Description: Have you ever wondered why museums choose the exhibition topics they do? These are the kinds of questions that the Smithsonian Institution Archives’ historic records of exhibitions can sometimes help us answer. An idea could stem from the personal interest of a curator, reflect an institution’s holdings, be inspired by comments from a visitor, or be designed around a specific
Description: When you think of the National Museum of Natural History, what comes to mind are probably inanimate things—rocks and dinosaur bones, cultural objects, and stuffed animals. But did you know that the museum has a collection of live insects? Today is the 35th anniversary of the opening of the permanent installation of the Insect Zoo, though the Zoo actually began as a temporary