Highlights of the University Museum Now Available on ScholarWorks@UARK

Photo Submitted

Porcelain jug fragment with Old Main illustrated on it. Found during excavations at the Ridge House in Fayetteville.

From meteorites and mammoths to early flutes and first computers, the U of A Museum houses a wide array of materials. Staff recently selected 30 objects that encapsulate this expansive scope. The selection is now available to view on ScholarWorks@UARK.

"We appreciate partnering with ScholarWorks@UARK," says Laurel Lamb, curator of education and engagement. "Sharing these highlights on the platform expands access and broadens people's idea of what's possible with the collections. There are many research avenues that can be investigated."

Previous projects created by students on campus featuring the museum's collections are also available through ScholarWorks@UARK. A variety of porcelain, textiles, prints and metalwork is featured from a spring 2020 School of Art class exhibition in "Materials Across Asia." Now-alumna Meredith C. Swartwout's "Under the Sea" project is also available and features a selection of marine animals from the collections.

For more expansive browsing of the collections, the public can access the museum's online Omeka database. New entries and images are published regularly with the long-term goal of making the entire collection searchable. Whether you are browsing for the sake of curiosity or narrowing down artifacts for a class or research project, this resource makes the collections more accessible than ever before.

About ScholarWorks@UARK: ScholarWorks@UARK, the U of A institutional repository, contains research, scholarship and creative work produced by academic departments, research centers, faculty, staff, researchers and students. For information about how you can contribute your own work, please contact scholar@uark.edu.

About the University of Arkansas Museum: The University of Arkansas Museum traces its beginnings to the 1870s as a geology teaching collection. From a modest beginning, the collections grew to 7.5 million objects encapsulating the fields of archeology, ethnology, history, geology and zoology.   

Today, the museum is an administrative unit of Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Educators may request loans of collection materials for their classes or arrange to bring their classes to the University Collections Facility (2475 N. Hatch Ave.) for a visit. Objects and their associated documentation are available for comparative and research purposes by faculty, students and visiting scholars. We also fulfill our public service and outreach mission through programming and collection loans to regional community spaces.