Description: Sometimes the research process reveals more than an answer to a single question. This is the story of the Smithsonian bison that inspired the “Buffalo Bill.”
Description: For the past month, I have been immersed in the complexity that is the world of digital archiving as an intern for the Smithsonian Institution Archives. As a digital preservation intern, I have discovered aspects about archiving that I would have never considered previously, such as the processes required to document accessions, recording information for accessibility and
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_9592,size=200,left]Did you know the Smithsonian was an early adopter of the telephone? In June of 1878, a system of electronic bells and telephones was installed throughout the Smithsonian Castle. The system connected several workrooms and offices to provide instant communications within the building. At that time, there were only 187 telephone lines
Description: Link Love: a weekly post with links to interesting videos and stories about archival issues, technology and culture, and Washington D.C. and American history.
Description: Apparently black holes are not a one-way vortex we assumed. This image from NASA demonstrates objects projecting out of black holes! [via The Space Academy]The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History will acquire records of The Academy of Washington, D.C., an LGBT organization that produced nationally-recognized drag pageants. [via Washington Blade]You can vote on
Description: Providing suitable housing for collections can sometimes be cost-prohibitive. When the Archives received a large collection of oversized drawings, a cost-savings approach had to be employed while still achieving an appropriate housing strategy for long-term preservation.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="371" caption="An exhibit case filled with West African wood carvings from an exhibition of the Herbert Ward African Collection in the United States National Museum (USNM), now the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), which opened March 1, 1922, Herbert Ward was an explorer, soldier, author, and artist, who collected objects of