This paper deals with the museological issues and the muse-ethnological issues and the problems result from hands-on programs planned at Historical Museum of Hokkaido, which consisted of ethnological specimens and knowledge. Historical Museum of Hokkaido has performed several hands-on programs, in which visitors are able to understand how the complicated implements work, how people use the tools, and the way of making them. The concepts of the programs are usually concerned with history and culture of Hokkaido. The aim of these programs is mainly to meet the visitors the chance and the opportunity to modify their ideas of the Ainu specimens from something strange and odd to something interested and familiar with, in order to “touch” the tools and the implements. To hands-on the specimens might be an effective to break the bad habit prejudice about the ethnological materials. In the several hands-on programs like “Ainu hunting traps” “Traditional Ainu life”, I designed to give a short lecture by interpreter in the beginning of the flow-chart of the programs. Talking with the guests alternately, our interpreters usually make presentation of the exhibited specimens more thoroughly and carefully than the ravels tell in the exhibition rooms. Planning these programs, I recognized several issues and problems involved in hands-on program in itself and the process of making the programs. In general, we should recognize that hands-on program which exhibits ethnological specimens and/or concerns the ethnic matter, has the fundamental issues such as representation others and their culture, as the general exhibition, such as temporary and permanent, have. “Who” makes “what” kind of exhibition to “whom”, with “what kind specimens”, from “what position or standpoint”? I think that we, director and curator of hands-on program, should understand such fundamental and logical issues at first. Several anthropologists have discussed the problem of historical “present” of peoples (“People today”) in the ethnological and historical exhibitions. I think that hands-on programs deal with native culture also involve same issue. We also should consider the using “real specimens” in the hands-on programs. What experience do visitors expect using “real” specimens? And how degree of hands-on experience we should permit them to touch the real one? We should try to solve this dilemma between our obligation to preserve specimens as cultural treasure and visitor's claim to utilize them. We should fix the aim of hands-on or touching specimens clearly. Finally I point out the practical problem that it is difficult for the museum staff to get and prepare the material for workshop where visitors try to make and learn how to make “it”. It became more difficult for us to keep the materials due to exploitation of the wild area in those years.

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Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples holds several temporal exhibitions every year. In October 2007, as one of them we had a exhibition “Nature and Culture of Sakha”. This exhibition was planned as a memorial on the agreement of the academic exchange between our museum and the Yakutsk State Museum of Northern Peoples History and Culture signed in 2005. In the exhibition, 68 items and photographs on nature and culture of Sakha Republic, such as traditional subsistence, ceremony and modern life were exhibited. We think this temporal exhibition for Sakha is the first step, since we do not have many materials for Sakha. However, we would like to fill our collection, not only from Sakha but also from Siberia through mutual cooperation to deepen understanding of each other. As a mutual cooperation we asked the Yakutsk State Museum to make a full-scale model mammoth after their fossil mammoth found in tundra of Sakha. From November 2007, a large mammoth who has not yet been named is exhibited. We would use him as a key exhibition on environmental problems.

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The Center's activities are characterized by interdisciplinary approaches, collaboration with the Ainu and the emphasis on education, and focus on the needs of the present-day Ainu. In terms of relations with the museum, we believe that the Center serves as a hub connecting the museum with the Ainu, exploring the significance of the museum's materials with regard to the present-day Ainu and advocating it extensively in society. ●Research on modern needs and material culture The Center will conduct research, on a preferential basis, into material culture, which is frequently seen at the scenes of Ainu activities these days. Although it is well known that the Ainu's material culture enjoyed regional diversity, it is currently being standardized. We will preferentially research these cultures and strive to return research results to the scenes of the activity. ●Pilot museum The Center will distance itself from practical constraints of public museums, e.g. temporal and financial restrictions, and explore possibilities extensively. We will also discuss with the Ainu the exhibition (appeal) of “Contemporary Ainu Culture” by referring to overseas examples. ●Ainu art The Center considers Ainu art in light of issues surrounding the art of indigenous peoples and, above all, the market. In this context, review of the works, market analyses, historical and theoretical consideration and strategic appeal are indispensable. We will strategically weigh-up the future of Ainu art as a fundamental duty, together with leading Ainu artists of the present. ●Rights issues Interest in the intellectual property of indigenous peoples is currently increasing worldwide. The museum possesses many materials that serve as the foundation for intellectual property. The Center is tasked with finding new values in materials at the museum, in cooperation with the Ainu, legal experts and the museum staff.

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This paper is a report on the project for the collection of digital archives, visual materials and making them public by the Research Center for Culture and History of Northeast Japan, Tohoku University of Art and Design continued from 2002, and also on the aim of our work in progress, and some examples of methods are referred as topics. Recently, activities of digital archives on the collection of pictures and films are very energetic however, as most archives are apt to put emphasis on collecting activities, discussion to expand this to practical use is insufficient in many cases. An aim of archives' collection is essentially for public use, however, practically many archives fall into the situation “collection for collection's sake”. The author would like to show a part of our experiments to promote discussing for the way that archives should be.

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