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Month: April 2014

Biodiversity Heritage Library Adds Washington University as New Member

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), headquartered at the Smithsonian Libraries, welcomes Washington University Libraries (St. Louis, Missouri) as a new member. The 14th member of the BHL consortium, Washington University Libraries will help identify and digitize historical science literature from its collections and add these to the BHL’s online holdings, where all materials may be accessed free by the public.

From Books to Art: Latin-American exchanges between the Hirshhorn and the IDB Cultural Center

 This post was written by Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library volunteer, Elena Grant.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library is working on getting the attention of area’s curators to Smithsonian Libraries’ resources on Latin-American art and connecting them with the Hirshhorn Museum team.

White Bronze for the hereafter

L: Monumental Bronze Catalogue, p.66.  R: Dodge Monument, 1871. Congressional Cemetery, Washington, DC. Photo courtesy of Elise M. Ciregna.
L: Monumental Bronze Catalogue, p.66. R: Dodge Monument, 1871. Congressional Cemetery, Washington, DC. Photo courtesy of Elise M. Ciregna.

This Catalogue of the Monumental Bronze Co. is one of the many examples of trade literature that the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Library has in its collection; they are among the most valuable research resources for documenting the tastes and trends of culture, and the products being marketed and sold in a given time period. These are Victorian era zinc sculpture and ornaments for cemetery grave markers and “monuments”.  “White bronze” was an attractive, elegant trade name for zinc. It actually has a bluish gray color and is easy to spot from quite a distance amongst the more traditional and widely used traditional marble, limestone and granite memorials in cemeteries.

Libraries Brings The Lost Bird Project to the Smithsonian

Passenger Pigeon
(L-R): Jonathan Kavalier (Smithsonian Gardens Supervisory Horticulturist), Todd McGrain (Artist), and Susan Frampton (Libraries Program Coordinator) stand next to the newly-installed passenger pigeon sculpture in the Urban Habitat Garden.

The Smithsonian Libraries and Smithsonian Gardens present The Lost Bird Project, an exhibit by artist Todd McGrain, March 27 through March 15, 2015. This project recognizes the tragedy of modern extinction by immortalizing North American birds that have been driven to extinction. It features large-scale bronze sculptures of the Carolina parakeet, the Labrador duck, the great auk, the heath hen and the passenger pigeon.