American Indian launches its “4th Museum”

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Penobscot dollsThis 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 museum’s “Fourth Museum” project to bring the collections to those who may not have the opportunity to visit the museum’s three buildings in New York City, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.  According to museum director Kevin Gover, “As the museum on the National Mall approaches its fifth anniversary, our promise to reach out to tribal communities, schools, libraries, museums… throughout the world is being realized.  Though we have a long way to go before completing this project, I am pleased to offer the first phase of our fourth museum–our museum without walls.”  

2.0 and you

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2.0 graphic

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 much come to you.”  The writer must not know about Affiliates.

Nonetheless, one of the earliest initiatives of Secretary Clough was to brilliantly ask advice on this topic from 31 luminaries of the digital realm – digerati – in town this past weekend for days-long brainstorming and idea sharing with Smithsonian staff.  The result was some of the most stimulating dialog I’ve heard, and so many ideas about navigating this whole new world of 2.0.  Ideas applicable to all, not just the Smithsonian.

(You can participate too – check out smithsonian20.si.edu/ and the Post article about the gathering.)

Case in point – the kickoff keynoter, Bran Ferren of Applied Minds, threw out this idea – give away  your collection to the American people.  The concept?  Give one item from our collection to each citizen. The Smithsonian would retain the stewardship of the item, but that citizen would accept the responsibility for the online dialogue about that object. They would, in a new sense, perhaps a 21st century sense (?), “own” it.

So which object would you choose?

 

The Smithsonian names a new Secretary

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Secretary-elect Clough  On Saturday, the Regents of the Smithsonian voted unanimously for the 12th Secretary, Dr. G. Wayne Clough. (pronounced cluff)  With a PhD in civil engineering, Clough comes to SI from his post as president of Georgia Tech University.  While there, he has increased enrollment and research expenditures dramatically, overseen the expansion of campuses all over the world, and led two major capital campaigns.  Georgia Tech is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 10 public research universities.  Read more of his bio in this press release.

This experience will relate well to the breadth and complexity of the Smithsonian, as Clough mentioned in his press conference following the announcement.

Clough will start at the Smithsonian on July 1.  We so look forward to introducing him to Affiliates!

Butterflies

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butterfly  Smithsonian staff are all aflutter (pun intended) about the new Butterfly Pavilion at the National Museum of Natural History.  We’re really excited about sharing this amazing new space with Affiliates this summer at the conference.  

Officially titled “Butterflies and Plants: Partners in Evolution,” the accompanying exhibition on co-evolution paves the way for the lush tropical experience that is the pavilion itself.  Museum staff provide a handy pictorial guide to the butterflies inside, and it’s very easy for visitors to get up close and personal… often, a butterfly will land on a shoulder or hand!  More importantly, visitors can see the interrelationship between the insects and plants, observing butterflies’ & their long tongues (proboscis) sucking out nectar or juice from the pieces of fruit available, before going on to pollinate other plants.     

The butterflies arrive in Washington in their cocoons (sorry, chrysalides) from farms around the world, and are displayed in a case inside the pavilion.  Watching them emerge is another cool part of the experience, as is the inspection all visitors go through upon leaving, to make sure no “hitchhikers” leave the space.  It’s sure to be a not-to-be-missed Washington experience, so sign up now!  or, click here for more pics.  Enjoy!   

Interior of pavilion    Closeup    Blue butterfly       

 

Click!

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Here’s a cool new announcement –

Click  The Smithsonian Photography Initiative is launching CLICK! PHOTOGRAPHY CHANGES EVERYTHING, an interdisciplinary, Web-based forum at https://www.click.si.edu/.

Using images drawn from the extraordinary collections of Smithsonian photography, CLICK! reminds us about the power of photography to change all aspects of our world. This new site will be publicly announced on March 14, 2008 – be one of the first to view it now!

Even better, during the first phase of CLICK! the Smithsonian Photography Initiative and guest curator Marvin Heiferman will invite as many as 100 contributors from both in and outside the Smithsonian to muse on the ways in which photography has changed the history, progress and practice of our experience. Their early contributions will serve as a springboard for the second phase, which launches in fall 2008 and will include interactive options for public participation. 

How is this useful to Affiliates? 

Like the library system at the Smithsonian, photographic collections are sprinkled throughout various units.  The Photography Initiative’s sites help to consolidate the images themselves for easier searching, and then point you to exactly the right person to ask about borrowing the image, or obtaining a reproduction.  The sites may also inspire you to think about the ways you share your photography collections and encourage visitor participation.

btw – that’s a Kodak Snapshot of Woman In Blue Dress By Car, 1959, in the American History’s collection.  Click on it to see a bigger version – I promise it’s worth it.

Smithsonian on iTunes

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A nugget to add to the “who knew?!” category…

We recently got an announcement that Smithsonian’s Global Sound, a program of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, had launched a new section on the iTunes store in the iTunes U section called ‘Beyond Campus.’ One of only 6 organizations featured in this new project (with MoMA, American Public Media and others), this site gives free access to lesson plans, education kits, and videos that utilize and relate to Global Sound recordings for sale on SI websites and in the iTunes store.

alhaj.jpg  It’s fabulous. For example, I watched a three-minute video of the 2007 Teacher of the Year talk about how she used Global Sound to introduce her students to the music of Zimbabwe, and to explain the different classifications of instruments. I watched a short video of Iraqi virtuoso Rahim Alhaj record a song on the oud. (I didn’t know what an oud was either! the ” (ōōd) ” is a pear-shaped, stringed instrument similar to a lute used in traditional Middle Eastern music.  See picture above.) I downloaded the Center’s fantastic Oral History Interviewing Guide. You can search the site by instrument, culture, country, genre.. you name it.

How can Affiliates use this? Why not consider SI Global Sound next time you’d like to add a soundtrack to your African art exhibit? Do you have musical instruments in your collection, and need ideas for fresh ways to interpret them to your audiences? Chances are, Global Sound has a lesson plan or a video of someone playing the instrument, that you can share with your visitors.

So for fun while surfing around iTunes, I searched for ‘Smithsonian’ to see what else they might have. Need a new podcast to listen to on your way to work by chance?!
si podcast.jpg  The Institution’s podcasts are collected here. Some are familiar – the Hirshhorn and the Freer/Sackler presented theirs at an Affiliations Conference a few years ago. But have you heard Cheetah Chat from the National Zoo? Interested in hearing about what Smithsonian scientists are researching these days? The Undersecretary of Science has a podcast to share our findings. NMAI is producing fabulous podcasts that are audio or video recordings of their concerts, public art projects, or particular objects in their exhibitions (like a Tlingit elder describing the craftsmanship and story behind a Brown Bear Clan Hat from Alaska).

The depths of content and possible applications to plumb here are very deep… have fun!