.
Guampedia is being developed with the co-operation of the University of Guam under the Richard F. Taitano Micronesian Area Research Center and many other community institutions and organisations, including the Department of Chamorro Affairs, the Guam Museum, the Guam Public Library, the Guam Department of Parks and Recreation’s Division of Historic Resources, the Archdiocese of Agana and Micronesian Seminar.
Through peer-reviewed entries and accompanying media, Guampedia provides an important educational and informational resource for Guam teachers and schoolchildren, for Chamorros living away from Guam, for visitors to our island, and for those who want a richer understanding of our island and its people.
Guampedia was launched in April 2008 with the first 350 entries and, two years later, now has 640 entries. More than 100 people have been a part of this project to date, doing research, writing, peer reviewing, fact checking or copy editing the Guampedia entries and media. Another 600 entries are planned and will be added as they are completed. A new section on the history of the dishes on our fiesta tables was just published. A section on the ancient Chamorros is currently being developed and will be published by the first of next year.
Guampedia will always be an ongoing and dynamic project that will be updated and added to regularly as events unfold and technology allows.
Our Staff
Managing editor: Shannon Murphy
Content editor: Tanya M. Champaco Mendiola
Media editor: Nathalie Pereda
All the other work done for Guampedia is done by contracted researchers and writers, photographers, artists, and videographers.
As a side note: when we first started developing Guampedia we looked around the web to get inspired by other online history projects. We found Te Ara and fell in love! Your project is the best, by far, of its kind.
We began planning Guampedia back in 2002. While there are Guam history books, there was no encyclopedia about Guam’s history or the Chamorro culture. Consequently all of our work is original research. We estimate that we are less than half way done at this point, seeing that the Chamorro people and the island of Guam has a 4,000 year history!
