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Tag: Smithsonian Libraries Research Annex

On Book Puzzles and Hot Air Balloons

While at the Smithsonian Libraries Research Annex (SLRA) during the second week of my Smithsonian Libraries internship, I was asked to select and research texts in SLRA’s collection for the Adopt-a-Book Program. Adopt-a-Book is an opportunity for bibliophiles to “adopt” a book from one of the Smithsonian Libraries’ twenty-one branches, granting them acknowledgement through a virtual bookplate in the SIL online catalog, SIRIS. Potential donors can view the books up for adoption on the Libraries website, along with a brief history and description of each. In addition to generating revenue, Adopt-a-Book is a great way to tell and preserve the stories of physical texts; as I quickly discovered, each book has a unique, often untapped past.

Finding treasures for digitization in the Research Annex

The post was written by Mark Coulbourne, Towson University student and fall intern in the Smithsonian Libraries Research Annex.

For the Fall Semester I was an intern at the Smithsonian Libraries Research Annex (SLRA), and was tasked with evaluating 19th and early 20th century monographs for digitization. My work with librarian Daria Wingreen-Mason centered on the areas of photography, exploration, Alaska, and zoology.