Description: If you are a regular reader, or someone who works for a museum, library, or archive, you intimately understand the difficulty in managing big collections. If you’re not in this world, you do understand how hard it is to manage family photographs, a collection of email love letters, or the folder tucked in the bottom of your closet with old college papers. When you multiply
Description: Thirty-six years ago today, M*A*S*H: Binding Up the Wounds opened at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and the response was overwhelming.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="284" caption="Pauline Gracia Beery Mack (1891-1974), by Underwood & Underwood, Date unknown, Black and white photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 90-105 - Science Service, Records, 1920s-1970s, SIA Acc. 90-105 (SIA-SIA2008-5750)."][/caption] For the month of March, the Smithsonian Institution Archives will be
Description: The Archives recently received several scrapbooks created by Elizabeth C. Reed during her husband's tenure as Director of the National Zoological Park (NZP). These scrapbooks contain information about noteworthy events and consist mostly of newspaper clippings gathered from newspapers around the country. Anyone who's attempted to preserve scrapbooks can tell you it's a bit of
Description: This post is the third in a series this month that honor the anniversary of the famous Scopes Trial held in Tennessee from July 10–21, 1925. We're highlighting a set of rare and newly digitized photographs from the Smithsonian Institution Archives collections, of witnesses at the trial, which have been added to the Smithsonian Flickr Commons. On Wednesday afternoon, July 15,
Description: As a teenager, Robert Ridgway was tapped by the Smithsonian’s Assistant Secretary to be an expedition zoologist. In 1881, when the US National Museum opened its doors, he was the curator of Birds. Download and reuse some of bird illustrations today through Smithsonian Open Access.
Description: As editor E. E. Slosson began setting up the Science Service news office, his mail was flooded with inquiries from potential contributors. Writers and photographers described their accomplishments and submitted samples of their work. One such letter, from Albert Harlingue on April 13, 1921, must have piqued Slosson’s interest, for it coincided with the Washington visit of “a
Description: President Calvin Coolidge's second inauguration in 1925 reaches an audience of millions, thanks to a new technological innovation--the radio.
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_9592,size=200,left]Did you know the Smithsonian was an early adopter of the telephone? In June of 1878, a system of electronic bells and telephones was installed throughout the Smithsonian Castle. The system connected several workrooms and offices to provide instant communications within the building. At that time, there were only 187 telephone lines