The Smithsonian Libraries and Smithsonian Gardens present The Lost Bird Project, an exhibition by artist Todd McGrain, open through May 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. Four of the sculptures are located in the Enid A. Haupt Garden, a 4.2-acre public rooftop garden between the Smithsonian Castle and Independence Avenue. The fifth sculpture, the passenger pigeon, is in the Urban Habitat Garden at the National Museum of Natural History. This post is written by Todd McGrain, Author, Sculptor, and Creative Director of The Lost Bird Project. Hear Todd speak at our free event on November 20th!
Category: Natural and Physical Sciences
This is your chance to adopt Exploration scientifique de l’Algérie (1846-49) by Hippolyte Lucas! Conceived and directed by the naturalist Bory de Saint Vincent, one of the first modern, systematic more »
In honor of Halloween and the very last day of Archives Month, we present you with this creepy cool look at an unusual printing example in our collection, one that uses the wings of real butterflies. This post was written by Daria Wingreen-Mason, Special Collections Technical Information Specialist in the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History.
Please join us Tuesday, October 28th, for a lecture and book signing with Christopher Cokinos, author of Hope is the thing with feathers: A personal chronicle of vanished birds.
This post was written by David Edelmann, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Library intern.
As an intern for the SERC (Smithsonian Environmental Research Center) Library, working under SERC librarian, Sue Zwicker, I was tasked with tackling a review of the Library’s Chesapeakiana Collection. The goals of the project were to:
- Create a bibliographic spreadsheet organizing all of the titles,
- Research each individual title for digital copies on the internet,
- Save and organize any accessible digital media found through research,
- Create a publicly accessible database of the catalogue with links to available digital copies,
- Assess items for scanning if they are not already available in digital format
This post was written by Grace Costantino, Outreach and Communication Manager for the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). It first appeared on the BHL blog here.
Deep within the rainforest canopy of the Aru Islands, just west of New Guinea, two male Greater Birds-of-Paradise dance among the branches in carefully coordinated steps, their magnificent yellow, white, and maroon plumage undulating gracefully to the rhythm of their own unique song.
It’s that back to school time of year with backpacks filled with new school supplies. If you were a student in the 1890s you may have had a new “Atlas Science more »