Description: In honor of MayDay – Do One Thing for Emergency Preparedness, 2014, here is an item of interest about a new group at the Smithsonian called Preparation and Response in Collections Emergencies (PRICE) and resources on Incident Command in emergencies for cultural heritage organizations.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="420" caption="The Great Pyramid and the Great Sphinx, from "Egypt, Sinai and Jerusalem" Portfolio, 1858, Francis Frith"][/caption] The first examples of travel photography are almost simultaneous with the invention of photography itself. In 1841, following an extensive trip through the Middle East, wine merchant and early photographer,
Description: In celebration of over a century of volunteer contributions at the Smithsonian, explore the work of some stellar volunteers from our collection.
Description: The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (NPG) will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2018. Ahead of next year’s festivities, NPG unveiled an exhibition commemorating its May 1968 opening. The Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) provided several pieces for this gallery, including a photo of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s dedication speech on May 3rd. Check out the full
Description: Have a little fun with images from our collections that have been designated as open access. Anyone can now download, transform, share, and reuse millions of images as part of Smithsonian Open Access.
Description: Art history memes are back and better than ever. [via Bored Panda]The fascinating story behind the Freer Sackler's Peacock Room. [via Atlas Obscura]A new app, Seek, for identifying plants and animals, the "Shazam of Nature." [via My Modern Met]Speaking of apps, you can now create 3D artwork in Augmented Reality with Artopia! [via Colossal]And we have an app for Archives
Description: Ouch — the Society of Women Engineers has a collection of rejection letters sent to women attempting to gain entry to engineering programs. [via Atlantic]A new discovery of 300,000 year old remains of Homo sapiens shows that our species evolved in multiple locations on the African continent. [via NY Times]iNaturalist.org is launching an app that will help you identify plants
Description: Henry David Hubbard (1870-1943), a physicist at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards, designed the first edition of the "Periodic Chart of the Atoms" in 1924. The chart is still in use today, continually updated to reflect new elements.
Description: It was July 1880 in Washington, DC and Smithsonian Secretary, Spencer Baird, had fled the city with his family for cool ocean breezes and to study the fishing grounds off the New England coast at Woods Hole on Cape Cod. For those left behind minding the Smithsonian Castle, it was probably hot, humid, and hellish in town and they were in need of relief. Luckily, the proprietors
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.