Press "Enter" to skip to content

Month: July 2013

Poet and Art Maker, Vito Acconci, visits Hirshhorn Museum Library

Acconci1This post was written by Anna Brooke, librarian at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library.

“I hate the word ‘artist.’” said Vito Acconci in an interview with Milena Kalinovska posted on the Hirshhorn Museum web page. Vito was in Washington D.C. for a Meet the Artist public program the evening of January 17, 2013 at the Hirshhorn Museum.  During the day, Vito prepared his presentation in the Hirshhorn Museum Library, using a carrel and examining our artist file on him. He is one of our most distinguished visitors. In addition to his writing and art activities, he was named Designer of the Year in 2012 by Design Miami.

Highlights from the Cultural Heritage Library: Physiognomy edition

humanfaceasexpre00stoc_0094The Cultural Heritage Library (CHL) covers a wide range of topics. Government publications, Smithsonian exhibition catalogs, travel guides, and geographic histories–the CHL aims to digitize everything from our history, art, and culture collections that we can. As such, the entire collection was currently published prior to 1923, so some of it can sound dated or naive to modern ears.

Star-Spangled Music

Uncle Sam's School SongsThis post was written by Audrey Hopkins. Audrey is a Summer 2013 intern at the National Museum of American History Library. She is currently a library graduate student at Simmons College in Boston.

This fourth of July, we give you all the fixings for a barbershop quartet!

Among the collections here in the National Museum of American History Library are a number of books on American music. For 25 cents in 1897, one could purchase this hard-bound copy of Uncle Sam’s School Songs for Schools, Colleges, Institutes, and the Home Circle published by the still extant Hope Publishing Company in Chicago.

Welcome back, Tatum!

tatum_editThe following post was written by Development intern Tatum Lindsay. Tatum first joined us last summer and explains why she was eager to come back to the Libraries and build on that experience.

A lot of people ask me why I chose to come back to the Smithsonian as an intern. Isn’t once enough? Don’t I need more diverse experience for my infant college resume? What is the point of doing the same internship over again? The truth is there is no better place to be than the Smithsonian. Well, the Smithsonian Libraries, to be exact.