Description: It would be hard to imagine stepping into a Smithsonian museum today and not seeing a single camera. Digital cameras and smart phones with cameras are so completely a part of today’s museum-going experience that - unless a flash goes off in your face – you probably wouldn’t notice the camera next to you. However, in 1938, you would have seen a very different sight. On August
Description: On the 190th anniversary of the death of Smithsonian founding donor James Smithson, we’re taking a look back at his posthumous journey, led by Alexander Graham Bell, to his final resting place in Washington, D.C.
Description: When I started working with museums in 2005, the concept of crowdsourcing was in its infancy. That year, James Surowiecki ‘s book, “The Wisdom of Crowds,” was published and there were tiny experiments in crowdsourcing occurring in the cultural heritage sector. There were hesitations and objections about the whole concept within the GLAM (gallery, library, archive, museum)
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_10193,size=175,left]Fifty years ago the Smithsonian embarked on a new venture to bring the culture on display in the museum to life with the first Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Then called the Festival of American Folklife, it set out to show that the crafts shown inside museums are also still alive and well across the country.
Description: Birds of a feather flock together, especially if they are a pair of patriotic turkeys who took up residency at the Smithsonian's National Zoo.
Description: Photos in the Science Service collection documenting Herbert Hoover's historic acceptance of the Presidential nomination with live radio coverage.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="406" caption="Daniel Stanley, Curator of Sedimentology, Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, watching a videotape of the ocean bottom of Wilmington Canyon, On the screen is a penetrometer, which shows the bottom consistency, 1969, by Unknown photographer, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives,