Description: [caption id="attachment_8083" align="aligncenter" width="336" caption="The mysterious cabinet of curiosities with assorted film cameras perched on top, 2010, by Michael Barnes, SIA."][/caption] Last fall a piece of furniture showed up in the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) reception area. Aside from a few nicks, it is a large, handsome cabinet with drawers and double
Description: We are pleased to announce a new mobile experience produced by the Archives, Castle of Curiosities. The Smithsonian's first building, the Castle, opened its doors in 1855. While the Norman architectural style evoked "learned university," it was bordered by fetid canals and rather isolated from the rest of Washington D.C. Check out an app about iconic stories in the history of
Description: Welcome to the Smithsonian Institution Archives’ new home on the web! Since joining the Archives, I’ve been impressed by the staff’s enthusiasm for the collections are custodians of, and their level of commitment to making the collections available and useful to researchers and enthusiasts.
Description: Wired Science has great coverage of our recent “Field Book Lantern Slides” Flickr Commons set, complete with more information from the Smithsonian’s Thomas Jorstad, who works in the paleontology department at the National Museum of Natural History. Yeek! A Dust Archive (for real!) [via Marguerite Roby, SIA].
Description: Here at the Smithsonian we love to observe. So of course on August 23, 2011, at 1:51 PM, when a 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook the Washington, DC region and many of us with it, we immediately started to observe what happened and how we could document it. As the Institution's historians, inevitably we needed to know, had this happened before and what were the effects? After
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: Each Monday, sit back, relax, and ease into the work week with puzzles created from images in our collections that have been designated as open access. Anyone can now download, transform, share, and reuse these images as part of Smithsonian Open Access, launched in 2020.Even though it’s not quite spring, the start of daylight savings time has our minds in cherry blossom
Description: In alignment with SI's newly launched Smithsonian Open Access, Smithsonian Institution Archives has designated over 2000 items as open access!