Description: How is the Smithsonian, with its museums full of specimens and research labs full of scientists, portrayed in movies, novels, television, and videogames? Smithsonian staff and the iconic buildings they work in have been portrayed in mysteries, romances, dramas, comedies, and science fiction. Often, the ways that museum curators, explorers, and lab researchers and what they do
Description: On Monday, October 27th, four of our finest were available on the Smithsonian's Facebook page to answer questions about preserving your own archival collections. The four archivists at the Q&A have specialties in the preservation and organization of audio/visual material, photos, and digital records (email, digital video, etc.) This is our fourth year hosting this event and
Description: Annette A. Aiello Smithsonian Institution Archives Oral History Collection, SIA009624When she was twenty-eight years old, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) staff scientist Annette Aiello (1941-) picked up a copy of Gray’s Manual of Botany to identify plants she photographed; that book changed her life. And the rest is history.As a young girl, Aiello felt
Description: Hey folks, we've got some big news: the Archives now has an official Facebook Page. We're pretty excited about it, and we're looking forward to using the Page to keep you posted about upcoming events, new videos, interesting links, and newly digitized collections from the Smithsonian Institution Archives, the larger Smithsonian, and beyond. This is just one of a few changes in
Description: A clause in the last will and testament of English scientist James Smithson eventually led to his estate being left to the United States "to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” There was much debate as to what constituted such an establishment, but many of the proposals
Description: [caption id="attachment_6524" align="alignright" width="220" caption="Linsey Scott, Intern, and Michael Barnes, Photographer, from the Center of Scientific Imaging and Photography stand in front of the freshly remounted world-record Black Marlin that was caught in 1953 using 130 pound test line by Alfred C. Glascock, Jr."][/caption] I had the recent opportunity to sit down
Description: Friday, September 15th, 2017 marks the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Anacostia Community Museum. Originally named the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum, Secretary Ripley envisioned this as a place to reach out to black residents of Washington, DC who were not seeing themselves in the museums on the Mall. Reporting on the opening of the museum, Secretary Ripley writes that