Description: The Smithsonian Institution Archives Reference Team handles an average of around 6,000 queries per year, and if you us what people have been researching at the Archives recently, you'll get some pretty interesting responses. Although not comprehensive, here's a snapshot of the diverse range of information encompassed by the history of the world's largest museum complex!
Description: Research has been at the core of Smithsonian’s mission from the beginning, and sharing that research—through activities like publishing papers and data—is still key to fulfilling that mission for the “increase and diffusion of knowledge.”
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: Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery has a new show on the history of silhouettes, a pre-photography method for capturing an individual's likeness. [via Artsy]"How To File Catalogs" and more Office 101. [via Smithsonian Libraries]What do archives look like before they come to clean boxes and folder arrangement? Yikes. [via Cambridge University Library Special
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_12123,size=250,left]It is a simple answer really: We counted. From 1978 to 1983, the Smithsonian undertook a comprehensive inventory of its collections. It was the first time the Smithsonian had ever tried to count each object in its collections and it was a massive task. Over five years, staff from every museum and research center spent thousands of
Description: Welcome to Throwback Thursday! This holiday season, I hope to inspire you to take a trip down memory lane to the land of erstwhile and bygone days of the family photo album. What better time to pull these one of a kind treasures off the shelves than during the family festivities! Recently over the Thanksgiving holiday, I rediscovered my own family’s quasi-prehistoric,
Description: Despite another year of telework and limited physical access to our collections, the Smithsonian Institution Archives has continued to serve our researchers and share more of our collections with the public.
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
Showing results 37 - 48 of 48 for Computer programming