Introduction

The growing concern of students, scholars, and the general public to understand ethnic conflict, cultural diversity, and global problems has generated a demand for educational and research programs emphasizing the worldwide, comparative study of human behavior and society. The development of cross-cultural and area studies requires a large mass of readily available, organized cultural information; conventional sources of such information are widely scattered and often inaccessible, and at any rate expensive to assemble and utilize effectively. The HRAF Collections are designed to overcome this traditional barrier to research.

The HRAF Collection of Ethnography is a unique source of information on the cultures of the world, and currently contains over 800,000 pages of indexed information on more than 365 different cultural, ethnic, religious, and national groups around the world. The collection was developed by the Human Relations Area Files, Inc. (HRAF), a non-profit research organization. For almost fifty years, HRAF has served the educational community and contributed to an understanding of world cultures by assembling, indexing, and providing access to primary research materials relevant to the social sciences, and by stimulating and facilitating training and research in these fields.

Development of the HRAF Collections began with the belief that valid generalizations about human behavior and culture will emerge from a wealth of knowledge about the ways in which the different peoples of the world live. In 1937 at the Institute of Human Relations, Yale University, under the direction of the Institute's Director, Mark A. May, and Professor George Peter Murdock, a small group of researchers attempted to design a system for classifying or indexing the cultural, behavioral, and background information on a society.

In 1949, the Human Relations Area Files was incorporated in the State of Connecticut, with Harvard University, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Washington, and Yale University as its founding member institutions. These five were joined within the year by the University of Chicago, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Southern California. Today, some 300 colleges, universities, libraries, museums, and research institutions in the United States and 25 other countries have full or partial access to the Collection of Ethnography.

The HRAF Collection of Ethnography contains mostly primary source materials-mainly published books and articles, but including some unpublished manuscripts and dissertations-on selected cultures or societies representing all major regions of the world. The materials are organized and indexed by a unique method designed for rapid and accurate retrieval of specific data on given cultures and topics. HRAF's system of organization and classification of source material presents information in a manner which significantly increases the usefulness of original source materials. Researchers can use the Collection of Ethnography in three different media: the original paper files, fiche, and CD-ROM. Until 1958, the HRAF Collection was produced and distributed as paper files: source materials were manually reproduced on 5" x 8" paper slips called File pages, and then indexed by subject OCM category and filed by culture. Wider distribution of the collection was facilitated in 1958 with the development of the HRAF Microfiles Program. Materials from the paper files were processed into microfiche and issued in annual installments to participating institutions; Installment 42 was the last microfiche series issued to members.

In the 1980's, HRAF began developing an electronic publishing program with the intention of distributing the Collection of Ethnography exclusively through electronic means. The Cross-Cultural CDs were the first result of this effort, providing researchers with ten collections on such topics as old age, marriage, religion, and human sexuality, excerpted from HRAF's Sixty Culture Probability Sample Files (PSF). In 1993, the first installment of the full-text HRAF Collection of Ethnography on CD-ROM (eHRAF) was issued to members with the plan of converting the entire Sixty Culture Probability Sample Files, plus new files covering North American immigrant groups, by the year 1999. In all, the first five installments of eHRAF will represent some 200,000 pages of fully indexed cultural material.

Using eHRAF is a relatively straightforward process. Mechanics of use and research techniques are similar in many respects to standard library practices; searching the CD-ROM follows the same principles and techniques, such as Boolean logic, that are used for other electronic educational collections. Mastery of the more complex aspects of the classification system or of SGML, the document mark-up language used for the CD-ROM, is not essential for an effective utilization of eHRAF, although it does provide an effective method for streamlining search results. Such a mastery may be developed gradually as the researcher becomes familiar with the Collection. This User's Manual is designed to aid both the researcher and the information scientist in understanding the organization of the HRAF Collection of Ethnography and to demonstrate methods of locating useful information. A secondary purpose of the Manual is to illustrate some of the principal uses for which the Collection of Ethnography is particularly suitable. However, the Manual itself can be no more than suggestive of the range of possible uses. Anyone who is interested in human behavior, customs, and social institutions-be they anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, political scientists, psychologists, or specialists in other fields-will find discover ways in which to use the Collection to its fullest potential.

Organization & Classification

All documents that contain information about a particular culture are grouped together in a collection for that culture. Each culture collection is identified by a unique alphanumeric code according to the Outline of World Cultures (OWC) . In the OWC all the cultures are classified according to geographical regions:

There is one exception to this system-Muslim societies in Africa are classified as being in the Middle East. In its recent literature, HRAF has begun to organize those Muslim cultures under Africa, although they retain the same OWC code.

All the cultures in the Collection of Ethnography are grouped into these eight regions. Thus, all the documents pertaining to African cultures are grouped together and their OWC begins with "F." Each of the major regions is then subdivided, usually on abpolitical basis, into sub-regions designated by the addition of a second letter: "FF" designates the country of Nigeria and its component cultural units, while "SC" indicates that the culture described is in the South American country of Colombia. Finally, within each sub-region, more specific units are defined and assigned a number; these may be country entities, such as "RD01" for Ukraine, or "cultural" units such as "FL12" for the Maasai. Each culture is therefore placed in its proper regional, political, and cultural context within the Collection.

A. Selection of Cultures

Several thousand cultures are listed in the OWC, but not all the cultures on the list are included in the Collection of Ethnography. The cultures in the Collection are selected mainly on the basis of the following criteria:

The section Complete Collection lists the cultures in the entire Collection of Ethnography as of 1996. Additionally, those cultures that are also included in the eHRAF on CD-ROM are so noted. Below is the numerical distribution of all the HRAF cultures according to geographic region.

B. Gathering Source Materials

Once the decision has been reached to build a collection on a particular culture, extensive bibliographic research is undertaken to identify as thoroughly as possible all of the significant literature on that culture. HRAF also solicits the advice and expertise of specialists. As always, researchers are encouraged to inform HRAF of any salient material which might have escaped notice.

The materials processed for the Collection of Ethnography are largely descriptive rather than theoretical, with the great majority being primary documents resulting from field observation. The ideal document is one which consists of a detailed description of a culture, or of a particular community or region within that culture, written on the basis of prolonged residence among the people documented by a professional social scientist. Many documents which do not meet all the criteria are included in the Collection of Ethnography because they are still important pieces of information-in fact, it is likely that they may be the only sources available for particular time periods, regions, or subjects. Thus the collection for each culture may contain documents written by travelers, missionaries, colonial officials, traders, etc.

In addition to searching for primary, descriptive materials, the research staff is guided by four other considerations when choosing sources: How extensive is the bibliography of the culture in question? How reliable is a source and what is the author's training/profession? To what extent is a source duplicative of material available in other sources? If a source is written in a foreign language, has it been translated and how faithful is the translation to the original? Theoretically, the Collection of Ethnography should include the entire universe of cultural documentation. For some cultures, however, the material is so extensive that only the most significant works can be processed. This is the case with the Saami, or Lapps (OWC code EP04). On the other hand, the literature written on some cultures is rather limited, as it is with the Andamans (OWC code AZ02), in which case it is likely that nearly all the available material will be processed.

Every page in each document is indexed and assigned any number of appropriate subject category codes according to the classification scheme in the Outline of Cultural Materials (OCM) (Murdock et al. 1987); the subject codes are referred to as OCM numbers. The OCM consists of 710 subject categories plus a category numbered "000" for unclassified materials. The 710 categories are grouped into seventy-nine major subject divisions, each assigned a three-digit code ranging from 100 (Orientation) to 880 (Adolescence, Adulthood, and Old Age). Within each major subject division, up to nine more specific categories are defined. For example, the 590 (Family) division is subdivided into seven more specific subject categories as follows: 591 (Residence), 592 (Household), 593 (Family Relationships), 594 (Nuclear Family), 595 (Polygamy), 596 (Extended Families), and 597 (Adoption). Following the number and title of each category in the OCM is a brief descriptive statement, indicating the range of information which may be classified under that category. Beneath this statement is usually a list of cross-references to other categories under which related information may be classified.

C. Miscellaneous Subject Categories

Some data may be organized into broader or more abstract categories than the conventional ways in which anthropologists, geographers, social scientists, historians, etc. organize their materials. The OCM adopts a number of these, e.g. 181 (Ethos), 463 (Occupational Specialization), 511 (Standard of Living). Broad categories of this type normally include only data thus organized in an individual source, and other pertinent information will be found under precise subject categories.

A number of categories are reserved specifically for handling descriptive detail about artifacts employed as means in a particular cultural activity or produced as results thereof. The most significant of these are found in divisions 290 (Clothing), 340 (Structures), 400 (Machines), 410 (Tools and Appliances), and 710 (Military Technology).

Some categories such as 770 (Religious Beliefs) and 820 (Ideas About Nature and Man) are reserved primarily for symbolic or ideational behavior. A number of categories are concerned almost exclusively with organized social relationships and groups, e.g., those in divisions 470 (Business and Industrial Organization), 610 (Kin Groups), 640 (State), 700 (Armed Forces), and 790 (Ecclesiastical Organization). A distinction should be noted between those categories-the majority-which describe the behavior, customs, or social organization of a people as it appears equally to a member of that culture and to an outside observer, and other categories which present interpretations or conclusions involving a level of scientific knowledge and abstraction usually possible only in a highly trained observer. The latter type includes most of the categories in divisions 130 through 190 and such other as 435 (Price and Value), 511 (Standard of Living), 781 (Religious Experience), and 811 (Logic).

The OCM contains a detailed index which directs the researcher to OCM numbers relevant for their search. The OCM numbers are clearly defined in the OCM, but a few are essential to effective use of the HRAF Collection of Ethnography and bear mentioning here:

100 (Orientation)-(Guide to the File) Information especially likely to be needed by users of a file as a frame of reference for understanding the materials included therein. Category 100 includes (depending upon the collection for each culture): an identification of the culture(s) covered in the collection, including names, location, any major temporal, spatial, or social subdivisions, special characteristics, etc.; a short summary of the culture, especially the sociopolitical organization; population size and trends; indigenous language and linguistic affiliations; a general review of the literature included in the culture collection; a general evaluation of the culture collection in terms of the total existing literature on the culture(s) covered, adequacy of subject coverage, quality of sources, etc.; any special features in the culture collection's organization or subject classification. In eHRAF, the Guide appears at the beginning of each culture included on the Installment, before the full-text documents for the culture. It is located in the Table of Contents directly beneath the culture heading.

111 (Citations)-A complete bibliographic reference for each document in the Collection of Ethnography. The citation is located in eHRAF at the very beginning of each document; the citation may also be reached from every page header in a document via hyperlink (see Using the CD-ROM).

D. Classification of Source Materials

"Coding" refers to the subject classification of documents by the application of applicable OCM numbers to pages. Every document page has at least one OCM assigned to it. If there are no pertinent subject categories, "000" indicating non-classified data is applied. Classification of the text is done sentence by sentence, although most OCM numbers apply to at least an entire paragraph. For eHRAF all OCMs are located at the paragraph level. If five consecutive paragraphs discuss categories 585, 578, and 602, all three OCMs will appear at the beginning of each of the five paragraphs until the subject changes.

References

Murdock, George P. Outline of Cultural Materials, 5th revised edition. New Haven, Conn.: HRAF Press, 1987.

Murdock, George P. Outline of World Cultures, 6th revised edition. New Haven, Conn.: HRAF Press, 1983.