Makah couple landing canoe with fish, Neah Bay. Anders B. Wilse photograph, c. 1900. UW Neg. #1346.
Makah couple landing canoe with fish, Neah Bay. Anders B. Wilse photograph, c. 1900. UW Neg. #1346.
School children in the Northwest and beyond will soon have Web access to primary historical materials about American Indians of the Pacific Northwest. In July, work began on a project funded by a grant of $82,943 from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition, one of only seven awards granted this year. A consortium including the University Libraries, the Eastern Washington State Historical Society, and the Museum of History and Industry is digitizing the information, which will be organized in ten study topics for use in elementary and secondary education.
As the lead agency in the consortium, the University Libraries is providing the text describing Native American cultures in the Pacific Northwest from resources in Special Collections, Manuscripts and University Archives. Selections will include reports of the U.S.Commissioner of Indian Affairs; treaties between Native American tribes and the U.S. government; UW Publications in Anthropology dating from 1920 to 1950; articles from Pacific Northwest Quarterly; and essays commissioned for the project on each study topic, written by educators or historians.
In addition to the text, 2,350 images are being digitized. The University Libraries will supply images of the Northwest Coast cultural groups, while the Eastern Washington Historical Society will be responsible for images of the Plateau Indians' cultural groups. The Museum of History and Industry will supplement these collections with images from its collections. When completed, the digitized collection will be available through the Library of Congress American Memory Web site as well as through the University Libraries Information Gateway, using Content software developed by the Department of Electrical Engineering's Center for Information Systems Optimization.
The project runs from July l, 1998 through June 30, 1999. Staff involved in the project include Richard Engeman, Carla Rickerson and James Stack from Special Collections; Gary Menges, Preservation; and Catherine Gerhart and Susan Burton from Cataloging. Gary Menges is project director and Geri Bunker is technical consultant.
Information about this year's Library of Congress/Ameritech Grant awards is available at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/award/. Additional information about the national project can be found at http://www.loc.gov/ and http://www.ameritech.com/.