CHAPTER 1
                                  INTRODUCTION

     The Florida Museum of Natural History cares for over 300 Seminole and

Miccosukee objects in its Florida Ethnographic Collection. Through my work with the

Native American objects at the museum, I saw a great potential in this collection for

creating public digital collections access. Digital collections access will foreground the

Florida Museum's role as a significant cultural resource for Seminoles and other

communities across the U.S.

       For my project, I digitized information and images relating to 300 objects, built a

350-page wiki for collections feedback, and recruited Seminole/Miccosukee participants.

In short, a wiki is "online software that enables users to edit web pages" (Tapscott and

Williams 2006, 13). The participants in this project are submitting, through the wiki,

online feedback regarding artifacts in the museum's Seminole/Miccosukee Collections.

In this paper, I discuss the benefits and challenges of using an online workspace to

expand indigenous participation in the development of museum collections information.

       My project has three phases (Appendix B-2) that employ exhibition, collections

management, and curatorial practices. During Phase One, I organized and digitized

museum records and photographed objects. These activities were a means of

extending researchers' capabilities for both off-site and on-site collections research. In

Phase Two, I developed a wiki to invite input from Tribal members about the Florida

Ethnographic Collection. This required building a partnership with the Florida Seminole

community and recruiting participants for the wiki. In Phase Three, the future wiki

comments will contribute to several databases: the Florida Museum of Natural History's

registrar database, the Florida Museum website, and the cross-institutional database