The Smithsonian Libraries would like to thank all who attended and supported our first Adopt-a-Book event held at the Smithsonian Castle on Thursday, September 13. Over 25 books were adopted from our Cooper-Hewitt National Design Library, Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library for Natural History, and the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology.
On the evening of September 13th, the Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute hosted with the Smithsonian Institution Libraries their first Adopt-a-Book Event. In appreciation of their participation, displayed here is a map from the Dibner Library’s collections:
–This post was contributed by Allison Brice, American Art and Portrait Gallery Library intern.
I often joke with those who ask me about my academic studies that I am getting a degree in ‘old stuff’. With a major in history and two minors in art history and medieval studies, I must admit that I find anything from the last half-century rather boring. So when my supervisor at the American Art and Portrait Gallery Library told me to go down into the rare books section and find some ‘old stuff’ to put up for our Adopt-a-Book project…well, I was in heaven.
This post was written by Alyssa Penick, Intern at The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology.
The Dibner Library for the History of Science and Technology recently acquired a nineteenth-century navigation atlas, The Marine Atlas, or a Seaman’s Complete Pilot for all the Principal Places in the Known World, which was published in London in 1826 by John William Norie. Currently under restoration, this large folio contains forty copperplate engravings of marine charts and depicts every ocean, sea, and coastline then known. The Dibner’s copy of The Marine Atlas is the seventh edition of the atlas and was bound in New York by Henry Spear in 1856. No other copies of Norie’s Marine Atlas are held by public collections, making this addition to the library particularly exciting.
Many of the artists’ books in the Smithsonian American Art & Portrait Gallery Library’s collection tell stories—from personal struggles with addiction, to pictorial descriptions of how to create a human salad, to universal stories of historical conflicts, such as Kara Walker’s book “Freedom: A Fable.”
A vintage photograph of a young woman, casually posed in front of a storefront window, which advertises the “friendly” Chesterfield cigarette, invites readers into X-Ray Magazine. This San Francisco Pneumatic Press publication can be found hiding, along with other artists’ books, in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library collection.