Description: Although initially skeptical about the effectiveness of the hypsometer, Secretary Joseph Henry soon recognized the value of the instrument, which he discovered from his colleagues in the scientific field.
Description: Have a little fun with images from our collections that have been designated as open access. Anyone can now download, transform, share, and reuse millions of images as part of Smithsonian Open Access.
Description: Art history memes are back and better than ever. [via Bored Panda]The fascinating story behind the Freer Sackler's Peacock Room. [via Atlas Obscura]A new app, Seek, for identifying plants and animals, the "Shazam of Nature." [via My Modern Met]Speaking of apps, you can now create 3D artwork in Augmented Reality with Artopia! [via Colossal]And we have an app for Archives
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: “Watching Oprah: The Oprah Winfrey Show and American Culture," a new exhibit highlighting celebrity activist, Oprah Winfrey, opened at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. [via WAPO]Archivists with The Obsidian Collection are digitizing and publishing newspapers that document the Great Migration, Civil Rights, and Jim Crow eras. [via Info
Description: Whether you have a little downtime or you wish you remembered what downtime was like, the Archives is here for you with a few distance learning activities and organization tips.
Description: An early infographic explaining Earth in case of chance alien encounters, from 1972! [via Co.Design]A peek at the the 1st weather dataset collected by the Smithsonian in the late 19th century, and what it means about archival practices around data. [via Process History]How Chuck Berry's bright red Cadillac almost didn't make it to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African
Description: Here at the Smithsonian we love to observe. So of course on August 23, 2011, at 1:51 PM, when a 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook the Washington, DC region and many of us with it, we immediately started to observe what happened and how we could document it. As the Institution's historians, inevitably we needed to know, had this happened before and what were the effects? After