Smithsonian Libraries

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Smithsonian Research Online

During the week of January 16-19th, I visited the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) to discuss several matters relating to the Smithsonian Research Online (SRO) program and to offer technical support and training to STRI library staff. I was accompanied from Washington by Digital Services Head, Martin Kalfatovic, who was to attend a three-day Encyclopedia-of-Life meeting at Barro-Colorado Island during the same week.

Together we met with Oris Sanjur (STRI Associate Director for Science Administration), Vielka Chang-Yau (STRI head librarian), Angel Aguirre (librarian), Klaus Winter (STRI scientist) and Eldredge Bermingham (STRI Director). Everyone was in agreement that STRI-authored publication data ought to be collected in one place and that the SIL is doing a good job of coordinating this program across all Institution units. The Director and Associate Director will discuss the specific needs of their unit and report back to SIL, who will propose a workflow to accomplish this.

Meanwhile, I held a brief introduction to the bibliographic tools, EndNote and Zotero for STRI library staff and volunteers. While we had a training room available to us, unfortunately there was not a copy of these programs available to all participants. But they were still able to see the possibilities of using these tools in day-to-day library services.

Alvin and Vielka review the SRO website and list of Smithsonian-authored publications using the newly-installed LCD screen in the STRI library. Photo courtesy of martin_kalfatovic via Flickr.

Finally, I met with Fernando Bouché (Head, Office of Information Technology) and STRI programmer, Carlos Caballero, to discuss the management of publication data, its re-use on the STRI web page and inclusion in the SI Collections search system (EDAN).

STRI scientists publish over 300 scholarly papers every year. Approximately 70% of them are captured automatically by the SRO via websites and associated tools. This circumvents the need for manual data entry. The inclusion of the complete corpus of work being done there is an essential part of representing the research being conducted at the Institution and the cooperation between the SI Libraries and STRI will bring the project to fruition.

 

 

 

Digitization Dispatch: Ancient Treasure, Supernatural Guidance, and Crowd Control

This month, we feature another new addition from the National Museum of the American Indian's Vine Deloria, Jr. Library into the digital collection housed at the Internet Archive, here.  The American Ethnological Society's 1860 description of an event has all the elements of a great Hollywood heist movie: likable protagonists, the quest for riches, and a lesson on the importance of secrecy, especially when the loot is within arm's reach of a town full of likable protagonists with their own quests to fulfill.

In 1858, two farmers discovered gold while tending corn crops in the Chiriqui province in Panama. Remarkably, they excavated the source undetected for nearly a year before word of the site spread into the populace of nearby towns and villages. Mining the cache in concealed fits and spurts, they reportedly lifted about 130 pounds of gold in the form of idols and relics which occupied the tombs of the ancient graveyard or Huacal. But not every tomb in the graveyard contained the gold that fueled their search. Many simply housed pottery or other, less marketable, tokens. The Antiquary's Magazine: or, Relics of Past Men, Tribes and Nations, reports the farmer's reported ability to distinguish between the profitable tombs and the cheaper versions laid in the divining power of one farmer's son. He constructed an apparatus from a steel rod and a wire while chanting until the rod showed him the way. The report goes on to debunk the swindle but never offers an explanation for the farmers' luck in finding so many valuable pieces. By May 1959, the public had discovered the famers' secret and in the weeks following, nearly 1000 pounds of gold are reported to have been taken from the ransacked graveyard.
That's a movie I'd watch.

The report also includes a more complete (and less spellbinding) description of various relics found among the tombs, bulletins from subsequent meetings, and a description of the Grave Creek Mound in Virginia.

 

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Digitization Dispatch: Etymology Edition!

According to a 1918 publication from silk manufacturers The Cheney Brothers, 'polka dots' are so called for a couple of reasons. First, a traveling dance instructor spotted a young woman performing an unfamiliar dance on the border of Poland and Bohemia. The dance instructor became enamoured with the exuberant half steps of the dance and began teaching it to students. He named the dance after the anonymous performer, the feminine form designating Polish citizenry: the Polka. At the same time, the presidential campaign of James Polk was underway. And as the dance spread around the globe, trade manufactures were eager to cash in on on the popularity of both the incoming US President and the dance. Early issues of catalogs begin to describe their wares as "polka gauze", "polka hats", and "polka shoes".

This month's digital collection highlight, Why do you call them Polka Dots?, neglects the origins of latter half of the phrase, but it could be that the word 'dot' (rather than "spot", say) comes into play because Morse's new communication language was utmost in the mind of the populace. Dots and dashes were on the tip of the collective tongue at the time. And whether or not the Cheney Brothers eytomological report is technically speaking the most accurate tracing of the term, the story highlights the ways consumer culture can creep into language. Enjoy!

How to dance the Polka

Cheney Brothers Silk

 

 

Digitization Dispatch: How to listen to music, circa 1900

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

 

Weighing in at a mere 7 pages, On Certain Obstacles to the Highest Enjoyment of Music, provides an unexpectedly scathing glimpse into Daniel Chester French's musical perspective. One of the latest digitizations from the AAPG general collection, this thin volume is a veritable ode to his own imagination via a condemnation of the sensory distractions of other human beings. He hates the musicians and their "bald heads as highlights" to an already disagreeable scene littered with white cuffs and shirttails. He hates the lighting which calls attention to female vocalists who frustratingly replace the "beautiful invisible singer" conjured by his imagination. And don't get him started on the racket caused by fellow concert attendees. He does not care for their applause. That "Bravo!" is superfluous at best, and of course, an obstacle to the highest enjoyment of music at worst!

 

On certain obstacles to the highest enjoyment of music by Daniel Chester French

 

What would the late Mr. French think of John Cage's 1952 ode to ambient sound, "4'33"? The modern masterpiece is properly played when the musicians don't play their instruments so that the audience may give the unique sounds which arise their full attention. Perhaps he might have appreciated it's honesty and musing on silence as sound? Or at least had a chuckle at the thought of sacrificing "music" for the sake of other obstacles to listening enjoyment! 

Click here for a youtube clip of a BBC Four performance of "4'33"
Click here for an 1974 oral history interview with John Cage from the Archives of American Art.