THE UHLE COLLECTIONS @ BERKELEY

The Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley houses an archaeological collection of ancient Peruvian artifacts known as the Uhle Collection. This collection consists of pots, potsherds, shells, beads, awls and textiles. Additionally, the Bancroft Library houses manuscripts, field notes and correspondence written by Max Uhle, the archaeologist that excavated the collection. Many of the items in this collection have been digitally photographed in order to allow researchers to view items in the collection without accessing the physical objects. A database has also been created to organize information about each artifact. This project is to provide a front-end to this database and digital collection. The goal for this project is to serve as a research tool by representing the relationship between artifacts and the metadata of each in a way that is useful and seamless to archaeologists. For instance, location is important to several archaeologists throughout the research process. With this in mind it would be useful to easily access location information at any point in one's search. This location information must consider the range of location from a country to a set of coordinates on an excavation site.

The primary users of this system are archaeologists, researchers, graduate, and undergraduate students in archaeology. These users are assumed to have an advanced knowledge in the field of archaeology. They may also come from several countries and speak different languages, however language features will be deployed in subsequent versions. Each user's goal in using the system is to carry out background research for publication, to prepare for fieldwork or investigate his own interests. Additional users of the system are museum employees and people with an interest in archaeology.

The interface to the collection will be web-based. This will provide easiest access both by making the collection available wherever the user has an Internet connection and by allowing the researchers to use software they are most likely to be familiar with already (a web browser).

Access to the database will be accomplished through two primary methods: searching and browsing. Searching will allow a user with previous knowledge of the collection to find information about a particular item in the database quickly. In contrast, browsing will function as a method for the user to learn about the collection as a whole. The user should be able to gain a better sense of the contents of the collection, and to discover items she has not previously been aware of. In the browse interface, information from the various items in the collection should be centered around the user's area of research. Preliminary research suggests that for archaeologists these areas will most likely be geography, time period, culture, or object type. An interface that enables the researcher to view the information in the database in this way should be most helpful in allowing the researcher to meet her goals.

The process of archaeological research and fieldwork varies based on the research question. Often times it is a circular process of asking a question, gathering information and then reassessing the question. Therefore, this interface will provide the ability for user's to save their search results. This will allow them to connect items in the collection in a way that assists in answering their research questions.

We have identified three primary personas for our system based on interviews of potential users and team members' experience. Interview subjects included two professors-one in Archaeology and one in Architecture-one researcher, and one graduate student (also in Architecture, but with a focus on Archaeology). One of our team members holds an undergraduate degree in Anthropology, and another team member has a former roommate who is currently an Anthropology undergraduate.

From these sources three personas have emerged. One represents an archaeologist with a great deal of experience, interested in a narrow topic but also quite knowledgeable about the entire field of archaeology. The second is a specialist, focused particularly on cartography and technology with less interest in artifacts and other traditional archaeological materials. The third persona is a more general user, who is looking for a broad overview and may not wish to delve deeply into the details of the collection.

These three types cover a fairly broad range of possible users, while still expecting a certain level of professional expertise. They are all interested in the collection for different reasons, and will approach the data in different ways. Yet in our interviews, we found that several common themes cross several types. For example, the focus on precise geography is critical to all three personas-an experienced archaeologist must be able to trace the exact location in which an artifact was found; a cartographer is interested in the layout of the land as well as archaeological remains; and a student just beginning her archaeological career must find out about an area with the intent of possibly following up her preliminary research with actual field work.

With these personas, we intend to address the users to whom the information in our backend database will be most useful. By taking into account both specialists and newcomers, those with technological expertise and those without, we hope to create an interface both transparent and interesting, with simple yet complete access to the data which is important to meet a real-life user's goals.

See Appendix for raw interview data.

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