SPARC

Spring Garden Preparation Brown Bag

Thanks to everyone who attended the Spring Garden Brown Bag on March 19, 2009.  I thought others might be interested in the list of resources given out at the session.  The books are some of my favorites to use when selecting plants and thinking about design.  Happy Gardening to All--Robin

Photo: USNA Introduction Prunus 'first lady'

Gardening Books

Armitage, Allen.  Armitage’s Native Plant for North American Gardens (2006)

Darke, Rick.  The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses (1993)

Dirr, Michael. Manual of Woody Landscape Plants: their identification, ornamental characteristics, culture, propagation and uses. (1998)

Ottesen, Carole. The Native Plant Primer (1995)

Stell, Elizabeth. Rodale’s Successful Organic Gardening: Landscaping with Perennials (1995)

Tallamy, Douglas.  Bringing Nature Home (2008)

Magazines
The American Gardener: the magazine of the American Horticultural Society (6 times a year)

Tauton’s Fine Gardening (6 times a year)

Horticulture: the art & science of smart gardening (6 times a year)

The Herb Companion (6 times a year)

Washington Post Gardening Columns

Gardening How To's from the Washington Post

Thursday’s Scott Aker’s Digging In

Saturday’s Joel Lerner Green Scene

Smithsonian Publications available online

SIL has been working to digitizing the entire corpus of Smithsonian serial publications for the past few years. We’re getting very near to completion of the first phase of the project, but there will always before to do!

Since some staff may not be aware of these projects, I thought it was a good time for an update.

The first phase was digitizing the new “Smithsonian Contributions” series. These are now complete (with new publications being added upon publication by the Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press) and include the following series:

• Smithsonian Annals of Flight (1964 - 1974)
• Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology (1965 - present)
• Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics (1956 - 1974)
• Contributions to Botany (1969-present)
• Smithsonian Contributions to History and Technology (1969 - present ; formerly Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology)
• Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology (1969 - present)
• Smithsonian Contributions to the Earth Sciences (1969 - 2002)
• Smithsonian Contributions to the Marine Sciences (1977 - present)
• Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology (1969 - present)
• Smithsonian Folklife Studies (1980 - 1990)
• Smithsonian Studies in Air and Space (1977 - 1990)
  

All above publications are available at: http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/

Additionally, the large, historic publications of the Institution are being scanned as part of the Biodiversity Heritage Library Project; these series are mostly complete. There are still gaps in the series as we work with volumes that were difficult to digitize (tightly bound, containing large foldouts, etc.); the missing volumes will be completed as technology permits.

The four largest of these series are available at the URLs below. Please note, these are currently available only through the BHL web interface, as time permits, they will be integrated into a unified Smithsonian publications site.

• Bulletin - United States National Museum. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/7548
• Smithsonian contributions to knowledge. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/7997
• Smithsonian miscellaneous collections. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/8128
• Proceedings of the United States National Museum. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/7519
• Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/7964
  

Additionall, The Contributions to the  US National Herbarium (1890-1974, 2000-2006) will be available shortly; recent issues are now online.

Lastly, an additional publication, long sponsored by the Smithsonian is also available:

• Atoll Research Bulletin. http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/atollresearchbulletin/index.cfm
  

All titles are (or will be shortly) available via the “E-journal A-Z List” (http://www.sil.si.edu/eresources/tfr_index.cfm) as well as through links in the SIRIS records for the titles.

Time to SPARCle (tm)

SPARC is hard at work planning our annual staff appreciation party (more details on that coming soon!) and, as is traditional, that means it’s time to think about:

the SIL Peer Recognition Awards (tm)

 

SPARC can't nominate, or be nominated, for an award so we need YOU to write about that special someone and let us know why he/she deserves a SPARCle (tm).   What other kudo could possibly compare with the expressions of appreciation from our peers - the people who actually know what we do (or at least pretend to).  Nominations can be for any thing big or small that someone has done in the past year that you feel needs to be recognized - from innovative thinking to outstanding patron service to just being the one person you can always count on to get the job done.

To nominate someone, and to see award categories from last year, please see the online form:

Due to the fact that the staff appreciation party will be in early April, we must close the call for nominations on March 18th (to allow time to fabricate the awards).  Don’t worry – we accept nominations in incomplete sentences with spelling errors!

Any questions, etc. can be directed to me, or your favorite SPARC member.
And Yes, you can nominate someone who has been nominated or has received an award before.  (Last years winners were the inestimable Sharon Glenn, the unflappable Claudia Edge, and the incomparable Claire Catron.)

Next Brown Bag and SPARC sponsored tour

                                                                Hi All,

This month, SPARC is sponsoring a brown bag and a tour in collaboration with Horticulture Services Division staff.  On Friday, March 13th, from 10 - 11 am, join Tom Mirenda, for an in-depth tour of NMNH exhibit, "Orchids through Darwin's Eyes" .  This tour is limited to 15 people, so please RSVP directly to me at everlyr@si.edu. Then on Thursday, March 19th, at noon in the SIL conference room, join Rick Shilling, for an informal session entitled, "Getting your garden ready for spring." He'll answer your early spring gardening questions and any others you might have. I'll bring some gardening books from the Botany-Horticulture Library and my personal collection to consult.  For this brown bag, I'm asking participants "to blog" with their questions in advance by replying to this post, so we can be ready with answers.

                                                                Please join us for one or both events!  Robin