Description: From the point in 1838 when the United States Congress accepted James Smithson’s bequest, it was recognized as a cultural resource, a public trust held by the federal government. Smithson had stipulated that the funds be used for an “establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Being a cultural resource set aside for public use, the government bore the
Description: Investigating digital files from the 1980s turns up software that let people play matchmaker–for endangered species. Let’s see where this leads.
Description: People everywhere are helping the Smithsonian Institution Archives make more of its collections deeply accessible through helping transcribe field books, journals, and diaries in our collections.
Description: This philanthropist’s passion for research and adventure inspired him to join a series of collecting expeditions with the Smithsonian in the 1950s.
Description: The intense efforts that started the Field Book Project and have kept it in high gear are slowing down to a sustainable pace. After almost ten years, grant funding for the Field Book Project has drawn to a close, but there is still plenty more to look forward to that will benefit researchers for years to come.
Description: As we digitize the Archives’ collections to make them available online, I am constantly being exposed to handwriting from the past two centuries. As a result, I have a deeper appreciatiation of how many different things influence the way a person’s writing appears on the page, things beyond the quality of their penmanship. Writing on the deck of a ship, on horseback or on
Description: With the help of digital volunteers, we will make over a century’s worth of Smithsonian Board of Regents Meeting Minutes searchable, via the Smithsonian Transcription Center.
Description: They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that’s true, some of Dr. Waldo LaSalle Schmitts field books are worth tens of thousands of words.