The University of Hawai`i collections have historically served as major humanities resources for scientific, ethnographic, historical, and cultural studies. Asia-Pacific expertise and culture permeate the UH museum collections. As technology has revolutionized scholarly communication through the development of the Internet, the University of Hawai'i has become increasingly committed to developing initiatives in digital preservation, storage and delivery of natural history specimen and museum content. The University's Master Plan includes an objective to "build digital library services and operations" where a broad range of information is accessible directly to the public via computer networks. This goal is also in parallel with the University Library's Strategic Plan.

The University of Hawai'i System includes 10 campuses and dozens of educational, training and research centers across the Hawaiian Islands. The 10 UH campuses and educational centers on six Hawai'ian Islands provide unique opportunities for distance learning. Total enrollment is currently 50,569 (Undergraduate 44,165; Graduate 6,404) with approximately 13% of the students being of Native Hawaiian ancestry. Hawai'i's geographic position between in the Pacific creates opportunities for international leadership and influence.

An estimated inventory of the museum collections is presented below.

Table 1.0 University Museum Consortium Holdings.
Non-Living Collections	Total Objects	Contact
Costume Clothing	15,000	Carol D'Angelo
Ethnomusicology Instrument and Archive	4500	Dr. Frederick Lau
Fish Bone Reference	250	Jo Lynn Gunness
Fishes (alcohol)	5000	Dr. Kathleen Cole
Hawaiian Marine Shells	100	Jo Lynn Gunness
Herbarium	42,000	Dr. Tom Ranker
Insect	250,000	Dr. Dan Rubinoff
Jean Charlot	10,000	Bronwen Solyom
John Young Museum of Art	85	Benji Nerio
Nippu Jiji Photo Archive	30,000	Dr. Dennis Ogawa Dr. Karen Kosasa
UH Photographic Images Collection	25,000	Dr. Michael Thomas
UHM Library Digital Collections		Lynn Davis
UHM Campus Art in Public Places	75	UHM
Hawaiian Studies Cultural	200	Maile Andrade
Living Collections
Marine/Microbial	many species	Dr. Gary Ostrander
Hale Halawai Hawaiian Garden	25 species	East West Center
Harold L. Lyon Arborertum	6000 species	Dr. Christopher Dunn
KCC Campus Plants	20 species	KCC Campus
KCC Cactus Garden	100 species	Moriso Teraoka
UHH Cycad and Palm Garden	186 species	Dr. Don Hemmes
UHM Campus Plants	700 species	Roxanne Adams
East-West Center Japanese Garden	50 species	East West Center
UHM Kanewai Cultural Garden	50 species	Hawaiian Studies
UHM Krauss Hall Lotus Garden	10 species	Roxanne Adams
UHM St. John Courtyard Garden	75 species	Dr. Tom Ranker
UHM Sherman Lab Courtyard Garden	20 species	Roxanne Adams
Waikiki Aquarium	450 species	Dr. Andrew Rossiter
Galleries
East-West Center Gallery (EWC)	moving exhibits	Eric Chang
Hamilton Library Galleries (UHM)	moving exhibits	UH Hamilton Library
UH Art Gallery (UHM)	moving exhibits	Lisa Yoshihara
Gallery 'Iolani (WCC)	moving exhibits	Toni Martin