Description: This summer Visiting Professional Laura Wahl had the chance to learn more about how to respond to the problem of mold residues found on archival materials. The Smithsonian Affiliations’ Visiting Professionals Program allowed her to spend time at the Smithsonian Institution Archives’ conservation lab researching this topic.
Description: We’ve all got storage issues to confront. And when we do, some people take great pleasure in getting things organized and others get headaches. A small percentage descend into madness, while an equally small group see and then seize the business opportunities that are generated by the need to keep life, things, and information under control. Over the past few weeks, the
Description: I’ve been inspired by the snowflakes Wilson A. Bentley photographed through a microscope in the late 1800's ever since I first saw them in the Archives. Bentley donated 500 of his photographs to the Smithsonian in 1903 (you can read more about them in a post by Archives colleague, Courtney Esposito). The images capture nature at its most creative, mathematical, and elegant.
Description: Collections here at the Archives span over 171 years of Smithsonian history and include personal papers of the many notable people who have been part of its work in science and culture. Cryptic and coded content is not unusual here. One would expect special vocabulary in the accessions of scientific observations. For example, notations of depth, temperature, and sounding and
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_14492,size=500,center]Dr. Squires was a pioneer in the application of computer technology in science museums and the founding father of data processing at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). He died on his 90th birthday, December 19, 2017 in Tasmania, Australia, after a short illness. Squires received an B.A. from Cornell
Description: While Lucile Mann’s contributions to zoological history have often been reduced to her work raising infant animals, her work with the National Zoo and resulting publications demonstrate that her legacy should be reexamined.
Description: Masks and endless sanitizing again? What has the Smithsonian done during past pandemics? We’ll look back to the public health emergency in 1918.