Creating an Image Database for Access to the Philippines Ethnology Collection

FAIN: PW-50297-09

American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY 10024-5193)
Paul F. Beelitz (Project Director: August 2008 to May 2011)

The digital imaging of 11,322 ethnographic artifacts and associated data documenting the cultural history of the Philippines. Digital images and catalog information would be available in an online database.

The Anthropology Division at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) requests $160,443 from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a one-year project that will dramatically improve access to its important Philippines ethnology collection, which is exceptional for its size, comprehensiveness, and level of documentation. Digital images of the 11,322 objects in the collection, and the associated data, will be made accessible via the Internet to the general public, descendant communities, educators, and researchers, who will be able to view and study the entire collection on the Anthropology Division's Web site (http://anthro.amnh.org). The AMNH Philippines collection was systematically assembled between 1900 and 1960 by anthropologists who had a great understanding of the cultures they were investigating. The 11,322 objects in the collection represent the immense range and diversity of Philippine peoples from Luzon Island in the north to Mindanao Island in the south.