Description: Even though the world is becoming increasingly more electronic, many of us still have an abundance of things not created or saved in digital format. Whether it's old letters, original architectural drawings from the house your grandfather built, books, photographs, or home movies on Super 8, figuring out how to store these things can be difficult. [caption id="attachment_7890"
Description: To celebrate International Migratory Bird Day on May 9th, we will be releasing recently digitized specimen drawings by ornithologist Robert Ridgway (1850-1929.) Ridgway's career with the Smithsonian began in 1864 when he wrote asking for help identifying a bird. As they say, the rest is history. Starting in 1869, Ridgway became curator at the Smithsonian's United States
Description: On Thursday, October 22nd, four of our archivists/conservators were available on the Smithsonian's Facebook page to answer questions about preserving your own archival collections. The four archivists at the Q&A have specialties in the preservation and organization of audio/visual material, photos, and digital records (email, digital video, etc.) This is our fifth year hosting
Description: Dr. Patricia Gossel, chairman of the Science, Medicine and Society Division, Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, established the history of biology collection at the museum, studied the history of the contraceptive pill, and published more than two dozen scholarly articles before her death. #Groundbreaker
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: Wildlife physiologist Kim Terrell, at the Smithsonian National Zoo's Conservation Biology Institute, is studying how climate change impacts hellbenders, the largest salamander in North America.
Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="254" caption="Untitled (In the Movie House Watching "Haunting of Hill House"), ca. 1950, Weegee, Gelatin silver print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum Museum purchase, 1988.45."][/caption] Weegee on news photography: “I will walk many times with friends down the street and they'll say, ‘Hey, Weegee. Here's a drunk or two drunks
Description: What Not to Wear: The National Portrait Gallery has a dramatic before/after makeover of James Monroe. Check out this great profile of our photograph archivist, Marguerite Roby. The NY Times Opinionator weighs in on in what exactly constitutes an “heirloom,” what this means in a throw-away culture, and the reasons why we save (or try and get rid of) so many dusty old things