Description: We all have the opportunity to support the Smithsonian—come see how the Libraries and Archives Adopt-a-Book program offers a chance to do so.
Description: It’s Preservation Week - see what conservation staff at the Smithsonian Institution Archives are doing to contribute to preservation-mindedness.
Description: With Chinese New Year upon us, the beautiful stationery these letters are written on gives a glimpse into life for academic expatriates in southern China in the 1920s.
Description: A look at the relationship between Smithsonian Secretary Samuel P. Langley and the Wright Brothers during the sometimes contentious race to achieve flight.
Description: Though a large part of our collections are flat—that is, they are unbound materials as opposed to bound, three-dimensional objects—a significant group of our holdings do live in bindings and book structures (some of my previous blog contributions have dealt with books, but none with as great a degree of intervention). Treating a field book became more complicated—and more
Description: So you want to be a conservator? In this continuation of our series on career advice, one of our conservators shares some advice for those looking to explore the professional field of cultural heritage conservation.
Description: Handwriting is a personal passion of mine, despite it having become something of a lost art. Today, when most people think of handwriting at all, it is as a greatly individual method of writing recognizable characters, regardless of the writing system, but in the past, when you could make a living as a scribe, there were highly standardized styles.