2011 Resident Scholar Applications

Johannes Hevelius, Machinae Coelestis Pars Prior [and Posterior] [Celestial machines, or astronomical instruments], 1673-79, Four male figures (including Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, and possibly Ptolemy and Aristotle) contemplate a celestial globe; allegorical figures surround them

The Libraries will award grants to Dibner Library Resident Scholars and Baird Society Resident Scholars in the 2011 academic year. These competitive short-term grants are offered for one to six months to historians, librarians and bibliographers, as well as predoctoral and postdoctoral students, with an approved research project. The scholars will complete their residencies at one or more of the Libraries’ twenty branches for various lengths of time throughout the year.

Dibner Library Resident Scholars will do research in the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology in the National Museum of American History. The Dibner Library specializes in the physical sciences and technology, and holds more than 25,000 rare books and 10,000 manuscripts covering a wide variety of subject areas and time periods, particularly in mathematics, astronomy, classical and Renaissance natural philosophy, theoretical physics, experimental physics, engineering and scientific apparatus and instruments. The collections range from early printed works of ancient Greek and medieval scholars through the Renaissance and Early Modern eras up through the 19th century. There are significant works by Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Galileo, Descartes, Newton and many others. This award is supported by The Dibner Fund.

Baird Society Resident Scholars will do research in other Libraries’ special collections located in Washington, D.C., and New York City. Included are 19th- and early 20th-century World’s Fairs printed materials; manufacturers’ commercial trade catalogs, numbering more than 300,000 pieces and representing 30,000 companies from the 1840s to the present; natural-history rare books; the air-and-space history special collection for the study of ballooning, rocketry and aviation from the late-18th to the early-20th centuries; James Smithson’s library; and the European and American decorative arts, architecture and design special collection, which spans the 18th to the 20th centuries. This award is supported by the Smithsonian Libraries Spencer Baird Society.

The deadline for applications to the 2011 resident scholar programs is April 1st. Visit our website for application materials and further information or e-mail SILResidentScholars@si.edu.—Liz O'Brien