Description: Congratulations to the main Smithsonian website, which has been nominated for a Webby Award in the category of Best Cultural Institution website! (Please go and vote.) Mark your calendars! The Library of Congress will be hosting the free public event, Pass it On: Personal Archiving Day, on Saturday, April 30, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m to provide the public with information about
Description: Sharon Reinckens, Deputy Director, Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum, has served as Acting Director, Senior Designer, and Supervisory Visual Information Specialist at the museum, 1980–present. Reinckens also produced award-winning documentaries about African American artists in Washington D.C for the museum. #Groundbreaker
Description: Each week, the Archives features a woman who has been a groundbreaker at the Smithsonian, past or present, in a series titled Wonderful Women Wednesday.
Description: Dr. Tuliza Fleming, Curator of American Art at the National Museum of African American History and Culture since 2007, worked to build the museum's foundational American art collection, served as the lead curator for the inaugural exhibition Visual Art and the American Experience, curated Clementine Hunter: Life on Melrose Plantation, and co-curated the traveling exhibition
Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="194" caption="Painting found in Yale Art Gallery's storage, Attributed to Diego Velázquez, The Education of the Virgin (detail shown), ca. 1617–18. Oil on canvas. Yale University Art Gallery."][/caption] Golly gee—sometimes some pretty incredible things are found in museum storage [via @museumnerd]. I worked peripherally on MIT’s
Description: Link Love: a weekly post with links to interesting videos and stories about archival issues, technology and culture, and Washington D.C. and American history.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Perfect, by Bruce Berrien, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] At the turn of the 21st century, as federal organizations and private corporations were competing against each other in the race to decode the human genome, a number of exhibitions that explored areas where genetic science and visual imagery
Description: A few days ago, I went to an IMAX 3D showing of Avatar to see for myself if the movie is a “game-changer,” as many have suggested. And, it is, but in a way no one seems to be focusing on—the way it acknowledges and exploits photography’s power to shape both everyday and alternate realities. What struck me, as soon as the movie started, was how sophisticated the film’s
Description: It was brilliant to work at the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) this past summer as a conservation intern helping to restore damaged books from SIA’s Reference Room. This primary research library includes many histories and annals published by the Smithsonian from the 1880s through the 20th century, and in the process of learning different ways to conserve some of them,