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Month: March 2013

Smithsonian Libraries Accepting Resident Scholar Applications for 2014

_DSC0309The Smithsonian Libraries will award grants to Dibner Library Resident Scholars and Baird Society Resident Scholars for the 2014 calendar 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.

Hirshhorn Library Welcomes UC Berkeley Externs

Externs with Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads

It is no secret that today’s job market is a dog-eat-dog world. With unemployment rates at record highs, the future that many college graduates see on the horizon is a grim and scary place. However, University of California, Berkeley has created a program to help better prepare their students for the post-graduate battlefield. The Externship Program creates opportunities for students to get hands-on experience in a chosen career field during their winter break. The program is made possible by UC Berkeley alumni who generously share their time with undergraduates who are ready to explore a career. Depending on the sponsors availability, the externships can range from one day to one month. Although many other notable universities such as Cornell, USC, Boston College, and University of Pennsylvania have similar externship programs, it is still a relatively unknown opportunity. Below, Haley and Kaylie share their experience working at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Le Vatican et la basilique de Saint-Pierre de Rome Finds New Home

NuncioGiftJohn Dick, head of gifts and exchanges at Smithsonian Libraries, recently contacted the Roman Catholic Nunciature (the representative of the Holy See in the United States) to offer Le Vatican et la basilique de Saint-Pierre de Rome – a four-volume, oversized publication on interior decoration in the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica, published in Paris in 1882.

Refining Taxonomic Literature II Linked Data

Image of Orchid "Masdevallia lindeni" from Lindenia. Iconographie des Orchidées , 1885-1906
Jean Jules Linden. Lindenia. Iconographie des Orchidées , 1885-1906

Editor’s note: Rachel is an intern from the University of Maryland’s iSchool MLS program and has been with us for the past seven weeks. Her internship is coming to a close, so we’ve asked her to write a blog post to share what she has done as part of her internship. I have posted this on her behalf.

In January, Joel wrote about our plans to present the Taxonomic Literature-2 (TL-2) dataset as Linked Open Data, allowing for greater searchability and reuse. The main focus of my internship was to identify and investigate other data elements that could be converted to Linked Open Data.