Smithsonian Libraries

Martin Kalfatovic: New Assistant Director, New Division!

L_R: David Byrd, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for Governmental Operations and Environmental Services for Prince George's County, Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough and Martin Kalfatovic tour new Libraries spaces at Pennsy Drive, near Landover. Md.

Newly appointed Assistant Director for the Digital Services Division Martin Kalfatovic began his career at the Libraries as the interlibrary loan technician at the Smithsonian American Art Museum & National Portrait Gallery Library. After receiving his graduate degree from The Catholic University of America, he was promoted to Reference Librarian. In 1993 he transferred to the Information Access Coordinator, managing electronic resources and outreach. With the formation of the Information Systems Division in 1997, he took over all responsibilities for the growing Libraries web presence. The importance of the web to the Libraries was formalized in 1999 with the creation of the New Media Office under Martin’s leadership. Since that time, he has taken on additional pan-Institutional responsibilities and serves as a valued member of Smithsonian’s technology community. Active in the library profession, he is the author of three books, a number of articles, and is a regular speaker at library and technology conferences.

The new Digital Services Division oversees all digital services for the Libraries including  web presence, coordination of web 2.0 activities, digitization of Libraries content through the Imaging Center and contracted services, and imaging use (including image licensing and product development & licensing). Martin is also responsible for managing the Libraries' participation in the Biodiversity Heritage Library project.

Congratulation, Martin!—Liz O'Brien

Introducing...Digital Services Division

L-R: Grace Duke, Richard Naples, Alvin Hutchinson, David Holbert, Keri Thompson, Martin Kalfatovic, Conrad Ziyad, Erin Thomas, Erin Clements Rushing

This newly renamed division is headed by Martin Kalfatovic, Assistant Director for Digital Services. The Digital Services Division (DSD) oversees all digital services for the Libraries including the web presence, coordination of web 2.0 activities, digitization of Libraries' content through both its own Imaging Center and contracted services, and imaging use (including image licensing and product development & licensing).

Information Services Unit—Alvin Hutchinson heads up this newly organized unit. Richard Naples reports to Alvin and works on all unit projects. Conrad Ziyad works on projects in this unit as well as in other units of the Division. Alvin is the Libraries representative to the Smithsonian’s Information Technology Management Committee (ITMC) and is the liaison to the Smithsonian Office of the Chief Information Officer on desktop support issues. The Information Services unit provides the following services to Smithsonian and Libraries staff:

• Maintains and promotes Smithsonian Research Online (SRO), research.si.edu, the program that consists of the Smithsonian Research Bibliography and the Smithsonian Digital Repository (SDR). The SRO serves as the record of Smithsonian scholarly output in all formats. The SDR maintains digital copies of much of this scholarly output.
• Provides support for other technology systems including ILLiad and Odyssey.
• Technical support for desktop applications not covered by OCIO. Richard Naples is the key person in the Division for questions related to moving computers, printers, etc.

Web Services Unit—Keri Thompson heads up this newly organized unit. The Web Services unit replaces much of the functionality of the previous New Media Office. Keri’s chief responsibilities are day-to-day maintenance and enhancement of the website, production of new digital projects on the web, and database management. She serves as the main contact to the OCIO’s Web Services Division. Keri is also the coordinator for all Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) scanning. In this task, she is assisted by two library technicians, Grace Duke and Erin Thomas. Erin and Grace’s primary duties are related to the review and scanning of materials for the BHL project.

Imaging Center —David Holbert coordinates all activities at the Imaging Center located at Pennsy Drive, near Landover Md. David is also our resident expert in imaging technology. The Imaging Center serves as the primary location for digitization of more fragile Libraries material and those that need rush or other special treatment. The Imaging Center maintains both an overhead scanning back camera with book cradle and a large format flatbed scanner.

Image Management and Product Development & Licensing—Erin Clements Rushing coordinates all image use for the Libraries. Erin works extensively with Libraries staff to transfer materials from their locations to the Imaging Center or externally to the Libraries for contract digitization services. As the main contact with Smithsonian Enterprises, Erin works with the Smithsonian’s Product Development & Licensing unit to create a wide variety of licensed images that are sold in Smithsonian shops as well as through catalogs and retail outlets. She also coordinates all direct licensing of Libraries' content with publishers, video producers, and others. Erin is the point person for copyright and other rights issues. She is not a lawyer, but she is in regular contact with the Smithsonian’s Office of the General Counsel to assist Libraries staff in questions related to intellectual property.—Martin Kalfatovic

Schrödinger Manuscript Collection

He haunts physics textbooks. His cat is featured on T-shirts. He won a Nobel Prize.
Who is he? A newly digitized manuscript collection can help us find out!

Although Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887 – 1961) addressed topics from DNA to color theory, he is best known for his contributions to quantum mechanics, the study of matter and energy on an electron-size scale. Four letters, a galley proof, and an envelope in SIL’s Dibner Library provide insight into his daily life.

An English letter to autograph collector Howes Norris, Jr. describes Schrödinger’s conception of knowledge and the human mind, in addition to offering advice for students nervous about exams. Since the mind contains knowledge “virtually, not actually, in the same way as the flint contains the spark,” an examiner should “act on them [students] as the steel does on the flint to display their virtual knowledge.” Next time you start to sweat about finals, remember Schrödinger’s take on the situation!

In three letters to friend and fellow physicist Hans Thirring, Schrödinger discusses his work, his plans, his travels, and a student. Thirring (1888 – 1976) studied physics in Austria, in addition to advocating pacificism and participating in Parliament.

The galley proof (copy of a text headed for publication and corrected by an editor) was to become part of a book. Alternating texts and equations discuss the application of wave mechanics to specific heats, the amounts of energy needed to raise the temperature of an amount of various substances by one degree Celsius.

Manuscripts like these catapult scientific giants like Schrödinger out of textbooks and into real life.

(Curious about the cat? Along with the equation that earned him a Nobel Prize, Schrödinger’s cat is one of the ideas for which the physicist is best known. You can find a description of the feline here and the merchandise it inspired here and here.)

- Nicole Yunger Halpern, Dibner Library intern

May is Jewish American Heritage Month - Henry Mosler

Departure of the First Ohio Zouave Regiment from Cincinnati for Western Virginia
Sketch by Henry Mosler (1841-1920)
from Harper's Weekly, October 5, 1861, p. 631

Henry Mosler was born in Troplowitz, Silesia, the eldest son of Gustave and Sophie Mosler. In 1849 the family left Prussia to come to New York and were among the 200,000 German-Jewish immigrants who came to United States between 1830 and 1880. Individual freedom was especially important to German Jews and many left to come to America for great political and civil rights. Henry's father Gustave was trained as a lithographer and after 2 years in New York, moved his family to Cincinnati. At a young age Henry began drawing lessons and first worked as a wood engraver. He eventually began professional art training in 1859 and became an active participant in Cincinnati's art community and supported himself through commissions for portraits.

Beginning in 1861 Mosler began working as an artist correspondent for Harper's Weekly, a voice for the Union forces during the American Civil War.  Like most Jews in the North, Mosler was a strong Union supporter and served as an aide-de-camp from 1861 to 1863 serving with the army of Ohio.  This drawing of the First Ohio Zouave Regiment departing Cincinnati was one of his earliest commissions for Harper's.  He ultimately had 34 drawings published in the weekly with 18 depicting the Kentucky and Ohio Campaign in 1862.

After the war Mosler continued his art training in Düsseldorf and Paris between 1863 to 1865 becoming a notable painter. After returning to Cincinnati for close to eight years, he then lived in Munich and later Paris where his output now focused on genre painting which he then pursued through the rest of his career.  While in Paris in 1879, the French government bought its first American painting, Le Retour, a painting by Moser which won an honorable mention in the Paris Salon of 1879.  Moser continued to win many honors in France and was established himself a painter of importance in both American and French artistic circles.  In 1894 he returned to the United States to settle in New York where he continued to work until his death in 1920.  Moser stands as one of the gifted American artists to emerge in the latter half of the 19th century and one of the first Jewish American artists to establish an international reputation especially in the Academic art circles of the time.

This image is taken from the Smithsonian's AAPG Library's collection of Civil War issues of Harper's Weekly.  The primary source for Henry Mosler's biography above is: Henry Mosler Rediscovered: A Nineteenth-Century American-Jewish Artist by Barbara C. Gilbert (Los Angeles: Skirball Museum, 1995).—Doug Litts