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Month: November 2012

Sharing Your Research in the Cloud

Trina Brown
November 14, 2012
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Image of a hot air balloon floating among clouds
Illustration from Voyages aeriens by James Glaisher, 1870

Have you ever been working on a research project with a group of people and wished for a better way to share your work online, or “in the cloud”? Well, a number of tools exist for just this purpose – including the two reference managers I told you about in my last couple of Library Hacks posts. In my final post on these tools, I’ll discuss how both Zotero and Mendeley offer ways to help you collaborate and communicate with colleagues to make sharing research easier. So far, these tools may have seemed pretty similar, but this is where you will see some distinct differences between the two.

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Veterans Day: We Remember the Bombardier

Chris Cottrill
November 11, 2012
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B-17 G Formation

During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Corps heavy bomber fleets of B-17’s, B-24’s, and B-29’s were examples of some of the most advanced technology of the period. These four-engine aircraft were designed and built to deliver tons of bombs to a target, defend themselves against enemy fighter attacks, and get their 10- or 11-man crews back to base, if possible. According to a postwar study of bombardier training, the first bombardiers in the Air Corps were pilots interested in bombing or enlisted personnel who had shown some interest and skill in bombing. Eighteen men graduated from the first class of bombardier training in February 1941. By September 1945, 47,000 bombardiers had been trained by the Army Air Force Training Command.

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The Fix: Exploration Scientifique de L’Algérie

Katie Wagner
November 9, 2012
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Before Treatment

What is a full treatment exactly, in book preservation terms? A full treatment entails the dis-binding, washing, drying, re-sewing and re-casing of a book. In the case of Exploration Scientifique de L’Algérie, the book came to us from the Cullman Rare Book Library because it had previously been damaged by water and mold. In order to clean, flatten and remove the mold from the book, we needed to take it apart section by section, page by page.

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Research Collaboration and Identity

Alvin Hutchinson
November 7, 2012
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Long list of co-authorsSeveral years ago the National Museum of Natural History hosted a visitor from Science magazine who gave a presentation for authors on strategies for getting published in that journal which boasts a low 7% acceptance rate. The session contained some helpful tips and the speaker ended his talk with some humor by speculating (somewhat facetiously, perhaps) on the top 10 future trends in scientific publishing. Referring to the recent growth in co-authorship, one of his “predictions” was that someday the list of co-authors for an article would exceed the length of the article itself. While that may have seemed amusing, few realized that within a short time the Smithsonian Research Online (SRO) database of scholarly publications would add an article which includes over 3000 co-authors and approximately the same number of words in the article’s body of text.

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Digitization Dispatch: Typography!

Erin Thomas
November 7, 2012
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Typography, the aesthetics of language, gets a lot of attention these days. What was once the purview of specialized professionals is now as common as the PC. The digital revolution’s democratizing impact on publishing has also been a boon for the typographer–or at least the typographer’s eye–in the digital sphere. Even if you aren’t labeling your digital choices as “typography,” chances are you are posing questions that typographers ask. How can font help convey meaning? Why is one font preferable to another? Or even, should this be bold and in red?

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Nobody ever dies of it: The artists’ books of Ida Applebroog

Anne Evenhaugen
November 5, 2012
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Ida Applebroog’s artists’ books have a way of making you feel slightly uncomfortable without really knowing why. At least that is the effect her small books have on me. My first encounter with them had me feeling generally uncertain, thinking not only “What are these things?” but also “Why are these things?” Even after reading several of her books, I still did not understand exactly what her images represented. I had to read about Applebroog’s books to better understand.

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Join us for a day of Catesby!

Liz O'Brien
November 2, 2012
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Join us for a day of Catesby!Magnolia from The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands

Magnolia from The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama IslandsThe Smithsonian Libraries, in conjunction with the National Museum of Natural History, will host a series of lectures on both Mark Catesby’s art and science for the Catesby Commemorative Trust on Tuesday, November 6. This gathering celebrates the 300th anniversary of Englishman Catesby’s arrival in North America. The visit to the Smithsonian is part of a six-day, three-city symposium that will include lectures by more than 20 presenters from various disciplines including art, wildlife, natural history, conservation and economics.

The English naturalist published The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands in three volumes from 1729 to 1747, making it the first published account of the flora and fauna of the New World. The Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Rare Book Library contains a first edition copy of The Natural History, which will be displayed after the symposium. This work, along with others by Catesby, can also be seen online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

This event is FREE and open to the public! 

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