Smithsonian Libraries

Waffles, Sandwiches, Hamburgers...

The first US waffle iron was patented in 1869.  Since then various companies have manufactured waffle irons. 

In the Universal Electric Housewares catalog from 1950, Landers, Frary & Clark advertised the Universal Sandwich Grill and Waffle Maker as an appliance which makes “quickie suppers or a ‘hurry up’ breakfast.”  Besides making waffles and toasting sandwiches, it also fries or grills eggs, bacon, hamburgers, and fish cakes.  It comes with two “quick-and-easy-to-change grids” which transform it from a waffle maker to a surface grill or vice versa.  And the expansion hinge allows both small and large sandwiches, even “3-deckers,” to be toasted.

Universal Electric Housewares and other catalogs from Landers, Frary & Clark of New Britain, Connecticut can be found in the Trade Literature Collection at the National Museum of American History Library.—Alexia MacClain

Top: Landers, Frary & Clark, Universal Electric Housewares catalog, 1950

Bottom: catalog assortment (photos by Liz O'Brien)

Happy Birthday, August Weismann!

While it may not be a bicentennial, the year 2009 marks what would have been the 175th birthday of August Weismann, a German biologist and one of the founders of the science of genetics.

Perhaps Weismann's best known contributions to genetics were his opposition to the doctrine of the inheritance of modern traits and his germ plasm theory, which served as the forerunner to the modern day DNA theory. His observations led him to the idea that the germ cell contains "something that must be carefully preserved and passed on from one generation to another," thus birthing the theory of the germ plasm in his writings from 1886, which states that all living things contain a special hereditary substance.

This still holds validity today, though we now speak of chromosomes, genes and DNA in place of germ plasms.

To celebrate the achievements of this trailblazer of genetics, the Biodiversity Heritage Library
has digitized many of his best-known works, which include The Germ Plasm: a Theory of Heredity and On Germinal Selection as a Source of Definite Variation. In addition, Die Continuität des Keimplasma's als Grundlage einer Theorie der Vererbung (which discusses Weismann's development of a germ plasm) has been included in the Heralds of Science collection. Next time you think about DNA (or the germ plasm), think of Dr. Weismann!—Brett Lambert

Bio—Marcia Adams

Marcia Adams is the Assistant Director of Technical Services, a division which comprises five centralized departments of the Libraries. Technical Services Division staff perform services for all twenty branches as well as other Smithsonian units, serving as specialized consultants and expert resources in the fields of library and information science. They also provide technical support for the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS).

Adams is responsible for the Acquisitions Services, Cataloging Services and Interlibrary Loan Services, Metadata Services and Preservation Services departments within the Libraries and oversees the continuing re-engineering of the Libraries’ business processes. Adams chairs the Data Standards Committee and is part of a Smithsonian-wide team investigating capabilities of library systems as a precursor to procurement of a new system.

Adams was appointed Assistant Director for Technical Services in 2004. She joined the Libraries as assistant systems administrator in 1987. Prior to her current position, she was the department head of the Libraries’ Systems unit, overseeing the implementation of the automated library system, SIRIS.  Earlier in her career, Adams worked as a reference librarian and cataloger at Purdue University Library, as a public services librarian at the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana, and later as a systems librarian at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. She has a B.A. from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. She earned her Masters in Library Science from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. In December 2007, Marcia was appointed to the Federal Library Information Network Advisory Committee (FAC), and appointed Chair of the FAC in 2009.—Liz O'Brien

Highlighting Exchange Partners—Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum

The Libraries has a very well-developed exchange program, in which we receive print serials from organizations in the U.S. and abroad in return for their receipt of our Smithsonian Contributions monographic series. Many of these exchange partnerships go back to the beginning of the twentieth century, some even further. 

One of the Libraries’ long-standing exchange partners is the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum located in Frankfurt, Germany. The Senckenberg Museum is currently owned and operated by the Senckenberg Nature Research Society. The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe founded the Research Society during his 1815 visit to his hometown of Frankfurt. The society is named after the medical doctor Johann Christian Senckenberg, who was an important Frankfurt benefactor in the eighteenth century. The Society now has some 4,000 members. 

The first museum building was opened in 1821, and is today one of the largest natural history museums in Germany and in the world, focusing on the fields of anthropology, botany, geology, paleontology, and zoology. Its researchers and scientists ultimately work toward environmental protection and sustainability and biodiversity management. 

Two titles the Libraries receive are Senckenbergiana Lethaea (as of 2009 called Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments) and Senckenbergiana Maritima (as of 2009 called Marine Biodiversity) dealing with paleontology and marine biology and geology.

We have been corresponding and exchanging with the Society since at least the 1920’s.  Below are some of the early exchange letters the Libraries has on file.—Polly Khater

Top: 1921 letter in German

Middle: Translation of 1921 German letter

Bottom: Letter from 1926