2016 has been a landmark year for the Smithsonian Libraries. Because of donors like you, the Libraries is able to continue in its role as the pinnacle of museum libraries, serving as a scholarly resource for Smithsonian researchers and curators and for brilliant thinkers from all around the world, as well as increasing access into our collections for learners of all ages. Some examples of what we have been able to accomplish in 2016 are:
Category: Digitization
December 1st is the 170th birthday of William Henry Holmes, the Smithsonian’s own Renaissance man. Early in the Smithsonian’s history, Holmes served as the head of the Anthropology Department and later the first director of what would become the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Starting today, we’re celebrating his legacy.
This is the second post in a two-part series. Catch up on the first part here. Allegra Tennis interned with the Field Book Project and Metadata Services over the summer to investigate Smithsonian research related to countries with populations of under a million.
I came to the field of librarianship from a scientific background. The processes, details, and discoveries to be made have always held a magical quality for me. As I grew up and talked with others, I began to notice that not everyone views science in this way. Many people seem to be interested in science, whether in the idea of it, the usefulness of it, or they raw beauty of it. Yet too often people are intimidated by science, either by the research or by the researchers themselves.

In celebration of the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture this weekend, we’ve put together a special digital collection of titles related to the African American experience. Many of these books come from our National Museum of African American History and Culture Library, which will open in the museum later this year. Below are a few highlights from the collection. To see the entire collection, visit Celebrating African American History and Culture in our Digital Library.

Today, August 19th, marks National Aviation Day and we’re celebrating with a lesser-known flying vehicle — the airship. Emil Schimpf’s ballooning manuscript Vorläufige Instruction über Zusammensetzung Gebrauch des Luftschifferparks was recently added to the Smithsonian Transcription Center and is available for crowd-sourced transcription.
Before summer ends, it might be nice to take a little mental holiday. How about a tour of Paris, circa 1898? And why not throw in a book of pretty pictures with a built-in mini-mystery?