This post was written by Abigail Espiritu, 2018 Smithsonian Libraries summer intern focusing on social media and the libraries’ blog, and a rising sophomore at the University of Maryland. Museum more »
Author: Abigail Espiritu
Explore one of our newest collections in our digital library containing books, catalogs and ephemera from 19th and 20th century World’s Fairs and Expositions. The majority of the items in this collection were digitized by an outside vendor as part of a special project. Pieces in this collection date from the mid 1800’s to the early 1900’s, highlighting experiences from different fairs that took place all over the world, from America to Europe and more. Many of these pieces contain wonderful images and illustrations of the actual fairs, giving us a look into our world’s history. Here you can find and learn more detailed information about fairs like the The Great Exhibition, which was showcased in the Crystal Palace in London, England, and the Exposition Universelle in Paris, France. Below are a few pieces from the collection to give you an idea about what you can find in our new addition to our digital library. Most items are from the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library.
Come visit the Cultivating America’s Gardens exhibition in the National Museum of American History before it closes this August!
The exhibition officially opened in May 2017 and will be saying goodbye at the end of this summer. The exhibition highlights the establishment of botanical gardens and the history of gardening in America. On show are a collection of books and other objects from the Smithsonian Libraries and Smithsonian Gardens collections. Here you will be able to see a variety of beautiful, vintage illustrations, rare books and artifacts related to the history of American gardening. Many of the books on display have been digitized and are available online. They will stay available through the Smithsonian Libraries Digital Library collection even after the exhibition’s closing.
For many years, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries has had a publication exchange program with various organizations around the world. Our exchange partners are generally universities, academies of sciences and arts, more »
For the last eight weeks, I have been sitting at the Smithsonian looking at pretty pictures. Specifically, I’ve been sorting through three thousand digital objects selected for addition to the Galaxy of Images, figuring out what they are and what to write about them.
This website highlights the scientific and popular literature contributions of prominent amateur naturalists from the 18th-20th centuries.