New collection items have arrived for the National Postal Museum Library and will soon be processed for checkout. These items are new to our collection, straight off the press. They are staff donations received from authors and publishers. They might be interesting to stamp collectors and philatelists and those studying the history of the postal service of England. They are extremely valuable because only one or two libraries in the world owns them.
The Smithsonian Institution Libraries recently acquired a telephone book. Big deal, you say? Ah, but this is a telephone directory for the territory of Hawaii, issued for the winter of 1930. For that reason alone, it’s fun to browse through, to see the old advertisements and daydream about living in the gorgeous Hawaiian Islands, back in the days when the entire list of businesses and households in the territory which owned telephones could be recorded in one slim volume.
But this isn’t just any old phone book. This particular copy belonged to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu, which opened in February 1927 on the spectacular Waikiki beachfront. Known as “the Pink Palace of the Pacific,” the Royal Hawaiian Hotel was one of the earliest luxury resorts established in this tropical paradise. The stylish décor featured at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, inspired partly by the native crafts of the South Sea Islanders, exerted a lasting influence upon tourists from the mainland, who came to associate the good life in Hawaii with vivid patterns reminiscent of exotic plants, birds, marine life, sunshine, and ocean waves.
Wondering what's new in the SIL stacks this month? Here's a sampling! Above the book listings, you'll see a slideshow with links to the WorldCat records for each book. If more »
We’re testing out a new way of displaying our “New & Notable” books by combining them in to one post per month. Also, above the book listings, you’ll see a more »
We’re testing out a new way of displaying our “New & Notable” books by combining them in to one post per month. Also, above the book listings, you’ll see a more »
The Smithsonian American Art/National Portrait Gallery Library (AAPG) would like to share some of its recent additions to its collections
The Libraries would like to highlight some more new and diverse titles that have been added recently to the National Museum of American History Library.