On July 10-14, 2012, Smithsonian Libraries staff members JJ Ford, Gilbert Borrego and Grace Costantino attended the 8th Annual Wikimania Conference in Washington, D.C. to explore possible collaborations between Wikipedia and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), of which the Smithsonian Libraries is a founding member, is an open access, global digital library initiative dedicated to digitizing the biodiversity-related materials held in the collections of BHL consortium member libraries.
Category: Digitization
Routine processing of library books frequently means using shelves and other spaces as staging areas for incoming and in-process items. As gifts and purchased books are acquired, cataloged and labeled, librarians typically work on them in batches, sorting on to separate shelves those which have not yet been searched in the catalog or which represent additional copies for the collection or which require a certain level of cataloging, etc. As they move through the processing of getting them to the library and ultimately, the reader they are moved from place to place in the back-rooms of library work areas.
On June 10-15, 2012, Dr. Nancy Gwinn (Smithsonian Libraries Director and Biodiversity Heritage Library Executive Committee Chair),Martin Kalfatovic (Assistant Director, Digital Services Division, Smithsonian Libraries and BHL Program Director), and Grace Costantino (BHL Program Manager), along with several other BHL colleagues from across the US, traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to attend a series of meetings aimed at creating a BHL for sub-Saharan Africa.
Greetings! The Smithsonian History, Art, and Culture digital collection recently added a number of titles from the special collections housed at the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology.
Greetings! This month, we have a look at a real gem in the Smithsonian History, Art, and Culture digital collection. Two volumes of a turn-of-the-century serial devoted to all things related to the human body and its maintenance: Physical Culture. At turns laughable and insightful, this title is a hoot to page through. It features everything from workout tips to fad diets, diets meant to add pounds, mind you. For example, judging by the amount of ink it gets, the milk diet was very popular back in 1908. When adhering to a milk diet, the publishers warn, it’s important to consume milk only. No solid food of any kind! So, don’t add cheese, for example! It’s kind of like a phlegmy protein shake diet!
This month, we commemorate the arrival of Spring by highlighting the addition of several turn of the century baseball journals into the Smithsonian History, Art, and Culture (SHAC) digital collection. According to SILRA’s leading information specialist, Mike Hardy,
These books cover an early period of organized baseball in the Unites States.
Greetings History, Art, and Culture digitization fans! 
This month we have the rare privilege of highlighting a dramatic turn in the history of early aviation though primary source material from the library at the National Air and Space Museum.