Link Love: 8/5/2011

• The Freer Sackler Gallery’s efforts to make their large collection of squeezes (paper molds that capture the inscriptions of ancient monuments) into an easy-to-use Web resource received a nice write-up on The Atlantic’s Tech blog [originally posted on the Smithsonian Collections Blog].

• David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, talks about “balancing access and protection” in light of recent thefts from various archives.

• An early lost Alfred Hitchcock film has been found in the New Zealand Film Archive.

• The Special Collections at Bradford University, Connecticut tells the story of a “wild woman’s” bag from their collections on their (new to me) blog, 100 Objects.

• An an incredibly moving piece by a National Museum of American History curator on the emotionally difficult process of collecting 9/11 objects for the museum.

• We were all charmed by the inspiring 7-year-old blogger, Art Capps, who writes “Life Before the Dinosaurs.” He noted in a recent interview that one of his heroes is Charles Doolittle Walcott, whose picture is on Art’s refrigerator, and who he notes, “discovered a lot of amazing creatures in the Burgess Shale.” Art—we’re huge fans of Walcott (the Smithsonian’s fourth Secretary) at the Archives too. Check out this exhibition about Wolcott [story via Effie Kapsalis, SIA].

• MIT researchers interested in the fate of used and discarded electronics added location trackers to map the movement of e-waste around the world.  Some of their research, including the video below will be presented in a new exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

MIT’s backtalk project, which tracks the movement of e-waste around the world, Courtesy of MIT’s Sensable City Lab on YouTube.