Description: This is the latest post in our series on career advice for the aspiring archives professionals. Each edition features information and career advice from a different member of the Archives team, regarding what they do, how they got here, and how you can too. Check out our previous posts, and be sure to let us know who you would like to hear from next!
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Bus Seats, by Adam Gerard, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License"][/caption] I took a stroll at lunch today since it’s that time of year again when the magnolia trees bloom in the Smithsonian Castle’s Enid Haupt Garden. It’s important to catch it before a rain or a big breeze snatches
Description: Archived correspondence between Joseph Hirshhorn and modern artists Willem de Kooning, Alexander Calder, and Marc Chagall bring light to the means in which we communicate artist to collector relationships in the digital era.
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: The 2018 public domain graduates, including Aleister Crowley, René Magritte, Alice B. Toklas, Pierre Bonnard, and Winston Churchill! [via Public Domain Review]The history of dealing with lack of light in Scandanavia, and Happy Solstice! [via Mosaic Science]Aww, baby pictures of the internet from 1973! [via Open Culture]Close-ups of Jupiter from NASA look like impressionist
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Untitled, by Thomas Smillie, c. 1890, Smithsonian Institution Archives."][/caption] One of the things people often want to know about photography at the Smithsonian is, “How many photographs do you have?” with the quick follow-up, “Have you counted all of them?” No one knows for certain, but statistical sampling suggests
Description: Nearly two years ago, I first heard of a course on the conservation of Japanese paper co-organized by ICCROM, the cultural heritage arm of UNESCO, and the Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties (also known in Japanese as “Tobunken”). Over three weeks, the course offered a first-hand look at the traditional Japanese conservation techniques, materials, and
Description: [caption id="attachment_1319" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="AIR TRANSPORT, AIRLINES, USA., 1950s, by Rudy Arnold, National Air and Space Museum, Archives Division "][/caption] As my colleague Effie mentioned back in April, the Smithsonian has been working hard to provide the public with a way to search across the Smithsonian’s diverse digital collections. New
Description: The United States National Museum Curators’ Annual Reports will be added to the Smithsonian Transcription Center, beginning the first week of June.