Hearst Museum of Anthropology (UC Berkeley)

The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative will show how existing and emerging standards and protocols can be used or adapted to create an intermediate infrastructure in support of learners with respect to the questions What? Where? When? and Who? A client interface and links with existing specialized resources will be created and evaluated for two purposes: use by teachers seeking additional resources to supplement textbooks, and use for contextualizing digital objects in library and museum collections by identifying the objects in other collections that are most closely related in terms of place and time of origin and human associations. The researchers will create a prototype demonstrating how the digital environment can be enhanced to advance the educational goals of libraries and museums and will make recommendations for the improvement of standards, protocols, and best practices.