Description: Since The Bigger Picture began in early 2009, I’ve written a number of posts about what might be called camera traps, situations where cameras are installed to collect evidence of one kind of unusual or unwanted behavior or another. Red light cameras are a controversial example; across the country and on an almost daily basis, local municipalities and motorists argue about
Description: This is part one of three in a series of blog posts about a research project on treating fire-affected optical discs. This month, we’ll introduce the project.
Description: In November of 1996, the electric guitar, its history and its makers, were the focus of attention at the National Museum of American History.
Description: Spencer F. Baird and George Brown Goode used their diverse, and sometimes quirky, contacts from the U.S. Fish Commission to fill exhibit cabinets in the U.S. National Museum.
Description: For the next installment of “Miscellaneous Adventures,” we’ve taken a dive into blank standardized forms once used at the Smithsonian, found in Record Unit 65, Smithsonian Institution Chief Clerk, Forms, Circulars, Announcements, 1846-1933, Box 14, Folder Miscellaneous Forms – Assorted. And these forms are certainly assorted! The contents range from memorandum forms to
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Sorry, We're Open, by mofo, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] Back in May, I wrote about a controversy that surfaced in Europe after privacy advocates revealed that in the act of collecting photographic images for its Street View application, Google was also scooping up private data from the unsecured WiFi
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="295" caption="In memory, by Kevin Dooley, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] For all that’s been said about the form and content of photographic images, few of us are aware of how the ways we actually see, process, and remember photos helps to explain their power over us. Say what you will about the skills or “vision” of
Description: More than two dozen field diaries by Irish naturalist Arthur Stelfox are housed in the Smithsonian Institution Archives--what a note left inside one field notebook tells us about his network of scientist colleagues.
Description: It was brilliant to work at the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) this past summer as a conservation intern helping to restore damaged books from SIA’s Reference Room. This primary research library includes many histories and annals published by the Smithsonian from the 1880s through the 20th century, and in the process of learning different ways to conserve some of them,
Description: [caption id="attachment_3532" align="aligncenter" width="220" caption="Lorgnette Humaine, Scan from The English Mechanic, 1897 drawing of an invention using X-Rays to scan luggage, courtesy of Flickr user Mark Wahl, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] A week or so ago, shoes off and stuck in the slow moving security check line at an airport, I became fixated as I