Description: Many of us read, write and send emails every day, but when did it all start at the Smithsonian? In 1980 Smithsonian staff had typewriters and telephones on their desk, with one or two FAX machines per office. The Smithsonian operated a single general purpose computer, the Honeywell mainframe, for all Smithsonian data processing applications and which did not include an email
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: [caption id="attachment_4168" align="aligncenter" width="261" caption="Albumen portrait of the Reverend Levi L. Hill, Baptist minister and early daguerreotypist, West Kill, New York and New York City, b. 1816-d. February 9, 1865. Inscription on reverse, “Levi L. Hill, Died February 9, 1865, He is Asleep in Heaven.”"][/caption] Just when we think that we must have at last
Description: [caption id="" align="alignright" width="192" caption="A shot of Leafsnap, a free tree field guide app from the Smithsonian, University of Maryland, and Columbia University."][/caption] Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution have tapped their experts to help create the world’s first plant identification mobile app using visual search:
Description: Dianne van der Reyden was a paper conservator at the Smithsonian from 1981 to 2002. She was hired by the National Museum of American History in 1981 and was promoted to senior paper conservator and head of the paper conservation section before transferring to the Smithsonian’s Conservation Analytical Laboratory in 1984. There, van der Reyden was promoted to head of paper