Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Photo shoebox upset, by Stephen Cummings, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] I recently took a position as photograph archivist at the Smithsonian Institution Archives and hope to be able to share through this blog some of the processes we are undertaking to make our photographic collections more useful and
Description: Did you know that May is National Photography Month? Declared by Congress as a month-long event in 1987, National Photography Month celebrates all aspects of photography. We invite you to see what our photographers were up to a century before this declaration in this behind- the-scenes slideshow of the photographic laboratory spaces, set-ups, and equipment of the United States
Description: In alignment with SI's newly launched Smithsonian Open Access, Smithsonian Institution Archives has designated over 2000 items as open access!
Description: This blog post was edited in October 2021 for clarification. While surveying and collecting specimens in the Aleutian Islands in 1871-1872 for the United States Coast Survey, later renamed the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, naturalist William Healey Dall befriended George Tsaroff (1858-1880), an Unangan (Aleut) teen from Unalaska Island who had been hired as local
Description: [caption id="attachment_7450" align="aligncenter" width="379" caption="A broken glass plate negative, Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives."][/caption] We are in the throes of summer here in Washington DC, and that means three things: heat, more heat, and interns. Interns not only allow us to share expertise and experience with newcomers to the field, but also allow
Description: Robert Ridgway, known primarily for his extensive contributions to ornithology and as curator of birds for the United States National Museum, was also a keen observer of the changing landscape in areas where he conducted his detailed studies.
Description: So you know those thousand words a picture is worth? It’s true! Though my idea of what those thousand words should be might differ from yours and that’s why we’re going to talk about descriptive metadata, controlled vocabularies, and levels of access. Boy howdy, sounds like a wild ride, eh? When I was younger and infinitely more creative with how I spent my time I used to