Last year, the Smithsonian began a partnership with Gale, part of Cengage Learning, to digitize content, package it, and make it available through libraries around the world. Gale debuted the first of these products with digital versions of the Smithsonian magazine and Air & Space magazine’s archive. The Smithsonian Libraries is excited to be a part of the second group of products, Smithsonian Collections Online: World’s Fairs & Expositions: Visions Of Tomorrow and Smithsonian Collections Online: Trade Literature & The Merchandising of Industry. Assessment of the items and scanning is already well underway. Get an inside look at what goes on behind the scenes with William Bennett, contract conservator for the project!
Category: Digitization
This post was written by Monique Politowski, Digital Library Technician. After yesterday’s look at sleds on the blog, today we take a trip to sunny Panama!
“Snow, snow, snow, snow everywhere, piled up as high as the tops of street cars.” I think we can relate to the words of the late G. Frank Lydston M.D. from p.23 of his travel book, Panama and the Sierras: A Doctor’s Wander Days. Written over one hundred years ago, Dr. Lydston’s book was able to capture a timeless sentiment and fulfill every winter warrior’s fantasy of escaping bitter cold by fleeing to the tropics.
John Kerr Tiffany (1842-1897) of St. Louis, Missouri is considered one of the earliest stamp collectors (known as philatelists) in the United States and belongs to the American Philatelic Society’s Hall of Fame. Tiffany was also the first president of the society in 1886 and was re-elected the following ten years, until he decided to stop running. In addition to having been an avid stamp collector, Tiffany created one of the largest library’s on the topic of stamps during his era, along with publishing books, catalogs and indexes on the topic. The National Postal Museum Library contains a manuscript copy from 1880-81 of Tiffany’s Philatelic Index.
In honor of George Washington’s Birthday and President’s Day, we’d like to highlight this charming little history of our Nation’s Capital, which pays special attention to the White House.
The Biodiversity Heritage Library is profiled in Searching for Sustainability: Strategies from Eight Digitized Special Collections, a major study funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services and conducted by Ithaka S+R in partnership with the Association of Research Libraries. The study shares good practices for teams planning for and managing digitized resources.
The Smithsonian Libraries today launched three courses of selected content on iTunes U that focus on topics in early aviation and space history. This release increases exposure of Libraries material and is an innovative way to reach new audiences.
iTunes U is a dedicated area within iTunes that gives users public access to hundreds of thousands of free lectures, videos books, podcasts and courses from learning institutions all over the world. With the iTunes U app, users can download content directly onto their iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
2013 was a busy year for the Smithsonian Libraries! We were hard at work digitizing our collection, caring for rare books, hosting events and assisting in the Smithsonian’s core research functions. In case you missed them, here are our five most popular blog posts from 2013, giving a peak at what we did through the year and what *you* enjoyed reading about!
