Description: Unusual sized and shaped items can be a challenge in archives—here’s how our conservation staff dealt with a particularly tricky accession.
Description: We’ve learned so much about the specific women of James Smithson’s family though the Hungerford Deed—but what can it tell us about women’s rights in the eighteenth century?
Description: Much has been learned and uncovered about the Hungerford Deed—but what is still out there to learn? Dig in with us to explore a few of these unanswered questions!
Description: Finding a unique housing solution to preserve a historic photograph, detailing the history of one of the Smithsonian's earliest employees.
Description: Being away from the office for over a year has given us a lot of opportunity to think about what workflows will look like once we are able to return to our collections, especially for conservation and digitization.
Description: Our treasures can pose significant—and often unexpected—challenges, like when a map has been attached to a hotel linen. See how our staff tackled a complex intervention in progress!
Description: Though a large part of our collections are flat—that is, they are unbound materials as opposed to bound, three-dimensional objects—a significant group of our holdings do live in bindings and book structures (some of my previous blog contributions have dealt with books, but none with as great a degree of intervention). Treating a field book became more complicated—and more