Photo of the Smithsonian's physical display of West African currency objects courtesy Dr Ellen Feingold
Dr Leigh Gardner, together with Dr. Ellen Feingold of the Smithsonian’s , have collaborated on the creation of an open-access digital collection of the 880 West African currency objects in the National Numismatic Collection, funded by ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳’s Knowledge Exchange and Impact Fund. A curated sample of these appears on Learning Lab, the Smithsonian’s online education platform:
Further curated collections can be tailored for use in classrooms. Its aim is to provide a template for cooperation between museums and universities in using the digitization of museum collections to help disseminate research to wider audiences.
The project also includes a physical display at the National Museum of American History, based on Leigh Gardner’s work on Liberia (pictured). A digital version of the display can be found on and a blog post about the display appeared recently on the NMAH’s blog: