Description: In the 1950s US National Museum staff revitalized exhibits across the Smithsonian, completely transforming the Arts & Industries Building.
Description: Explore what happened in 1969 when a man brought a hatchet and butcher knife to Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History to attack a display of snakes.
Description: In their efforts to document the history of computing at the Smithsonian, volunteers are interviewing former staff to preserve their stories and experiences. Ching-hsien Wang was a force that helped libraries and archives make their collections accessible online and here are some early excerpts from our interview with her.
Description: We are pleased to launch a new live-play mystery based on the Megatherium Club, an actual group of young naturalists who lived in dormitories in the Smithsonian's Castle. Geared toward teen visitors (you must be 13 years or older to play), “The Mystery of the Megatherium Club: Mustaches & Mayhem” runs July 8th-Aug. 27th, with limited timeslots daily. Spend an hour with your
Description: Computer science researchers at the University of Washington and Cornell University have announced a new system of powerful graphics algorithms that will create three-dimensional renderings of buildings, neighborhoods, and potentially even entire cities. Fittingly the inventors went for the gold and named the system PhotoCity. Like its precursor, Microsoft’s Photosynth, the
Description: New to the interwebs: a massive archive of 150 years of photography capturing Russian life from more than 40 institutions and collections. [via Hyperallergic]Nominate your favorite .gov website for the U.S. Federal Government End of Term Web Archive! [via The Signal, Library of Congress]Why save a computer virus, indeed?! [via The Conversation]Giant pandas are no longer
Description: A Smithsonian Institution Archives volunteer discusses a Triceratops video collection that also relates to his work at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
Description: [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="I have no hours in the day to watch TV/games. Don't let life go by!!, by National Media Museum, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] From 2002-2005, a unique archive of video tapes was compiled by the Center on Everyday Lives of Families (CELF) at UCLA, with the goal of studying a relatively new social
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Beauty is forever, by Just Warr, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0 Generic."][/caption] At THE BIGGER PICTURE, we often write about the challenges of maintaining the data in digital archives. But a recent article bundled in the informative daily arts newsletter compiled by Jeff Weiss—you can subscribe by sending a request