Care of the Collections— Anthropology 



Removal of the Melanesian, Polynesian, Micronesian, Formosan, 

 Australian, and Madagascan collections from dead storage and 

 their placement in the Pacific Research Laboratory was completed 

 under the supervision of Chief Curator Martin and Mr. Hester. 

 Hester was seconded by Allen S. Liss, Assistant in Anthropology, 

 and a group that included John Hobgood, assistant, Irving Wortis 

 and William J. Hiebert, Antioch College students, and Ira L. Fogel, 

 Robert Fizzell, and Paul D. Molnar, volunteers. The holdings of 

 the Pacific Research Laboratory were increased by a large number 

 of Oceanic area specimens that were removed from exhibition. 



A project to make more available reference and study collections 

 of all North American archaeological materials was started early in 

 the year. A large reference collection of North American Indian 

 basketry was moved in with various tribal ethnological collections 

 and, under the direction of Curator Quimby, archaeological materials 

 from eastern North America were moved to the third floor from the 

 basement storeroom by Phillip H. Lewis and John Hobgood, as- 

 sistants, and by Museum Fellow James A. Brown, who checked speci- 

 mens and reorganized the collections by state and county locations. 



The collection of ancient Mesopotamian artifacts brought back 

 from Kish by the Field Museum-Oxford University Expeditions 

 (1922-32) has been reduced to order by Nicholas B. Millet, graduate 

 student in Egyptology at the University of Chicago, aided by Miss 

 Grace Alpher of Antioch College, Miss Carol Smith, volunteer, and 

 Hobgood. The registration had been left incomplete and the material 

 had been divided between three storerooms shortly after its arrival 

 in Chicago. Six months of steady work resulted in the consolidation 

 of the collection, the completion of the catalogue cards, and the 

 final registration of all objects. About 2,000 problem-cards were 

 studied and paired off with their objects, and the completed series 

 of cards (in all about 8,000) was arranged in numerical order to 

 serve as a handy catalogue. The objects themselves were sorted by 

 material and type and arranged within these types in numerical 

 order on the shelves so that the storeroom itself serves as a subject- 

 file. It is thus possible for a specimen to be found either by type 

 or by number. 



Curator Starr's attention has been largely devoted to organiza- 

 tion of the East Asian Library (see page 22) with Dr. Hoshien 

 Tchen of the Museum Library staff. Curator Starr devoted some 

 time to reorganizating and recataloguing our small collection of 

 anthropological material from Burma. 



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