The National Museum of the American Indian -- the 16th Smithsonian Institution museum -- which opened on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 2004, is the first U.S. national museum dedicated solely to Native Americans. And we think teachers, scholars, librarians and researchers everywhere will be interested in the excellent collection search tool available on the museum's website.
Welcome to NMAI Collections Search, which includes a representative sample of NMAI's object and historic photo collections. Each item is accompanied by basic, standardized information. To become familiar with the site, start with one of the Collection Highlight tours or search the website using this page or the tabs at the top.
Our goal is to include as many items as possible, but objects and photos will be added only when NMAI staff have reviewed the accuracy of accompanying information. Items identified as culturally sensitive or which are no longer part of NMAI's collections will not appear on this website. Please contact NMAI about providing additional information or correcting any errors.
Records for many objects include their original catalog cards, which often date to the early 1900s. These cards may include tribal names and terminology considered unacceptable or offensive today but they have been included to illustrate the information that originally accompanied the objects.
There are different functions available depending upon which search option you're using, but under all of them are check boxes that allow you to restrict your search to any combination of the following: archaeological Items, ethnographic Items, modern and contemporary arts, photographic collections. Or you can just check "All of the above categories" if you want to cast the widest net possible. Search help is just a click away.
We enjoyed browsing the collection highlights area at the bottom right of the page, which included such categories of interest as beadwork and toys and games.
Bibliographers and catalogers will be interested in the thesaurus:
The following reference lists represent NMAI controlled terminologies in their respective hierarchies. Use these reference lists if you are in doubt about what terms are used or how they should be entered for searches. If you cannot quickly locate a term you may use your browser's "Find" ("Ctrl" + "F") option combination to see if a term is listed. When you click on a term in a Reference List, a search is automatically performed across all applicable collections categories.
Even if this is not a subject area of interest to you, the site as a whole is well worth browsing just because it's so...elegantly done.
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