In 1978 the University Museum's Collections Management Program began with a grant from the National Science Foundation. The museum's program includes the systematic renovation of the storage facilities, conservation, and a computerized inventory of the collections. This project continues this important program by upgrading the ethnographic collections in the American section. Special attention will be given to the extensive collections from the Northwest Coast and South America. Funds are provided for storage equipment and interns to assist the project. The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, contains one of the most outstanding anthropological collections in the United States. The collections come from all the inhabited continents of the world. Museum research programs, which began in 1887 with an excavation at Nippur in Mesopotamia, have produced many significant collections of well-documented archaeological and ethnological materials. Particular strengths of the collections lie in the Americas, Egypt, the Near East, the Mediterranean, West Africa and the Pacific. The University Museum, in conjunction with teaching departments in the university, has a long-standing committment to research. The collections are in great demand by researchers from around the world. The upgrading of these collections will lead to greater accessibility of the collections and encourage future research.
