Description: How Smithsonian entomologist Harrison Dyar's field notes, now available on the Smithsonian Transcription Center, are improving present-day research done by Smithsonian Resident Research Associate Dr. Jorge Santiago-Blay.
Description: Collections here at the Archives span over 171 years of Smithsonian history and include personal papers of the many notable people who have been part of its work in science and culture. Cryptic and coded content is not unusual here. One would expect special vocabulary in the accessions of scientific observations. For example, notations of depth, temperature, and sounding and
Description: An international community of researchers and practitioners are driving the professional practice of digital preservation towards greater maturity and opening doors to new levels of access.
Description: The intense efforts that started the Field Book Project and have kept it in high gear are slowing down to a sustainable pace. After almost ten years, grant funding for the Field Book Project has drawn to a close, but there is still plenty more to look forward to that will benefit researchers for years to come.
Description: People everywhere are helping the Smithsonian Institution Archives make more of its collections deeply accessible through helping transcribe field books, journals, and diaries in our collections.
Description: As we digitize the Archives’ collections to make them available online, I am constantly being exposed to handwriting from the past two centuries. As a result, I have a deeper appreciatiation of how many different things influence the way a person’s writing appears on the page, things beyond the quality of their penmanship. Writing on the deck of a ship, on horseback or on
Description: As a teenager, Robert Ridgway was tapped by the Smithsonian’s Assistant Secretary to be an expedition zoologist. In 1881, when the US National Museum opened its doors, he was the curator of Birds. Download and reuse some of bird illustrations today through Smithsonian Open Access.
Description: Current headlines about war and the impact of forced migration on women are stark reminders of historic migrations and how women adapted and took on new roles.In 1987, Field to Factory: Afro-American Migration 1915-1940 premiered at the National Museum of American History.
Description: The Smithsonian’s scientists and naturalists were, and still are, constantly on the move. When they weren’t in the field, they were in the museum studying collected specimens, writing papers, and getting ready for the next series of trips. Dr. Waldo LaSalle Schmitt (1887-1977) was no exception.Logistics is a special skill, an essential one when traveling on scientific
Description: When it comes to the Smithsonian Transcription Center, there’s always more to discover, more material with which to engage. It can be easy to lose track of just how much our crowd of #volunpeers accomplished and why it is so important to us. We’re not done yet, but after four years, it’s a good time to take a step back and see what has been accomplished through the effort of