Description: [caption id="attachment_9678" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="View of the Archives Fair setup, October 22, 2010."][/caption] We are going to be live blogging from the Smithsonian Archives Fair this morning and profiling all of the activities that will be going on today. Stay tuned throughout the day to see what's going on. [caption id="attachment_9680"
Description: Happy Fourth of July! On Independence Day, flags are flown across the nation. The Smithsonian has many versions of the American flag in its collections, the best known being the Star Spangled Banner. But, do you know its history, and how it came to the Smithsonian? The Star Spangled Banner is a huge 15-star, 15-stripe garrison flag, 30 feet by 42 feet, made in 1813 by Mary
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="310" caption="Foster Henderson Benjamin (1895-1936), lepidopterist, was with the United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Entomology, There he assisted in the investigations of the Mexican (Texas, 1927) and Mediterranean (Florida, 1929) fruit flies, c. 1927, by Unidentified photographer, Sepia photographic print, Smithsonian
Description: As the Preservation Intern at the Archives this summer, my main project was part of a massive re-organization of the oversized map cases at the Archives. An introduction to that project can be found in blog posts by previous interns, Caitria Sunderland and Margaret Rose Hunt. However, when taking breaks from the cool climate of collections storage, I worked on rehousing the
Description: An international community of researchers and practitioners are driving the professional practice of digital preservation towards greater maturity and opening doors to new levels of access.
Description: [caption id="attachment_7261" align="alignleft" width="430" caption="Advertisement on Fifth Avenue in New York City, 2010, Photo courtesy of Marvin Heiferman."][/caption] You’ve probably noticed, in recent years, that in order to attract shoppers’ attention retail establishments have been filling both exterior and interior display spaces with big, colorful, and evocative
Description: Archives are often used by genealogists to create their family histories. Often it's a tedious process that can involve many repositories throughout the country or even the world, but the final product can be fascinating. Take, for instance, Melbourne ("Mel") Romaine Carriker's Vista Nieve: The Remarkable True Adventures of an Early Twentieth Century Naturalist and His Family
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="301" caption="Doris Mable Cochran (1898-1968), herpetologist in the Division of Reptiles and Amphibians of the United States National Museum (now the National Museum of Natural History). Cochran was appointed an aid to Leonhard Stejneger in 1919, Assistant Curator in 1927, Associate Curator in 1942, and Curator in 1956. She retired in
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.