INTERNATIONAL ROCK ART DATABASE PROJECT Recently there have been a number of inquiries about our International Rock Art Database project. We would like to briefly explain the project here and also tell you where you can get more information. You may even want to consider helping on the project. During a 3 year project from 1993-1996 which we conducted at the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico, we became convinced that it would be extremely valuable to have the rock art maps, drawings, images and associated data (including some ethnographic voice recordings) in a computer database. Discussion with several colleagues convinced us that others had this interest also. Furthermore, we believed, there might be enough commonality in recording techniques that we could develop a common format that many researchers would find helpful. There are 4 major objectives of the database project. First, we want the database to be low cost and easy to use and therefore accessible by a wide range of amateur and professional researchers. Second, we want the result to be portable between machines and between database formats so the results can be used widely. Third, we want the recorded data to be flexible and extendable so that there is a sort of standard core of data for all images and then lots of ability for an individual researcher to adapt to his/her own needs. Fourth, we want the data compatible with the Internet so that public parts of the data can be widely shared, while protecting the parts of the data considered sensitive. Right now, we are using Microsoft Access and we have a small database (about 500 glyphs) of data from Petroglyph National Monument. We also have been collaborating on a small amount (100 pictographs and glyphs) of data from the north Queensland area in Australia. We are working on identifying the commonalities among collaborating researchers' recording forms and incorporating standards into the database. Information concerning our project can be found at: http://www.cs.unm.edu/~brayer/rock/general.html. We also have an article in Rock Art Research, the Journal of the Australian Rock Art Research Association (AURA), volume 14, number 1, 1997. Present participants in the project are John Brayer (brayer@cs.unm.edu), Henry Walt (walt@cs.unm.edu) and Bruno David (Bruno.David@arts.monash.edu.au). We recently applied for funding of the project by the National Endowment for the Humanities but were not successful. We plan to continue the project but right now funding is "out of pocket." We invite and welcome any and all comments and help anyone can give on the project. Since we are now working on gathering input from different researchers and trying to identify commonalities, now is a good time to help.