Description: Friday, September 15th, 2017 marks the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Anacostia Community Museum. Originally named the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum, Secretary Ripley envisioned this as a place to reach out to black residents of Washington, DC who were not seeing themselves in the museums on the Mall. Reporting on the opening of the museum, Secretary Ripley writes that
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_14492,size=500,center]Dr. Squires was a pioneer in the application of computer technology in science museums and the founding father of data processing at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). He died on his 90th birthday, December 19, 2017 in Tasmania, Australia, after a short illness. Squires received an B.A. from Cornell
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_9988,size=500,center]While many people view the Smithsonian as a complex of museums in Washington, DC, it began as and still is an international organization devoted to research and education. A look at the Smithsonian Global website reveals where Smithsonian staff can be found today.Since the Smithsonian’s founding in 1846, the Institution has
Description: If you happen to walk by a museum or a library one evening this weekend, and there's a light on inside, or perhaps a flicker in the window, don't pass it by. There's a good chance that you stumbled on The Common Ground: a community curated meetup. The Common Ground gatherings are being hosted by museums and libraries around the world to celebrate The Commons on Flickr and the
Description: [view in Spanish]International exchange has always been a major part of the Smithsonian's mission. To acquire publications from leading scientific societies, Secretary Henry offered in exchange the journal, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. Henry and assistant secretary Baird also distributed publications from U.S. colleges, museums, scientific societies, and scientists
Description: Vernacular photography is the latest type of photography to be discovered by museums. Postcards, collected by Walker Evans (but still, postcards), have just been exhibited by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a tintype exhibition just closed at the International Center of Photography in New York, another exhibit of snapshots was seen at the National Gallery of Art.
Description: How photos from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Gardens help preserve the memory of gardens (such as the Middlegate Japanese Gardens pictured above) that are now gone. The Museum of the Future has a great roundup of videos and blogs about museums, technology, and media. An update on earthquake damage at the Smithsonian, and hear Smithsonian Secretary (and earthquake
Description: The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) was created on November 18, 1989, when President George H.W. Bush signed an act allowing the transfer of the Museum of the American Indian into the Smithsonian to create NMAI. As one of the Smithsonian’s newer museums, the images in this gallery show the evolution of postcard use at the Smithsonian. The NMAI postcards mainly
Description: Link Love: a weekly post with links to interesting videos and stories about archival issues, technology and culture, and Washington D.C. and American history.
Description: It is with sadness that I report that Mitch Toda is stepping down as the blog coordinator. Since 2011, Mitch Toda has been the man behind-the-scenes making sure everything runs smoothly. As a staff archivist, he works daily with the records he takes in from Smithsonian museums and offices such as the new National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Office of
Description: For Draw a Bird Day, Smithsonian Libraries highlights the work of some of the Smithsonian’s youngest scientific illustrators. [via Smithsonian Libraries] [edan-image:id=siris_arc_369082,size=450,center]THE CITY features the archives and museums working to collect documentation of New Yorkers’ experiences during the pandemic. [via THE CITY]The latest in movie recs: historical