2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Smithsonian American Art and Portrait Gallery Library (AA/PG) as a combined library for the newly-founded National Portrait Gallery and the National Collection of Fine Arts.
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives / Unbound
From March 16th-20th, the Smithsonian Libraries hosted five students from the University of Kentucky School of Library and Information Science as volunteers for Alternative Spring Break 2015. Anna Gault, one of the spring break interns, shares her experience below.
I am interning at the Smithsonian Libraries with five classmates from the University of Kentucky School of Library and Information Science. As a graduate student studying Library and Information Science, spending Spring Break interning with the Smithsonian Libraries is a dream. My five other classmates from The University of Kentucky School of Library and Information Science are in agreement. They are working in different areas in the libraries and we love to share our experiences with one another, so it is a great learning opportunity for all!
On March 22-29, I traveled to Panama and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) with members of the Smithsonian’s Science Executive Committee. This is the science unit directors group who meet with the interim Undersecretary for Science each month. Others on the trip were Scott Miller, the Office of the Undersecretary for Science (OUSS) staff, Cynthia Brandt Stover, Smithsonian Campaign Director and Jenny McWilliams, Science Advancement Officer. Oh yes, and Stacy Cavanaugh’s 12-year-old son.
As the month of March winds down, the Smithsonian Libraries (SIL) honors Women’s History Month by celebrating women pioneers in the field of air and space.
This post was written by Reiko Yoshimura, head librarian of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Library.
As a result of the development of Japonisme in the 1860s, Japanese art and crafts became increasingly popular, especially in Europe. Following the Meiji Restoration (1868), the Japanese government began exhibiting a vast amount of art and craft objects in world expositions, namely, World’s Columbian Exposition (1893) and Paris expositions (1867, 1889, 1900), which led to actively promoting domestic craft production.
Before John James Audubon, Englishman and naturalist Mark Catesby (1682-1749) was documenting the natural world. His etchings of flora and fauna in the “new world” of America are treasured by many.
The Smithsonian Libraries is pleased to host the launch of The Catesby Trust’s book tour for The Curious Mr. Catesby: a “truly ingenious” naturalist explores new worlds, with speakers Dr. Charles Nelson, David E. Elliot and our own Curator of Natural History Rare Books, Leslie K. Overstreet. Learn more with a question and answer panel and explore this new publication, which includes facsimiles of Catesby’s original watercolors. We invite you to join us for this interesting and unique experience.
Around March, I’ll be forgiven if I start to pay a little more attention to the genders of the people I come across in our digital book and journal collection. After all, it is Women’s History Month. But one journal I keep coming back to is Keramic Studio, a monthly ceramics magazine produced around the turn of the 20th century that we digitized a couple years ago as part of our Books Online collection. Adelaide Alsop-Robineau began the journal in 1899, and it continued to be published into the 1920s. The work featured in the early years of the journal was primarily contributed by women, including Alsop-Robineau herself, along with her co-editor Anna B. Leonard. Both women were well known ceramics painters and designers. I find myself returning to the journal and perusing the many images and illustrations, especially when I need a dose of design inspiration.