Smithsonian Libraries

Spotlight on: Preservation Volunteers

The Libraries' Book Conservation Lab is pleased to introduce James Cullen. Each of our volunteers has been essential in helping with the constant workflow within general collections care.

James Cullen has been volunteering since November and works for the Fairfax County Public Libraries. He received his MLS from Catholic University and his BA in History from George Mason University. James has taken on a wide variety of tasks at the lab, including labeling, large amounts of filing and inventory, assisting with processing new allocations for general collections care, and cutting down hundreds of acid-free tags which get distributed to all of our branches. When he is not immersed in libraries or playing video games, James enjoys playing and watching cricket.

All of our volunteers help complete many tedious and meticulous tasks that are essential in everyday preservation operations. The current economic conditions have affected all departments of the Libraries, and the already short-staffed book conservation lab would be lost without their help. Many thanks Andra—we look forward to continuing our work with you!—Phuong Pham

Want to Build Your Own Grist Mill? Oliver Evans Explains It All!

Have you ever daydreamed about the books you'd like to have with you in the event you might need to rebuild civilization all over again someday? If so, The Young Mill-Wright & Miller's Guide, written in 1795 by Oliver Evans (1755-1819), should be on your list. This book was instrumental in shaping America's industrial future, during a time when the frontier was located just along the west of the mid-Atlantic states. 

Born and raised in Delaware, young Evans taught himself mathematics and the fundamentals of engineering while learning the practical skills of wagon-making and textile manufacturing in the bustling city of Wilmington. His knack for coming up with creative solutions for improving mechanical processes would be helpful in any time period, but especially in the late 18th century when the American population was growing and expanding into new regions. 

As communities developed, residents needed mills to grind their grain into flour. However, the technical knowledge required to build and run mills was not easily acquired without spending years as an apprentice. Land-grant colleges to educate students in the subjects of engineering and agricultural science were not created until the 1860s, and the few American institutions of higher learning available in the 18th century were expensive, exclusive, and did not emphasize the study of the mechanical and practical arts.

The Young Mill-Wright & Miller's Guide explains the basic concepts of engineering, hydraulics, surveying, arithmetic, and business management so clearly that bright students with little more than an elementary education and a natural mechanical aptitude can understand them. The book is filled with instructions on how to select the best site for a mill, divert a mill-stream, construct the gears, pulleys, chutes and other necessary infrastructure, hire and train employees, negotiate with suppliers, and arrange for the transportation of the raw and finished products. Part 5 of Evans' book, subtitled "The practical mill-wright, containing instructions for building mills, with tables of their proportions suitable for all falls from three to thirty-six feet," was compiled from information supplied by Thomas Ellicott, a miller whose family business helped to develop the town of Ellicott City, Maryland and whose knowledge of a working mill operation provided a useful supplement to Evans' innovative ideas on ways to improve the traditional mechanical design of mills.   

The Smithsonian Institution Libraries has several early and modern reprint editions of The Young Mill-Wright & Miller's Guide in its collections, including the first (1795) edition. Of particular interest are two copies of the 1807 edition from the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology. The 1807 edition has a slightly modified title, The Young Mill-Wright's & Miller's Guide, with the imprint "Octoraro [i.e. Octorara]: Printed by Francis Bailey." Bailey was the official printer of the state of Pennsylvania, and he ran printing shops in both Philadelphia and in his home town of Octorara in Lancaster county. There are two different issues of the 1807 edition, which differ slightly in their type-setting (one notable difference is that the variant issue has the phrase "[Price four dollars bound.]" appearing on its title page). The Dibner Library has a copy of each issue.

The Dibner copy of the standard issue is well-used and missing some of its plates. The book formerly belonged to a family of millers named Switzer, whose ancestors settled in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. Two handwritten inscriptions on the preliminary pages suggest that this text was a prized guide for running the family business: 1. "Calvin Switzer, January 5th, [18...], price 550 cents", and 2. "Used by gr. gr. father David Switzer, in the operation of his water-power mill in Madison County, Virginia, gift of Miss Edna Switzer, October 25, 1940."

The Dibner copy of the variant issue, received from the U.S. Patent Office Library, also has an intriguing provenance. The volume is inscribed on the front free endpaper by its former owner: "Department of State Patent Office, 30th Dec. 1808, William Thornton." Thornton (1759-1828) had a many-faceted career as a physician, painter, inventor, and architect. He won the national competition to design the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C., and held the honorary title of Architect of the Capitol. Not content with that achievement, Thornton went on to serve as the first superintendent of the United States Patent Office, an agency that was originally part of the United States Department of State, as indicated by the inscription. Thornton seems to have relied upon this copy of The Young Mill-Wright & Miller's Guide to guide his thinking in a patent dispute in 1827 with a man named Michael Withers. Withers claimed the right to a licensing fee from users of a milling device called a "winged gudgeon," although he was apparently not the inventor of the device. When Thornton challenged the validity of this patent claim, Withers sued Thornton for libel. The Dibner Library copy contains a short newspaper article captioned "To the proprietors of mills throughout the United States" which warns mill owners not to pay royalties to Withers. The article, clipped from an unidentified 19th-century newspaper with the dateline "City of Washington, 7th April, 1827," was quite possibly pasted in the volume by Thornton himself.—Diane Shaw

Illustration captions:

1. Title page for the variant issue of the 1807 Octoraro, Pennsylvania edition of The young mill-wright's and miller's guide, formerly owned by William Thornton. TS2145.E85 1807 c. 2 Dibner Library

2. Plate from the 1807 variant issue, with a detailed diagram showing the inner workings of a grist mill. You can visually track the route taken by the grain from its receipt in raw form at the lower right corner, through the grinding process, to the end when the ground meal is poured into barrels and loaded onto a waiting ship in the lower left corner. 

3. Another plate from the 1807 variant issue, with a cross-section of the wheel mechanism. The jaunty fish-shaped weathervane at the top of the building is a particularly whimsical touch.

4. Handwitten inscription of William Thornton, appearing on the front free endpaper of the 1807 variant issue. 

British Beetles

British beetles. Transferred from Curtis's British entomology. With descriptions by E.W. Janson. (1863) Contributed by the Smithsonian Institution

Here is a wonderful image from a volume that was previously highlighted on the Biodiversity Heritage Library blog by Erin Jean Thomas.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), the digitization component of the Encyclopedia of Life, is a consortium of 12 major natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries, and research institutions organized to digitize, serve, and preserve the legacy literature of biodiversity. 

Prior to digitization, the resources housed within each BHL institution have existed in isolation, available only to those with physical access to the collections. These collections are of exceptional value because the domain of systematic biology depends–more than any other science–upon historic literature. 

Consequently, the relative isolation of these collections presented an antiquated obstacle to further biodiversity investigation. This problem is particularly acute for the developing countries that are home to the majority of the world’s biodiversity.

February is National Cherry Month

Maria Sibylla Merian, Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung und sonderbare Blumennahrung, 1730

Don't worry, cherry blossoms will be featured this month, too . . . But this beautiful engraving by Maria Sibylla Merian was too good to resist. 

The daughter of an engraver, step-daughter of a painter, Merian was always surrounded by art. But she also had a curious and scientific mind, which led to her studying insects, especially the transformations from caterpillars into butterflies, and the plants they inhabited.

The Libraries has digitized many more beautiful images from this volume, housed in its Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum Library in New York. Enjoy.—Elizabeth Periale

Biodiversity Heritage Library meetings in São Paulo, Brazil

Tom Garnett and myself, along with our colleague Chris Freeland from the Missouri Botanical Garden, traveled  to São Paulo, Brazil to attend the Workshop Coleção de Obras Raras Essencial (Workshop Essential Rare Works Collection in Biodiversity).

The purpose of the workshop was to explore collaboration between the Biodiversity Heritage Library and a recently funded project to digitize biodiversity literature in Brazil. We met for three days with a group of nearly thirty librarians and technical staff  from libraries throughout Brazil.

Our host for the meeting was Abel L. Packer, Director of BIREME. Also attending the meeting were Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, Minister of the Environment, and David C. Oren, Coordinator of Biodiversity in the Ministry of Science and Technology, and Hussam Zaher, Director of the Museu de Zoologia.

A meeting agenda and list of participants can be found online.

(pictured above, left to right, Abel Packer, Tom Garnett, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, and Hussam Zaher)

- Martin R. Kalfatovic

And out of the night came a silver bird . . .

Charles A. Lindbergh, We: The Famous Flier's Own Story of His Life and His Transatlantic Flight, 1927, And out of the night came a silver bird bearing a boy who carried letters of introduction to Paris.

 

. . . bearing a boy who carried letters of introduction to Paris.

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born today, in 1902. The libraries has memorabilia of his historic flight in its National Air & Space Museum Library in the form of sheet music, biographies, an autobiography and much, much, more.—Elizabeth Periale

Calendar Girl: Kate Greenaway's Almanacs

This sweet group of pocket-sized almanacs by British children's book illustrator Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) were issued between 1884 and 1895. Greenaway's scenes of beautifully-dressed children frolicking in the countryside were popular during the late Victorian period, and her images still exert a strong nostalgic charm. These books also display the talents of Edmund Evans, one of the finest engravers and color printers of the 19th century. This collection of Greenaway's almanacs is housed in the Bradley Room of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Library.—Diane Shaw

Happy Marmota Monax Day!

These critters, otherwise known as woodchucks or groundhogs, may be found in the Libraries' collections in the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. No word yet whether these volumes cast a long shadow or not . . . —Elizabeth Periale

Libraries Users Survey Continues

The Fall 2009 Library Survey for Fellows, Interns & Short Time Users was delivered to 131 users who were scheduled to leave the Libraries  from October thru December 31, 2009. 

Of the 131 users, 45 completed the survey giving us a response rate of 34%. This is average as the Late Spring and Summer Surveys combined had a response rate of 33%.

Many of the users responses were similar to those of the previous surveys.

•                 They love our knowledgeable and helpful staff!
•                 They would like to see more e-resources
•                 They would like more training on available library resources

We did receive some new and interesting comments. As always I would like to thank Polly Lasker, Vicki Avera and Richard Naples for assisting/collaborating to make this survey possible.—Claire Catron

Previous survey results may be viewed here, here and here.

Happy Birthday Jackie Robinson!

Jackie Robinson swinging a bat in Dodgers uniform, 1954. Photo by Bob Sandberg. Published in LOOK, v. 19, no. 4, 1955 Feb. 22, p. 78.

Jackie Robinson, born January 31, 1919, and helped to end segregation in major league baseball when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. But Robinison was not only important historically—he was an All-Star baseball player, starting at first base, then taking over second for most of his career, all with The Brooklyn Dodgers. He also played himself in the Hollywood film, The Jackie Robinson Story. The Libraries has many books available to learn more about this fascinating baseball and civil-rights legend.—Elizabeth Periale

Jackie Robinson: a life remembered. Maury Allen. New York : Franklin Watts, 1987.

Jackie Robinson: race, sports, and the American dream. Edited by Joseph Dorinson and Joram Warmund. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, c1998.

Opening day: the story of Jackie Robinson's first season. Jonathan Eig. New York: Simon & Schuster, c2007.

Carrying Jackie's torch: the players who integrated baseball—and America. Steve Jacobson. Chicago : Lawrence Hill Books, c2007.

First class citizenship: the civil rights letters of Jackie Robinson. Edited by Michael G. Long. Robinson, Jackie, 1919-1972. New York: Times Books, c2007.

I never had it made: an autobiography. Jackie Robinson as told to Alfred Duckett; foreword by Cornel West; introduction by Hank Aaron. Hopewell, N.J.: Ecco Press, c1995.

Stealing home: an intimate family portrait by the daughter of Jackie Robinson. Sharon Robinson. New York, NY: HarperCollins, c1996.

"I owe my life to my hobbies—especially stamp collecting"—Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt was born on January 30th, 1882. January is also National Hobby Month. In honor of both, here's a photo from the National Postal Museum Library's photo collection—of President Roosevelt enjoying one of his favorite hobbies, stamp collecting!

For more information about FDR, his stamp collecting hobby, and the U.S. Postal Service, you can explore the exhibit Delivering Hope: FDR & Stamps of the Great Depression online or now on display at the National Postal Museum.—Cassie Mancer and Beverly Coward

Sources Consulted:

Ganz, Cheryl.  January 2010. National Postal Museum: About the Museum: Object of the Month: FDR-Stamp Collecting President.

Spotlight on: Preservation Volunteers

The Libraries' Book Conservation Lab is pleased to introduce volunteer Andra Risch. Each of our volunteers is essential in helping with the constant workflow within general collections care.

Andra Risch has been volunteering in our lab for a full year! During this time, Andra constructed dozens of custom four-flap enclosures, created barcodes and labels for completed treatments, and cleaned spines on books needing repair (a very tedious, messy task). Andra is currently working on meticulous paper cleaning and repair on a series of fashion magazines from the Cooper Hewitt Museum. Before moving to the D.C. area, Andra lived outside of Portland, Oregon where she was exploring her career options in art and conservation. Andra has previously lived in Rome and is a prolific baker and gardener. Andra has also been a certified scuba diver since the age of 17.

All of our volunteers help complete many tedious and meticulous tasks that are essential in everyday preservation operations. The current economic conditions have affected all departments of the Libraries, and the already short-staffed book conservation lab would be lost without their help. Many thanks Andra—we look forward to continuing our work with you!—Phuong Pham

Early 1900s DIY

Aladdin Readi-Cut Homes (not pre-fabricated) 1906-1981

The popularity of DIY “do-it-yourself” home improvement and decorating projects began in the early 20th century. The North American Construction Co., later known as the Aladdin Co., was founded in 1906 by the William and Otto Sovereign Brothers. They got the idea from a Michigan company that was selling pre-cut, pre-fitted boats for consumers to assemble themselves. The Sovereign Bros. took the idea a few steps further and offered boats, homes, and garages and advertised that “Anyone who can drive a nail can put together an Aladdin House.” Once they sold a “kit” by mail order, they contracted out the specifications for the wood in the kit to local lumberyards, which would then pre-cut the sections of the houses for shipping and final assembly by the consumer. Aladdin claimed that “A saw is practically unnecessary in the erection of one of our houses. We supply the entire house for you to fit and nail together in a few days.”

In 1910 they coined the term “Readi-Cut” and by 1915, in addition to small cottages, they offered farm outbuildings such as barns and henhouses, and eventually interior furnishings such as cabinetry and appliances. The small cottages soon grew into large scale houses and Aladdin was so successful because they offered a style for everyone in all price ranges. They sold Dutch, English, and Georgian style Colonial houses, California and Stickley bungalow styles, and variations of all of the above. A few years later, North American Construction had grown into a million dollar business, owned their own lumber mills, and were calling their products Aladdin Readi-Cut (not pre-fabricated). Note the inclusion and emphasis of the word not pre-fabricated in parentheses of their name! You do it yourself! During the early 20th century the Radford Architectural Company, Sears, and other Michigan firms, Liberty, Sterling, and others were competing with Aladdin in the do-it-yourself housing market. These catalogues are valued and interesting because of their creative graphic design, and how they show the evolution of interior and exterior 20th century home design.

The National Museum of American History Library trade literature collection also has early examples of these home building kits. These and other trade catalogs can now be searched in the trade literature database available via SIRIS Collections Search Center.—Elizabeth Broman

related post: DIY at CHM

Related articles by Zemanta

• Seeing Design as Intellectual Rather Than Just Practical (nytimes.com)

Chocolate Cake Day

Baking Pan catalogue

Maybe these cake pans from the Libraries' trade literature collection will inspire something tasty . . .

—Elizabeth Periale, delicious looking photograph by Ninette Dean

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hey, ace of cakes: what's your favorite recipe? cake blog? (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Sad News

 Jim Haug, 72, a senior librarian at the National Museum of Natural History Library, died October 31 of sudden heart failure in his home.  He lived in Arlington, Va.

Haug began working for the Libraries in 1999. He oversaw training for library users’ and researchers’ needs, made the natural history library collections more available to the public, maintained the physical integrity of the library collections and kept biographic records for local collections. In addition, Haug seamlessly processed outgoing intra-library loan requests and through his efforts contributed to long-standing goals of the Libraries and the Institution.

 Prior to coming to the Smithsonian, Haug was an Assistant Professor in the Academic Library Services Department at East Carolina University (Greenville, NC).

Haug held a doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of Colorado in Boulder, Co. He also earned a master’s of library and information science from North Carolina Central University (Durham, NC), a master’s of science in public health in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC), a master’s of arts in anthropology from the University of Colorado (Boulder, Co.) and a bachelor of arts in anthropology from the University of Colorado (Boulder, Co.).

Haug was a dear colleague and friend to the Smithsonian Libraries and Natural History Museum staff.  He will be greatly missed.—Liz O'Brien

Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day!!!

Did you know that Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day is celebrated every year on the last Monday of the month of January?

Here at the Libraries we have many reasons to appreciate bubble wrap, as evidenced by these photos.

Rare-book librarians LOVE bubble-wrap.

In 2003 and 2006 a total of approximately 10,000 volumes were packed and transported from other rare-book locations into the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History, the Libraries’ new rare-book room in the National Museum of Natural History. Each and every book, including some very large ones, was wrapped in bubble-wrap and packed with others in a box with yet more bubble-wrap. This protected fragile bindings, gilt-decorated spines, and other physical aspects of the volumes from bumps and abrasions and from sudden changes in environmental conditions during the move.

But now what do we do with all of it ?!?—Leslie Overstreet

America's Gold Mine

Today, in 1848, gold was discovered in California at Sutter's Mill. 

The Libraries has quite a few titles which chronicle the rise and fall of John Augustus Sutter. 

But while perusing the Libraries' fabulous Galaxy of Images, some other gold-related items caught my eye, including this wonderful example from the trade literature collection, Kalamazoo Tank & Silo Co., ca. 1909, America's Gold Mine.

There is also the fabulous 16th century item on metallurgy and mining, from the Dibner Library, Georgii Agricolae De re metallica libri xii, qvibu officia,instrumenta, machinae, ac omnnia deniq[ue] ad metalicam spectantia, non modo lucluentissime describuntur, sed & per effigies, sius locis insertas, aduenctis latinis, germanicisq[ue] appelationibus ita ob oculos ponuntur, et clarius tradi non possint. Evisdem De aaimantibvs svbterraneis liber, ab autore recognitus: cum indicibus deuersis quicqiuid in opere tractatum est pulchré demonstrantibus, Basileae, H. Frobenivm et Nic. Episcopivm, 1561.

Many more images are also available from this publication.

Pure gold.—Elizabeth Periale

Mark Your Calendars!

The Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the Smithsonian Institution Archives, and the Office of the Chief Information Officer present another in a series of speakers to address the Institution on the future of libraries, museums and archives in a digital world:

William F. Patry

Copyright Law as Storytelling

February 12, 2010

11:30am-1:00pm

S. Dillon Ripley Center Lecture Hall, Room 3027

1100 Jefferson Drive, SW

Washington, D.C.

William F. Patry is Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, Inc. and the author of a 7-volume treatise on U.S. copyright law entitled Patry on Copyright. He got his J.D. degree at the University of Houston and was admitted to the bar in Texas, the District of Columbia, and New York.

Patry served as a copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives in the early 1990s, and worked as a policy planning advisor to the United States Copyright Office, a part of the Library of Congress. He also held a post as Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardoza School of Law.

In 2009 he published Moral Panics and the Copyright War, and resumed blogging in support of the book. He also  blogs about his book.

Mark your calendars for this must-not-miss event!—Liz O'Brien

Related articles by Zemanta

• Patry's MORAL PANICS AND THE COPYRIGHT WARS: elegant, calm, reasonable history of the copyfight (boingboing.net)

Meet Joel Richard!

The Libraries’ new web developer Joel Richard has come a long way since taking dinosaur classes at the Smithsonian as a child. An integral member of the Libraries' Digital Services Division, located in the National Museum of Natural History, Richard’s goal is to help define and build the overall internet strategies for the Libraries, including working on the Libraries' website, DSpace (AKA Smithsonian Digital Repository) and the Galaxy of Images. He is currently involved with an audio archive project for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden as well as assisting in overcoming challenges in much-needed upgrades to the DSpace system .

Born and raised in Lafayette, La., Richard graduated from the State University of New York at Stony Brook with a bachelor of science degree in computer science. He has lived in the DC area for 15 years, and before joining the Libraries, owned a business in internet consulting. A life-long fan of the Smithsonian, Richard used to spend summers in high school wandering around Smithsonian museums, attended the Folklife Fesitval every summer, and has helped out as a behind-the-scenes volunteer for the National Postal Museum.

Richard's many interests include cooking, traveling, photography, and philately with an emphasis on first-day covers, specifically those with digital color postmarks. Richard is currently honing his baking skills to create the perfect bread recipe, and has travelled to Germany, Iceland, and many places in the U.S. An Alexandria, VA resident, Richard recommends Restaurant Eve. His favorite movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas.—Liz O'Brien

Squirrel Appreciation Day

Sciurus volans.  The flying squirrel.  /  Guajacana [Persimmon tree], Mark Catesby.  Natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (London, 1731-1743 [i.e, 1729-1747]).  Vol.2, pl.76.

Mark Catesby spent a total of twelve years in the 1710s and1720s exploring the south-eastern seaboard of North America and produced the first fully illustrated book on the plants and animals he found there. He usually depicted the animals in association with an appropriate tree or plant, and thus was one of the first to emphasize ecological relationships. Here he shows a North American flying squirrel in a persimmon (“pishimon”) tree, and says:

These Squirrels have not membranous Wings like those of a Bat, whereby they can fly to any great Distance, but have only Membranes covered with their Furr, which grow along their Sides and are attached to their Legs, by which they can expand them, and so help themselves in leaping from one Tree to another… . [They] are gregarious, travelling in Companies of  ten, or twelve together. When I first saw them, I took them for dead Leaves, blown one Way by the Wind, but was not long so deceived, when I perceived many of them to follow one another in one Direction: They will fly fourscore Yards from one Tree to another. They cannot rise in their Flight, nor keep in a horizontal Line, but descend gradually… . Their Food is that of other Squirrels, viz. Nuts, Acorns, Pine Seeds, Pishimon Berries, &c.

Carl Linnaeus, who systematized the naming of plant and animal species in the 1750s, renamed the flying squirrel Glaucomys volans and cited Catesby’s illustration in naming the tree species Diospyros virginiana in his Species plantarum (Stockholm, 1753).

—Leslie Overstreet