• Headed to DC soon? Leave your thoughts at the National Museum of American History’s TalkBack Board, and then whether you’re in the capital or elsewhere, tune into the NMAH’s Twitter feed for #TalkBackTuesdays, where they’ll feature the best questions and comments from the board.

• The Museum of Photographic Arts has just joined Flickr Commons, and their photos include some gorgeous shots, as well as a wide variety of portraits, landscapes, cityscapes, architectural images, and photojournalism.

• The Smithsonian’s Johnnetta Betsch Cole, writes about her experiences with race growing up in the South, as a cultural anthropologist, and now as the Director of the National Museum of African Art in honor of the upcoming exhibition, RACE: Are We So Different?

• A World War II mystery about a chilling Nazi photo album is solved in a matter of hours with the power of blogging and the social web [via Rachael Woody, Freer | Sackler Archives].

• Apparently, Man Ray’s signature has been hiding in plain sight in one of his self-portraits for years. Find out how a photographer recently discovered Man Ray’s mischievous and playful trick.

• The National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), gives insight into how careful conservation of Cornelis Verbeeck's  17th century wartime paintings, transformed the museum’s understanding of these works:

“Verbeeck's Battle: Restoring War in the Conservation Lab,” Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art and Art Babble.