Description: It’s an old fashioned card catalogue full of jokes! The National Museum of American History gives insight into Phyllis Diller’s “gag file”—50,000 annotated jokes featured in a new exhibition at the museum. How are institutions preserving born digital art? Here’s an article about Rhizome’s ArtBase—an archive of digital artworks [via the National Digital Information
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="336" caption="Uncle Beazley being unloaded at the Smithsonian’s Office of Exhibits Central model shop, February 2011, Courtesy of Office of Exhibits Central blog."][/caption] Even dinosaurs need their baths… The Office of Exhibits Central gives a behind-the-scenes peek into the dino maintenance of Uncle Beazley—the Smithsonian’s
Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="198" caption="Screenshot from music video "Smooth Criminal" by Michael Jackson, Shows use of anti-gravity leaning patent, Courtesy of Wikipedia."][/caption] Umm, this definitely wins the award for my most favorite new discovery in an archive. How did Michael Jackson do that off the hook lean in his dance in “Smooth Criminal”? Apparently
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="Steven Cohn, the Smithsonian’s Office of Safety, Health and Environmental Management and the museum’s representative Industrial Hygienist, tests Owney's fur for arsenic, lead and mercury. Courtesy of the National Postal Museum "Pushing the Envelope" blog."][/caption] More interesting preservation challenges. We’ve covered
Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="216" caption="San Francisco, California, Post Office, Station A, 1895, Unknown photographer, Black and white photographic print, National Postal Museum, Accession number: A.2008-30."][/caption] SepiaTown is a new site geo-mapping historical photos of New York, Moscow, London, and other cities—you can upload your own too. And I just
Description: Visitors: Share photos of your trip to the Smithsonian museums in this new Flickr set! Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes posts an interview with Secretary Clough that includes a mention of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative and Institution’s overall prioritization of digitizing and archiving photographs. Time sink! The BBC launched a World Music Archive this morning! There