Description: Tricia Edwards, Interim Associate Director for Smithsonian Affiliations, spearheaded Spark!Lab, an interdisciplinary space at the National Museum of American History where educators use art, science, and engineering to engage kids and families with hands-on invention.
Description: Ouch — the Society of Women Engineers has a collection of rejection letters sent to women attempting to gain entry to engineering programs. [via Atlantic]A new discovery of 300,000 year old remains of Homo sapiens shows that our species evolved in multiple locations on the African continent. [via NY Times]iNaturalist.org is launching an app that will help you identify plants
Description: Meet the women behind African American hair care! [via #HiddenHerstory]MIT Libraries is kicking off the "Women in Science and Engineering@MIT" archival initiative to improve the representation of women in their archives. [via MIT Libraries]Know someone with cognitive and sensory processing disabilities? Tell them about Morning at the Museum, a program that provides early
Description: Materials scientist Dr. Odile Madden, Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute, studies the role of polymer-plasticizer interaction in plastic degradation and the characterization and reverse engineering of historic plastic artifacts. #Groundbreaker
Description: Cue the music! We invite you to our third "She Blinded Me with Science" Women in Science Wikipdia Edit-a-thon III. An invitation to the Archive's 3rd Wikipedia edit-a-thon on Women in Science, March 27, 2015.
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: The Smithsonian's Folklife Festival is celebrating it's 50th year with 50 Years | 50 Objects. [via Hyperallergic]The collections of the 400 year-old Jewish Library, Ets Haim, are now freely available online. [via Info Docket]70,000 paybills, ephemera, and posters from the Brooklyn Academy of Music are now online. [via NY Times]The woman who signed the Declaration of
Description: [caption id="attachment_396" align="aligncenter" width="414" caption="Save Our Sounds Postcard, Photo Courtesy of National Anthropological Archives"][/caption] For the last few years, I’ve had this postcard up in my office promoting Save Our Sounds, a program by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (CFCH) and the Library of Congress dedicated to restoring,
Description: I was intrigued to receive a tweet from a digital colleague over at the NY Times pertaining to a family story that could very well be solved at the Archives. I’m continuously surprised at the variety of papers we hold here, but by now, I shouldn’t be given how far-reaching and varied the scope of the Smithsonian has been through history. Back to the story. THE elephant that
Description: Travel with us to the Galapagos and the Marshall Islands as we launch some warm-weather scientific field books, diaries, and correspondence. While it’s not very wintery in Washington D.C., we’re hoping this will offer an escape to those entering the long remaining months of snow, sleet, and ice. And if you’re avoiding the cold, what a better way to spend your time than helping