Description: The Smithsonian Institution Archives will be celebrating African American History Month throughout February with a series of related posts on THE BIGGER PICTURE.
Description: Across the Smithsonian, in hundreds of photographic collections, you’ll find images that document historic objects and events, species on land and under the oceans, cultural achievement, and data that streams in from outer space on a daily basis.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Fingers typing, by Simon Steiner, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."] [/caption] You know that sinking, then maddening feeling: you need to find something you’ve carefully put away, but can’t remember where you’ve stored it or how you characterized or labeled it. That common problem, when it’s blown up to institutional
Description: [caption id="attachment_7871" align="alignleft" width="187" caption="A rendering of the AT&T Building, now the SONY Building, in New York, recently purchased by the Victoria & Albert Museum from a newly discovered cache of material from the Philip Johnson’s architectural practice. Photo courtesy Capelin Communications.
Description: Bloggers on The Bigger Picture often describe how, in the course of their work, they come across intriguing archival objects and artifacts that trigger new insights into history. “Hands on” encounters with compelling evidence from the past are thrilling and can be provocative. But so can different sorts of encounters, including those that are driven by data, rather than
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="403" caption="Untitled, 2001, by Susan Watts, Digital photograph, National Museum of American History, Behring Center, Division of Information Technology and Communications, Courtesy of Susan Watts/New York Daily News, Image No. watts012."][/caption] Given how quickly photographs are spread by the news and social media, we’ve come to