Smithsonian Libraries

We're taking a break!

Slatless Gentleman's trunk. American Box & Trunk Factory Catalogue, 1906

The Smithsonian Libraries blog is going on a short hiatus while we perform some upgrades and changes. For many years we have been at this location, but the environment has changed and we are moving to a new home. The digital suitcases are packed and the virtual moving van is being loaded to carry all of our authors, posts, comments and images to our new home. 

We expect that the move will take at most a week. Our last post here will be today, February 24, 2012. We'll leave this site up and running for quite a while and when we are moved into our new home and everyting is unpacked and ready to go, we'll announce our new location here. We hope that the new version of the Smithsonian Libraries blog is up and running by March 3rd.

Thank you for your patience in this move. We hope to minimize the growing pains, but we think you'll like our new, bright, airy home. 

–The SI Libraries Blog Staff

Planning for the NMAAHC branch library

When The President of the United States and the Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) break ground on February 22, 2012, it will be the beginning of a new adventure for Smithsonian Libraries.  Plans for the museum include locating the library in wonderful space on a public floor with direct public access.  Mary Augusta Thomas and Bill Baxter have been working with the staff of the NMAAHC space planning team, including representatives from the education department, the center for media arts and collections. We all enjoy the challenges of planning for a highly interactive information commons and a research library with a program that is only now being defined.  Our joint vision is for a place that visitors will come with questions raised by their time in the exhibitions.  These might be about objects in the collections, or the location of a museum or cultural center in their vicinity. 

In addition, the museum and library will offer resources and training in genealogy, another first for SIL.  In addition, the library reference specialists will provide onsite assistance with databases, a collection expected to be about 20000 volumes’ and a scholar’s workstation for visiting fellows and researchers.  Library users will be able discover resources throughout SL and retrieve items quickly. SIL is also in discussions about offering services to support archives research.   SIL selectors have been tagging books for the new museum for several years so a beginning collection is currently located at the Anacostia Community Museum Library.   The Libraries will bring a new librarian on board in the next year to work with planners and researchers at the Museum on those important first exhibitions and ongoing programs.

 

 

—Mary Augusta Thomas, Deputy Director

Images: Construction from Constitution Ave (top) and Signage from 15th Street (bottom).

Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board March meeting

Today, March 3, 2010, the Smithsonian Libraries' Advisory Board held it's first meeting of 2010 at the National Museum of African American History and Culture's conference room in Washington, DC.

Learn more about the Advisory Board here.