By Digitizing Images, Museum Opens a Window Into the Past

The American Museum of Natural History in New York is launching an archival digital special collections database to give researchers, students and laymen alike access to a trove of photographs, lantern slides, rare book illustrations, drawings, notes, letters and memorabilia that provide a rare backstage view of its exhibits and explorations, much of it previously unavailable to the public. Until now, the 7,000 images available online at images.library.amnh.org/digital were accessible only at the museum’s fourth floor research library.