AMNH Library Awarded Mellon Grant [Specimen Data Included]

[Tom Moritz]

THE LIBRARY OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
IS AWARDED A $2 MILLION ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION GRANT
FOR DIGITIZING UNIQUE HOLDINGS WITHIN THE LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Goal is to Provide Database for Access on the World Wide Web
18-Month Pilot Study to be Followed by Expanded Five-Year Plan

        The American Museum of Natural History announced today that the
Museum’s
Library has been awarded a $2 million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to
digitize materials from the Museum’s 440,000-volume collection, one of the
largest natural-history libraries in the Western Hemisphere.  Among the
treasures housed in the Museum Library are rare and unique books and
manuscripts spanning 500 years of scientific and expedition literature.  In
addition, the Mellon digitization project also will include scientific material
from the Museum’s total collections of some 32 million Museum specimens and
cultural artifacts for access on the World Wide Web.  When fully developed, the
Museum’s new digital library will yield for the first time an integrated
database of Museum Library resources and natural history collections enabling
scientists, scholars, and the public to study unique and rare research
materials at one web site.

“The Museum’s digitization project is another exciting example of cutting edge
technology providing immediate access to the Museum’s unique assets to an
expanding global audience,” said Museum President Ellen V. Futter.  “The
collections of the Museum Library, like our collections of specimens and
cultural artifacts, represent the results of more than 130 years of Museum
expeditions to the farthest reaches of the globe.  Now, access to these
resources extends as far as those earlier expeditions."

The focus of the initial 18-month pilot program that begins in July, will be
the Lang-Chapin Expedition (1909-1915) to what was then the Belgian Congo, to
make the first comprehensive biological survey of the area.  A five-year
program to expand this initial prototype will follow the pilot study.  The goal
of the project is to provide the opportunity to study a range of published and
primary source material all by visiting a single web site.  This will extend to
scientists and scholars working at remote locations, often without access to
libraries, important materials that would otherwise be available only at the
Museum.

“Digitization of our collections will be a powerful resource for our scientists
and the general public,” said Mike Novacek, Provost of the Museum.  “The Museum
is committed to using the most sophisticated technology in our efforts to share
our vast stores of valuable scientific and natural history materials.”

“Mammalogist Herbert Lang and ornithologist James P. Chapin gathered an amazing
collection of material from their expedition  one of the most important in the
Museum’s history,” said Director of the Library, Tom Moritz.  “We picked this
project to digitize first, because it is one of the pre-eminent expedition
collections in the world: an immense archive of thousands of specimens and
artifacts, photographs and slides, drawings and maps, watercolor sketches,
handwritten field notes and correspondence, and even wax recordings.  As part
of the project we also hope to eventually develop CD ROM’s and to provide texts
in other languages.”

The Museum Library will focus on three important groups of digital library
users: scientists, and students at universities and other research institutions
both in the U.S. and abroad; scientists in developing countries who lack access
to adequate libraries and have limited resources, and finally, a broader
audience of educators, students, and members of the public.


Press Contact:          Steve Reichl, Senior Publicist
                                212-496-3411 / Fax 212-769-5006
        e-mail: sreichl at amnh.org

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Tom Moritz                                             212-769-5417
Director of the Library                             212-769-5009 - FAX
American Museum of Natural History           tmoritz at amnh.org
79th St. @ Central Park West               http://nimidi.amnh.org/library.html
New York, New York  10024                    (Time:  GMT -5)
USA