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Women in Science Wednesday: Dora Jean Dougherty Strother


What are You Watching?

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Kimberly Springer, Intern, Digital Services Division

The Smithsonian Channel collection of videos that the Smithsonian Institution Archives  is preserving  is so varied and, at times, so out of the ordinary, that many times per week I’m asked, "What are you watching?" Topics include: the use of insects in forensic science; (too many) airplane crashes that shaped modern-day aviation safety; the real story behind Hollywood blockbuster films, such as The Silence of the Lambs; and, of course, TITANOBOA!, the approximately 2,500-pound Paleocene-era snake discovered in Columbia. . The Smithsonian Channel’s productions draw from the Smithsonian's museums, collections, and professional expertise to explore the history of our planet, life and culture.

A major part of my internship at the Archives involved the preservation of Smithsonian Channel digital content. Though we've received video material from other Smithsonian entities, such as the National Museum of Natural History and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, digital material submitted in obsolete formats will prove a trickier challenge. Starting with the still-playable Smithsonian Channel DVDs is a good test case to develop this new workflow.

It’s been a unique opportunity to participate in the praxis, or ideas becoming practice, necessary to preserving and making accessible the wealth of digital materials people are generating.  With the proliferation of smartphones and the means to share video through such venues as YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Instagram, or Snapchat, there has been an explosion in the amount of content to watch, but also an increase in the number of video formats that archives need to manage and preserve.  Not an easy task for sure, but the Archives has been tackling the problems associated with digital video for quite some time now.

At the start of the summer, I had one personal archival project on my to-do list: organize and sort the many Spotify playlists I amassed but didn't alphabetize when I was busy with coursework.  However, if we add VHS and digital recording to the mix, I'll return home with a new digital archives preservation agenda. Personal archiving methods are a super-hot topic right now, so the most important thing that I’ve learned about preserving video from my time here at the Archives is the importance of collaboration in the form of open-source software development. Cultural heritage organizations, such as the Library of Congress and the National Archives, and academic institutions are developing programs collaboratively, as well as relying on users for feedback and/or improvements to the software. For example, a consortium of Illinois universities developed a project, "Preserving (Digital) Objects with Restricted Resources," to suggest sustainable digital preservation solutions. The outcome was a directory of preservation tools—a mix of open source and commercialrecommended by the preservation community.

It's been great to see how the digital preservation community  rises to the challenge of creating software programs that pay attention to preservation needs. Have you ever tried to simply copy an audio or video file from one location to another, but found that the video won't play? Preserving  all the files that accompany a video are key to making sure the video plays properly. The Library of Congress' creation of the BagIt specification helps solve this problem by creating a "bag" that captures and contains all the related elements of a transferred video file.  Being able to "bag" a set of files ensures full file transfer and future playability with the right tools.

What we've found with developing a workflow for the Smithsonian Channel programs is that no one tool covers all of the necessary steps for preserving video. Some of the steps include ingesting or transferring of the video for preservation work, running a checksum, bulk renaming the files to follow standards, and embedding metadata.

In assessing your video preservation needs, have a look around at some of the digital preservation tools available, bearing in mind that some are recommended for institutional use. Jumping in and spending hundreds of dollars for fancy software that doesn't always do what it says on the package isn't something that institutions can afford to do and, likely, neither can you.

I'm returning to my archives program with a new sense of the cooperation and flexibility required to create from scratch a process for keeping up with our evolving digital preservation needs. And, thanks to the Smithsonian Channel's vivid creations, I now have a reservoir of weird and wonderful information for a winning bar trivia strategy.

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Link Love: 8/23/2013

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A Centennial of Independence, 1872, by Henri Rousseau, Object number 88.PA.58, Courtesy of The J. Paul Getty Museum.

See Here: 8/23/2013

Sneak Peek 8/26/2013

Calling All First Ladies

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Kathryn Begeja, Intern, Digital Services Division

Dress of Dolly Madison, Courtesy of the National Museum of American History, neg. no. 72-2404.Imagine: It's 1809 and you are tasked with traveling by carriage across unpaved city streets to deliver correspondence to society’s elites. Are you a courier? Or a page? Perhaps, but you might also be the First Lady! Social historian Barbara Carson explains the varied social duties that 19th - century First Ladies were expected to fulfill in an interview conducted by Smithsonian Productions and now found in the Smithsonian Institution Archives'Accession 03-059 - Smithsonian Productions, Productions, 1987-2001.

In the era before telephones, people delivered calling cards to initiate contact with new acquaintances or to express an intention to meet with someone in the future. Calling cards were especially prevalent at the United States Capitol, where the turnover of congressmen, foreign ministers, and other government officials required a constant stream of new introductions. As the official hostess of the White House, the First Lady had a social obligation to pay calls to new wives, resulting in long and tiresome carriage rides around Washington to deliver calling cards fifteen to thirty times a day.

Dolley Madison, known as one of the White House’s most charming official hostesses, dutifully met this obligation. Her successor, however, broke with calling card tradition by refusing to deliver calling cards. At the time of Elizabeth Monroe’s entry to the White House in 1817, Washington society was rapidly expanding and the ritual of making first calls had become unreasonably demanding. President James Monroe and his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, addressed the necessary change in social protocol by issuing a statement to explain that the First Lady would no longer make first calls. Though Elizabeth Monroe was relieved of this one social burden, she continued to work diligently as a hostess and is credited with bringing European influence to White House state dinners.

Listen to the clip below to hear Barbara Carson’s discussion of calling cards.

 

The social obligations of the First Lady have continued to evolve throughout each presidency. Modern First Ladies are expected to wear many hats during their residence in the White House: official hostess, fashion icon, policy advocate, and campaigner are just a few. As a figurehead of the president’s administration, the First Lady is an ongoing object of public fascination.Dress of Elizabeth Monroe, Courtesy of National Museum of American History, neg. no. 72-2405.

To learn more see the National Museum of American History's First Ladies exhibition.

As an intern at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, I have contributed to the preservation of this collection by converting the Barbara Carson interview and other audio files from digital audio tapes (DATs) to Broadcast WAV files. DATs resemble the once-popular analog cassette tapes except that they are smaller, measuring roughly 2x3 inches, and are able to record digital audio. Since the advent of compact discs (CDs) and other newer audio formats, DATs have become obsolete.

In the DAT transfer process, short periods of missing audio, known as "drop-outs," are a common problem. A drop-out, like the one that occurs in the above clip at 1:57, is generally caused when existing damage on a DAT prevents the proper transfer of audio. Without the current interventions being taken by the Archives, these tapes would linger in archival boxes and, eventually, the recordings would become inaccessible due to either the deterioration of their magnetic tape or the disappearance of DAT reading equipment.

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Link Love: 5/17/2019

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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.

Conservators at the Library of Congress are smooshing dried bugs to replicate the dyes in early printed books! [via the Library of Congress

T. Dale Stewart at Work, by Dougherty, Harold E, 1983, Smithsonian Archives - History Div, 95-250.

Anthropologist Aida Gómez-Robles recently published a study of Neanderthal teeth; the Smithsonian’s Rick Potts thinks she has “bitten off an interesting topic.” [via Smithsonian]

WAMU profilesHabitat,” Smithsonian Gardens’ first Smithsonian-wide exhibition that will run until 2021. [via SI Gardens]

Moongate, Entryway to Sackler Garden

Researchers have mapped the “wood wide web” of trees’ mycorrhizal networks. [via BBC]

A beta version of the “Get the Research” search engine aims to make academic scholarship accessible to the general public. [via infoDOCKET]

The O Say Can You See project analyzes and maps the freedom suits brought by enslaved plaintiffs in early Washington, DC. [via Humanities NE]

These kitty cats are in the public domain. [via Lifehacker]

Photograph shows cat dressed in Viking helmet and shield.

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Image of two large boulders. The boulders are separate by a walkway, and each has a half circle cutout at its center. The Smithsonian Castle is visible through the open circle between the boulders.

Sneak Peek 5/20/2019

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Demolition of roads on the National Mall during conversion of roadways (Washington and Adams drives) to gravel walkways for pedestrians, October 28, 1975, by Jim Wallace, SIA Acc. 11-009, 75-13713-22.

Demolition of Roads on the National Mall

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Preserving Smithsonian World, The First Steps

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As a result of a generous grant, the Archives will soon catalogue and rehouse around 1,750 at-risk audiovisual media related to Smithsonian World.

When Smithsonian Productions ceased operations in February 2002, the Archives received a large influx of their collections. Originally established as the Office of Telecommunications in 1975, Smithsonian Productions was the video, audio, film, and digital media production center for the Smithsonian Institution for over twenty-five years. One of the programs they produced was Smithsonian World, an educational television series that ran from 1984-1991, and won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Information Series in 1987 and 1990. The series consisted of six seasons, with each season containing five to seven one-hour episodes. Smithsonian World explored people, ideas, and events that shape world culture, blending art, science, history, and the humanities to create an exciting harmony among disciplines. The production was narrated by historian David G. McCullough and co-produced by WETA-TV for broadcast on the Public Broadcasting Service. 

Circular tin cans for film that are stacked on top of one another. Slight rust is visible,

Due to its sheer size and the variety of formats represented, many Smithsonian Productions collections have sat unprocessed since the early 2000s. As a result, many of the collections have been stored in inappropriate conditions. The 16mm motion picture films are currently housed in plastic bags inside of rusting film cans with poorly applied labels. The 35mm final show masters are housed in cardboard boxes with no barrier between the film and the acidic cardboard. The ¼-inch audiotapes are housed in their original, poor quality clamshell boxes inside of cardboard boxes stuffed with aging newspaper that acts as padding for the box contents.   

Small, circular records are stacked in tins and covered in plastic.

In March 2019, the Archives was awarded funding from the Smithsonian National Collections Program’s (NCP) Collections Care and Preservation Fund to support the cataloging and rehousing of audiovisual media related to Smithsonian World. This project will address approximately 1,750 unprocessed audiovisual assets that are at risk due to inherent physical condition, improper housing, and lack of intellectual control. The primary goals of this project are to improve the physical storage condition of the films and audiotapes through stabilization and rehousing efforts, and to provide better intellectual access to these materials through the creation of item-level catalog records. 

Long, thin cardboard boxes labeled "Smithsonian World" with various episode titles. The boxes are st

This stabilization and access project will focus specifically on the unprocessed audiovisual materials from Seasons 1 and 2 of Smithsonian World. As part of the project, a contracted audiovisual archivist will generate item-level metadata, rehouse the motion picture film and audiotapes, and aid in the creation of new finding aids to increase access to approximately 1,750 of these currently hidden materials. In completing this project, the Archives can prioritize the collections for digitization based on condition assessments performed by the contractor, and provide better access to these materials through online discoverability for researchers.

The project is expected to run from June 2019 to August 2020, so stay tuned for more updates as the project gets underway!

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Long, thin cardboard boxes labeled "Smithsonian World" with various episode titles. The boxes are stacked on one another.

Wonderful Women Wednesday: Judy Gradwohl

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Judy Gradwohl was a researcher, curator, environmental policy specialist, digital content developer, and leader at the Smithsonian, 1985–2016. She conducted research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and National Zoo, and eventually became the MacMillan Associate Director for Education and Public Engagement at the National Museum of American History in 2004. Notably, Gradwohl established Smithsonian’s Office of Environmental Awareness and helped produce Smithsonian’s first website. #Groundbreaker

A woman wearing glasses poses for a photograph in front of nature scene.

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You Spin Me Round - Frisbee Festivals on the Mall

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Starting in 1977, the National Air and Space Museum, with assistance from the International Frisbee Association, Wham-O Manufacturing Company, volunteer instructors from several states, and the Washington Area Frisbee Club, held their first Frisbee Festival on the National Mall.

These days you'll sometimes find kids tossing around a frisbee on the National Mall or you'll see the lunchtime Ultimate Frisbee players engaged in friendly competitions. In the late 1970s until the early 1980s, over Labor Day weekend, this play happened at a much larger scale when the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) welcomed frisbee champions, frisbee fans, frisbee catching dogs, and the curious public to its Frisbee Festival.

NASM first held it's Frisbee Festival,the brainchild of Bill Good in NASM's Art Department, on September 4, 1977. NASM Director, Michael Collins liked the idea and planning began in the spring of 1977. Sponsored by NASM, with assistance from the International Frisbee Association, Wham-O Manufacturing Company, volunteer instructors from several states, and the Washington Area Frisbee Club, the Festival consisted of demonstrations by world class frisbee disc champions and disc catching dogs, as well as workshops.

The first meeting to plan the festival was held in April 1977. Good enlisted the help of two fellow Frisbee enthusiasts from NASM, planetarium officer Jerry Barbely and public affairs officer Lynne Murphy. Also included in the planning was Larry Schindel, an ultimate Frisbee player from Maplewood, New Jersey who had recently moved to the area and was beginning to form the Washington Area Frisbee Club. The Festival was originally conceived to include competitions, workshops, and exhibitions, but was pared down to include just exhibitions and workshops as a result of the increased logistical complexities having competitions would entail. The decision was to make the event about having fun and for the purpose of public enlightenment and participation. The Festival was billed as the world's best attended, non-competitive disc festival, and the 1980 Festival attracted more than 10,000 people.

Special thanks to photographer, Nathan Benn, for permission to use his images of the 1977 NASM Frisbee Festival. And on a personal note, the Smithsonian staff t-shirts are spectacular! 

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Black and white image of a man jumping in the air doing a Frisbee trick

Link Love: 5/24/2019

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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.

Mark the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment by visiting a DC museum! [via WAMU

"Right to Vote" Exhibit

The New Yorker profiles a New York landscape contractor whose employees are goats. [via New Yorker]

The University of Calgary has unveiled a database of bees! [via infoDOCKET]

Bee Project with Entomologist David W. Roubik, Panama, STRI

Learn how web archives captured new insights on recent Luxembourgish elections. [via Archive-It]

The Virtual Archaeology Museum has just released 3D models of shipwrecks! [via Smithsonian]

Celebrate fifteen million newspaper pages digitized for the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America database with new data visualizations. [via Library of Congress]

NPR shows how volcanologists use ping-pong balls to simulate volcanic eruptions. [via NPR]

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A man wearing a blue baseball cap squints near bees flying. Many bees appear to be resting on a large rock.

Sneak Peek 5/27/2019

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Exterior view of South Shed, looking northeast with Smithsonian Institution Building, or Castle, in view, April 18, 1974. Built in 1898, the South Shed was used for the preparation of exhibition specimens, and later as the "Bug House." It was demolished in the fall of 1975 in preparation for the Victorian Garden which opened in 1976. 

Exterior view of South Shed, looking northeast with Smithsonian Institution Building, or Castle, in

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Hold on Loosely

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In honor of National Paper Clip Day, we asked for help from our fellow institutions to show off their paper clip and fastener collections.  So.....♪just hold on loosely, But maybe let go, If you cling too tightly, You're gonna cause a hole (tear or rust mark on the document). ♪

Whether we love to hate them, or hate to love them, paper clips are a huge part of working in archives.  In an attempt to showcase this little contraption, we did a call out to the twitterverse for other archivists to share their collection of paper clips.  Needless to say, it was not a disappointment.  Now go forth archivists! And remember Clippy will always be there to *help*. 

Clip art or artifact of paper torture. Courtesy of Smithsonain Institution Archives Preservation Team.

Fastner display. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Library and Archives.

Fastener collection put together by National Archives staff while processing records in Denver between 1985 and 1990. Courtesy of Chloe MacDonald and the National Archives at Denver.

Fastener collection put together by National Archives staff while processing records in Denver between 1985 and 1990. Courtesy of Chloe MacDonald and the National Archives at Denver.

Fastener collection put together by National Archives staff while processing records in Denver between 1985 and 1990. Courtesy of Chloe MacDonald and the National Archives at Denver.

Fastener collection put together by National Archives staff while processing records in Denver between 1985 and 1990. Courtesy of Chloe MacDonald and the National Archives at Denver.

Fastener collection put together by National Archives staff while processing records in Denver between 1985 and 1990. Courtesy of Chloe MacDonald and the National Archives at Denver.

Fastener collection. Courtesy of Alan Walker and the National Archives at College Park.

Paper clip collection. Courtesy of @archival_trash via Twitter.

Paper clips collected from materials at the Freer|Sackler Archives. Courtesy of Lisa Fthenakis.

Paper clips from the Penn State Special Collections Library. We Are....! Courtesy of Katelyn Town.

Multi color paper clips from Smithsonian Institution Archives' AIM team. Courtesy of author.

Paper clips in a row from Smithsonian Institution Archives' AIM team. Courtesy of author.

More paper clips from the AIM team (we never really stop finding them). Courtesy of author.

Even more paper clips from the AIM team. Courtesy of author.

Yes....even more paper clips from the AIM team. Courtesy of author.

Stainless steel paper clips. These are what archivists like to see and use. Courtesy of author.

An honorary mention for the paper clip's younger fastener friend. The binder clip. Courtesy of Jessica Hartman at the National Archives, College Park.

Thanks to all the archives, libraries, and archivists that contributed images for this fun and whacky blog.

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Wonderful Women Wednesday: Dr. Katherine Ralls

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Dr. Katherine Ralls, Senior Research Zoologist Emerita, Center for Conservation Genomics, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, was one of the first scientists hired at the Smithsonian's National Zoo and is a founder of the Society for Conservation Biology. She has conducted research in mammalogy and conservation biology at the Smithsonian since 1973. #Groundbreaker

A woman in a purple jacket smiles at the camera and holds a pair of binoculars.


Some more IIIF-y Collections

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The Smithsonian Institution Archives begins to further implement the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF).

About a year ago, I wrote a post to introduce our new collection viewer. Though the change was slightly inconspicuous, it actually pointed to a much bigger transition that was happening on our site. That shift began when the Archives adopted the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF, pronounced “triple-eye-eff”).

All of our single collection images now boasted their own IIIF manifest files. These manifest files, a JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) files that contain the structured metadata associated with a collection item and a link to a full-size image of the object. These manifest files can be loaded into and ready by any IIIF viewer in order to pull up and view that given collection item. That way, you could compare two IIIF-enabled items from different institutions. For example, I highlighted comparing a self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh from the Harvard Art Museums and a picture of an otter from our own collection.

Short GIF of zooming in on an otter image, next to a painting of a man.

I’m not sure why anyone would want to compare 19th-century post-impressionist painters with members of the weasel family, but you can.  A more likely example would be comparing an engraving of James Smithson with a bust of James Smithson.

Two images of a man, placed side by side. One is an engraving and the other is a photograph of a bus

Since the roll out, IIIF has been spreading through our site. It’s even on our search result pages as thumbnails. Meanwhile, our multi-paged documents pages haven’t changed at all. They had not been IIIF enabled. Instead, all they featured was a thumbnail, a link off site.

Screenshot of a webpage with a single image visible.

Why no love for our multi-paged documents? The answer has to do with technical limitations that were present at the time. While our centralized image and metadata repositories did a great job at creating manifests for us, they couldn’t handle big multi-paged documents.

Luckily, due to requirements of the old system we used, we were generating xml files containing structural metadata. 2,000 of them, in fact. These files are a lot like the JSON files we need for IIIF, but they were just in a different format. A transform later, and those 2,000 xml files were converted into the IIIF friendly JSON files.

We still needed a place to put them.

As I’m writing a blog to introduce our first few multi-paged documents going out, you may have guessed that we figured that part out too. Now that we’ve managed to clear up those few technical hurdles, we’re slowly starting to push them out on our site (they do require a bit of manual labor to point our metadata services to the JSON files). The first few collections you’re likely going to notice them have to do with Smokey Bear.

https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_14926

https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_14927

https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_14925

https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_14917

If you play around with those collections (actually, any of our IIIF collections) and you have a really keen eye, you may have noticed a slight change to our viewer. Specifically, in the tool bar.

Screenshot of a webpage with a large image and three smaller images.

Our viewer now has a download button on it. That button will give you two options. One, you can grab the manifest file for that collection so you can pull it into another IIIF viewer. The other option is to download a copy of the image you are currently viewing.

Eventually we will get all of our 2,000 multi-paged collections hooked up to our new viewer. But, in the meantime, feel free to check out the cool collections of Smokey Bear. It’s a great way to kick off his 75th anniversary.

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Short GIF of zooming in on an otter image, next to a painting of a man.

Link Love: 5/31/2019

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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.

An animal behaviorist found the fossilized remains of a fifty million-year-old school of fish—while on vacation in a dinosaur museum! [via New York Times]

Smithsonian Magazine profiles the U.S. National Tick Collection, currently housed at Georgia Southern University. [via Smithsonian]

The Washington Post discusses the historic implications of Lonnie Bunch's upcoming Secretaryship. [via Washington Post]

Bunch Presents Site Info at NMAAHC Town Hall Meeting

The National Museum of Natural History’s new fossil hall will open Saturday, June 8! [via Washington Post

Paleontology Laboratory, USNM, by Unknown, 1926, Smithsonian Archives - History Div, MNH-4886B.

American Libraries Magazine explores the advantages of library-in-laundromat initiatives. [via American Libraries]

Diana Marsh, Caitlin Haynes, and Gina Rappaport review the ethical challenges surrounding access to Native archival materials at the National Anthropological Archives. [via Society of American Archivists]

Watch as the UK’s National Gallery tours a 17th-century self-portrait in women’s prisons. [via Future of Museums]

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A man stand at a podium and is talking and holding up his hands. A slide is projected on a large screen and is titled "Site Evaluation Study."

Sneak Peek 6/3/2019

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Secretary-elect Lonnie G. Bunch III after his appointment as associate chair of the Department of Social and Cultural History at National Museum of American History, October 4, 1991, by Laurie Minor.

Lonnie G. Bunch III after his appointment as associate chair of the Department of Social and Cultura

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Rolling Up Our Cardigans with Record Unit 95

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Emily Niekrasz and Marguerite Roby

Thanks to a generous grant from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, the Archives will digitize, catalog, and make available 7,500 historic photographs of the Smithsonian from Record Unit 95.

Researchers, staff, and pretty much everyone else—rejoice! Because thanks to a recent grant we received from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, the Smithsonian Institution Archives will digitize, catalog, and make available forty percent of Record Unit 95.  

But in order to recognize why this opportunity is so exciting, it is important to understand what this collection represents and how it came to the Archives.

This particular historic collection of photographs documents the people, buildings, exhibitions, programs, objects, and more that have formed today’s Smithsonian Institution. Many of the images in this collection reveal the happenings at the Smithsonian during its earliest years in the nineteenth century and leading up until the 1960s.

At the end of the project, some images you might explore are scenes from the first days of the National Zoological Park, including taxidermy mammals and birds, plants, and geological specimens. Additionally, many of these photographs freeze moments in time in Washington, D.C’s ever-changing landscape. Below are some of Photo Archivist Marguerite Roby’s favorite photographs from the collection that are already available on our website.

A man stares directly at a flying squirrel that is mid-air.

Ernest P. Walker, Assistant Director, National Zoological Park, with a flying squirrel, circa 1930s, SIA RU000095 [2002-10670]

A woman bends over near a desk and looks directly at the camera.

Merle Crisler Foshag examines geological specimens, 1926, SIA RU000095 [2002-12180]

Blue-tinted image of animals on display.

Vertebrate Paleontology exhibition at United States National Museum in Natural History Building, 1913, SIA RU000095 [2005-2999]

A man in a suit and hat holds a bottle up to the mouth of a camel in a field.

William H. Blackburne, the first head keeper at the National Zoological Park, bottle feeds a young dromedary (Bactrian) camel on the grounds of the National Zoo, 1900s, SIA RU000095 [SIA2008-3016]

A man and woman interact. The man is sitting at a desk and the woman is standing and holding a piece

Helen Munroe, head of the Smithsonian Publication Room, and William Jones Rhees, first keeper of the Archives, circa 1900s, SIA RU000095 [SIA2008-4482]

A blue-tinted image of a giraffe on display.

Giraffe specimen from the Smithsonian-Roosevelt Expedition (1909-1910), on display in Mammal Hall at the United States National Museum, now known as the National Museum of Natural History, circa 1915, ID: SIA RU000095 [28161]

A portrait photograph of a man sitting, He is holding his chin up with a hand and is resting an elbo

Portrait of Robert Kennicott (1835-1866), explorer and naturalist, in his field clothes. Noted for his field work in Alaska, Kennicott was one of a group of young naturalists who lived in the Smithsonian Institution Building or "Castle" and dubbed themselves "The Megatherium Club." Kennicott died in Alaska on May 13, 1866, while commanding the Russian-American Telegraph Expedition, also known as the Western Union Telegraph Expedition, SIA RU000095 [SIA2011-0145]

Blue-tinted image of an old iteration of the American flag.

Star-Spangled Banner outside the Smithsonian Institution Building, or Castle, 1907, ID: SIA RU000095 [19703A]

Stereoscopic views of a building.

Stereoscopic view of the exterior of the original Corcoran Gallery of Art, now known as the Renwick Gallery, designed by architect, James Renwick, Jr., and erected between 1859 and 1861 for William Wilson Corcoran's collection of paintings and sculpture, circa 1880s, SIA RU000095 [SIA2011-1138]

View of the Smithsonian Institution Building with a dirt road.

Exterior view of the Smithsonian Institution Building, or Castle, 1865, ID: SIA RU000095 [SIA2011-1448]

Distant image of a plane in the sky.

An instantaneous photograph by Alexander Graham Bell of Langley Aerodrome No. 5 in flight May 6, 1896. This aerodrome or flying machine was developed by Samuel Pierpont Langley, 1834-1906, astrophysicist and third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1906, SIA RU000095 [SIA2012-3092]

Image of two hippos. The smaller hippo is in the front.

Male and female Nile hippopotamuses at National Zoological Park, 1914, SIA RU000095 [SIA2012-12180]

Two people ride horseback and stop to speak with someone who is walking their dog.

Mary Vaux Walcott and Charles Doolittle Walcott riding horseback in Yoho Canyon, British Columbia, Canada, July 1924, SIA RU000095 [SIA2014-03834]

Two men stand in a field and look through two telescopes.

Secretary Samuel Pierpont Langley looks through telescope set up for viewing of solar eclipse at the camp at Wadesboro, North Carolina, May 1900, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, SIA RU000095 [18590]

Another important aspect about this record unit to understand is how it became a collection.  And quite frankly, this unit of photographs is pretty random. The Archives maintains this record unit as a central file to document the history of the Smithsonian. It’s a combination of reference files which were created by various administrative offices and individual photographs, which were discovered separately from manuscripts or collections. Because these records originate from a variety of sources, they require an above-average amount of research.

That’s where the grant funding comes in.

The funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Women’s Committee will be used to hire a digital imaging technician who will digitize and catalog 7,500 records over a six-month period. After that period, our photo archivists will work to provide detailed metadata in order to give context to those records. This project is scheduled through February 2020, so stay tuned for some of our favorite finds.

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A man in a suit and hat holds a bottle up to the mouth of a camel in a field.

Wonderful Women Wednesday: Laurie M. Penland

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Laurie M. Penland, Diving Officer for the Smithsonian Scientific Diving Program, has traveled the globe providing diving support and training since 2005. She is also a professional photographer, capturing underwater photographs and videos for the Smithsonian. #Groundbreaker

A diver in a wetsuit and diving gear stops for an underwater photo.

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