Girl Scouts “Go the Distance” for a Merit Badge with Smithsonian American Art
Special thanks to Mike Irwin, Distance Learning Coordinator at the Durham Museum in Omaha, for this guest post. Group Programs Manager, Molly Gruber walked into the Distant Learning Coordinator’s office at the Durham Museum and asked, “Can we connect girl scouts with experts to talk about the security of rare and priceless art objects?” Two months […]
Cross Collection searching
Ever wish you could go to one place to search across the whole Smithsonian for objects? We want that for you too! and we’re getting closer and closer. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden was just added to the Smithsonian’s Cross Searching Center, along with the great collections from the National Postal Museum, the National […]
Collaborating in Pennsylvania
I just got back from a road trip to Pennsylvania, and what struck me with all the Affiliates I visited there was the various and creative ways they are all collaborating, with each other and with their greater communities. In Hershey… The Antique Automobile Club of America Museum partnered a while ago with the Museum of […]
Collaboration is Key
Thanks to Nancy Crane, Director of Education, Culture & Heritage Museums, for this guest post. After hearing Lonnie Bunch, Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), speak on the topic of collaboration at the 2007 Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference, we knew that we would like to work and collaborate […]
Do you qualify for stimulus funding?
Searching for research funding? Grant opportunities are available! The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has budgeted for numerous grant funding opportunities representing agencies government wide. Each agency has been allocated varying amounts of money to support research in all different fields of studies. For the latest information regarding Recovery Act grant announcements please […]
Museum Transparency
SI Staff were treated last week to a lecture by Max Anderson, director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. He kicked off his lecture with a “memo” by President Obama urging transparency not only in government, but across all organizations. Anderson then made quite a cogent argument for greater transparency in the museum world. He argued, […]
The Other 90% in Atlanta
Thanks to Louise Shaw, Curator, Global Health Odyssey Museum, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for this guest post. As curator of the Global Health Odyssey Museum at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] in Atlanta, I had the challenging and exciting task of designing and installing Design for the Other 90%. This traveling […]
Kansas City – Jazz, BBQ and Beyond
Thanks to Andrew Zender, Director of Communications at the American Jazz Museum, for this guest post. Born in America, jazz is our nation’s only indigenous art form and one of our greatest treasures. Kansas City is one of the important incubators of jazz, and within its borders is one of the greatest crossroads of American music […]
In Plane View at Kansas Cosmosphere
The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, our Smithsonian Affiliate in Hutchinson, Kansas, served as the perfect backdrop for the opening stop of the national tour of In Plane View/Abstractions of Flight, a traveling exhibit from the National Air and Space Museum, featuring the remarkable photographs of Smithsonian photographer, Carolyn Russo. As a guest attendee on January […]
Cupcake love at American Art
Our friends at the American Art Museum celebrated Valentine’s Day by inviting cupcake artist Zilly Rosen to create “A New Birth of Freedom,” a double portrait of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama made from more than 5,600 cupcakes. As you can see, each cupcake played a vital role as one “pixel” in the sugary […]
Jewish Museum “Steels” Spotlight
Thanks to Ilana Blumenthal, Public Relations Associate at NMAJH for this guest blog post. With the sun in our eyes, frostbite nearly setting in, and huge grins on our faces, the staff and board members of the National Museum of American Jewish History watched as the final 31-foot steel beam was placed on the northwest corner of […]
American Indian launches its “4th Museum”
This week, the National Museum of the American Indian launched a new site for searching its collections. This new resource includes over 5000 objects from its 800,000-plus collection, and will continue to grow. Eventually, it will be one of the largest Native American collections online. You can visit this site at www.AmericanIndian.si.edu/searchcollections. The launch is a milestone in the […]
2.0 and you
As the Washington Post put it this morning, “The subject: dragging the world’s greatest museum complex into the current century.” And of particular interest: “Of the Smithsonian’s 137 million artifacts, however, not only is less than 1 percent on display, but most of that is in Washington. You have to come to the Smithsonian. It doesn’t […]
new funding opportunity
The Vodafone Americas Foundation has launched the Wireless Innovation Challenge to promote innovation and increase implementation of advanced wireless related technology for a better world. To that end, the Wireless Innovation Challenge will provide up to $600,000 in total awards to support projects of exceptional promise using wireless-related technology to address critical social issues around […]
Rainforest survival
On Monday, January 12, the Smithsonian will be hosting some of the world’s leading scientists to discuss and debate the differing perspectives on the changes in tropical landscapes, and their impacts. The event will be webcast live from 1 – 6:30pm – at www.si.edu/tec. The symposium’s 8 specialists will discuss topics related to tropical extinction including deforestation, […]
New digs
Congratulations to our friends and colleagues at the Office of Exhibits Central, who just hosted us all for an open house in their new, absolutely fantastic new facility, the Pennsy Collections and Support Center! The renovated 360,000 square foot facility features specialized space and equipment for exhibit design and fabrication and conservation. It also serves as […]
