File:Colten YPM Anthropology.jpg

Abstract: The Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University is one of the oldest natural history museums in the U.S. and the museum’s collections reflect over 150 years of evolving collection acquisition and management practices. During the past 25 years the Anthropology Division collections have been transformed from being stored in 18 rooms in four buildings with limited climate control and cardboard and wooden storage equipment to being housed in a state of the art storage facility. The physical upgrade in storage has been paralleled by the transition from analog to digital data management. In this presentation I review the processes that made this transformation possible and discuss ongoing activities to improve access to the collections.