American Indian Histories and Cultures

American Indian Histories and Cultures (AIHC) provides access to a wealth of textual and visual materials drawn from the Edward E. Ayer Collection of Chicago's venerable Newberry Library. Arguably the premier collection of American Indian research materials, the Ayer Collection includes millions of items ranging from manuscripts to photographs, art, historic maps, and rare books.

Focusing on Native peoples of North America and Mexico, AIHC's coverage ranges from earliest European contact to 21st-century Indian activism. The database's key thematic areas, which were created with sensitivity to content--particularly relating to religious practices--include American Indians and the European Powers; Indigenous Peoples of Mexico; American Indians and the US Government; Military Encounters; Observation, Representation and Cultural Encounters; Missionaries and Education; Trade and Indian Economies; Civil Rights Movement; and First Nations of Canada. AIHC complements and is cross-searchable with AM’s The American West.

AIHC's intuitive tabbed banner has an embedded search bar with links to popular searches and advanced Boolean searching by keyword, title, author, tribe/nation, and culture area. Boolean searches may be limited by date range and primary/secondary resources. Clicking the Documents tab brings up browsable lists of treasures (200 entries/page), e.g., explorers' journals, scrapbooks, rare books, photographs, art portfolios, newspapers, and more. Loading long results lists can be slow but is well worth the wait. Thumbnails facilitate retrieval, particularly for multi-page digital objects; detailed metadata provide useful contextual information. Document results may be filtered by type (e.g., art, treaty, photograph), culture area, or theme. Clicking a thumbnail opens the associated item; users may zoom, move easily between pages/chapters, and download documents or save them to My Archive for future use. References are exportable into EndNote and RefWorks. Other great features are the interactive chronology, the map gallery, and interactive map. The Visual Resources tab links to online art galleries, organized by genre; online exhibitions; and more. Additional features include background essays, information on culture areas and tribes, brief biographies, external links, FAQs, and teaching resources.

In breadth and depth of primary sources, AIHC surpasses Infobase Publishing's American Indian History Online, ABC-CLlO's The American Indian Experience, and a plethora of open-access sites that focus on either a specific type of primary resource, geographic area or topic. Despite a hefty one-time price, AIHC is an excellent resource for all libraries supporting programs in American history and Native studies.

Summing up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above.

American Indian Histories and Cultures (AIHC) makes available over 1,800 documents and document groups selected from the vast Edward E. Ayer Manuscript Collection of American Indian and First Nations history, held by the Newberry Library of Chicago. AIHC is a companion to the renowned American West collection, based on the Newberry's Everett D. By design, the AIHC is cross-searchable with the American West. Graff Collection of Western Americana. Together, these databases provide a vital resource for primary research on the histories and cultures of North America.

AIHC's search functionality reflects thoughtful preparation. Documentation for individual items or collections is remarkably thorough. Most records include the culture area, tribe/nation, themes, keywords, places and additional notes about the scope or contents. They can be searched in simple or advanced modes, including keyword, Boolean, phrase, proximity and other search strategies. There are also links to archival finding aids in the Newberry Library catalogue.

Extensive art and photographic materials enhance the AIHC. There are three visual galleries for art, one organized by medium, one which features work by famous and lesser-known artists and one featuring themes such as land and environment and native resistance.

An interactive chronology allows users to place specific historic events within broader social contexts. Another strong visual component of AIHC is the Map Gallery, including over 200 maps with extensive metadata. Both maps and documents can generally be displayed in thumbnail or list views. A further map resource of particular note is the Interactive Map, which shows the locations of Indian groups through time, and by general cultural groups.

Because of its size, complexity and the quality of its materials, [the] American Indian Histories and Cultures collection merits serious consideration as a research resource. Its extensive documentation can stand as a model for similar projects. Its enhancements will make the collection even more useful for teaching purposes, whether for geography, historiography, art history or social sciences research. This collection deserves to be widely distributed among academic institutions or larger public libraries that serve patrons interested in American Indian or First Nations history, including the preservation of their nation's own history.

From Reference Reviews, Volume 8, Number 8, 2014. Copyright Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Few, if any, archives of indigenous history and culture have the breadth, the depth, and the diversity that this collection wields.