The Wenger Eskimo Anthropological Database: a valuable research tool

The goal of the Wenger Eskimo Database Project is to develop a full-text database of early and primary written ethnographic sources in English on Inuit/Eskimo peoples and to make it available on CD-ROM, both to northern residents and to students and researchers dealing with northern topics. This paper describes the database, sets out a brief history of its growth, and describes recent developments, including the addition of new materials and a Windows format. The paper includes a demonstration of how the database may be used for health-related research. The database is available free of charge to nonprofit institutions that are willing to meet some simple, basic requirements.