The Fix – Le Chic Fashion Magazines

Le Chic Magazine January 1908

Le Chic Magazine January 1908

Eight Le Chic fashion magazines are currently patients in the Book Conservation Lab.  The magazines came to us from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Library.  They date from the early 20th century and were published in Vienna, Austria. The fashions are reminiscent of the costumes seen in Downton Abbey or Mr. Selfridge! Continue reading

Political messages in Artists’ books

Sue Coe 1

Cover of Sue Coe’s “X”.

This post was contributed by Anna Brooke, librarian at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library.

One of the Hirshhorn Museum Library’s artists’ books with a political message is X by Sue Coe.  Coe is a British artist-journalist born Tamworth (Staffordshire), England in 1951. She attended the Royal College of Art, London. In 1972 she moved to New York City where she lives and works. Art and politics will be the theme for the Art Libraries Society (Arlis) conference which will be held in Washington, D. C. in the spring of 2014. Continue reading

Floors and Walls

ArmstrongSILtrioWhen I moved into my apartment many years ago, I got rid of the old fashioned, worn out linoleum that reminded me of the floors of my childhood, but I was intrigued by the walls in the living room.

  Continue reading

Historical Sioux Tribal Newspapers See the Light of Day

"Anpao" newspaper being digitized.

“Anpao Kin” newspaper, ready for scanning.

This post was contributed by Ann Juneau, Department Head, National Museum of Natural History Library.

A determined need to know more about their heritage and history is what drove the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community in Minnesota to want to digitize two newspapers of their ancestors in the Dakotas. First contacting the American Indian Studies Research Institute at Indiana University, The Community began their quest.  The communique for assistance then went on to a Smithsonian Institution emeritus anthropologist, and close colleague of the Institute’s director, and the kinetic energy was established. Continue reading

African Art in the Cultural Heritage Library

lecongoillustr11892brux_0137The Cultural Heritage Library (CHL) has been through a few incarnations over the last 3 years but the content remains the same. It is a digital collection that includes materials from the History, Art, and Culture libraries within the Smithsonian. The collection has been developed using branch librarian’s selections as well as items that have been identified as being relatively scarce according to OCLC holdings. Subject headings are part of the descriptive metadata for each title and are available to browse from the Internet Archive website, providing an at-a-glance overview of the collection. Continue reading