Description: From the point in 1838 when the United States Congress accepted James Smithson’s bequest, it was recognized as a cultural resource, a public trust held by the federal government. Smithson had stipulated that the funds be used for an “establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Being a cultural resource set aside for public use, the government bore the
Description: In addition to physical damage and deterioration of storage media, the technological complexity and dependency of electronic records make them uniquely vulnerable to loss, corruption, and alteration (both accidental and malicious). To achieve long-term preservation of fragile born-digital materials, digital archivists need a plan.
Description: The Freer Sackler Gallery’s efforts to make their large collection of squeezes (paper molds that capture the inscriptions of ancient monuments) into an easy-to-use Web resource received a nice write-up on The Atlantic’s Tech blog [originally posted on the Smithsonian Collections Blog]. David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, talks about “balancing access and
Description: In celebration of Archives Month, join us Monday, October 27th, 10am to 4pm ET, where four of our archivists specializing in audio/visual material, photos, and digital records (or electronic records) will be on the Smithsonian's Facebook page to answer questions about your own archival collections. Questions from our readers in the past have ranged from storing letter and
Description: Smithsonian Online (SOL) was an online platform through AOL that included Smithsonian images, chats, message boards and other features during the 1990s.
Description: June the 9th is AskArchivists Day: a day organized by the International Council on Archives to encourage you to ask professional archivists all over the world all of those burning questions about about their profession and about the collections in archives you've always wanted answered.[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="384" caption="The Smithsonian Institution
Description: The comical infographic of the week that's hitting a nerve with electronic records archivists! [via xkcd]Our National Museum of the American Indian is asking the public to submit design ideas for a memorial honoring American Indian military service. [via Navy Times] The oldest museum of African American culture, the DuSable Museum, was founded by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs in