To research American Folklife Center collections, a good place to start is the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Each AFC collection has an individual catalog record. The following link provides a custom search in the catalog for Hawai`i materials:

Finding aids provide a gateway to a wealth of Library of Congress treasures. These guides provide comprehensive overviews of unique Library resources. Progressively detailed descriptions of a collection's component parts summarize the overall scope of the content, convey details about the individuals and organizations involved, and list box and folder headings. The link below is a customized search of Library of Congress Finding Aids limited to finding aids in the American Folklife Center collections relating to Hawai`i.

Over a period of forty years, AFC staff compiled meticulous guides to archival collection material by state.   While these are no longer maintained nor readily available on the Center's website, they can be found via the Library's web-archiving program.  These guides provide information at a more granular level than found in the Library's Online Catalog.  Below is an archived guide to Hawaii collections.

This guide provides research strategies for using American Folklife Center collections.