Smithsonian Libraries and Archives is an institutional archives and library system comprising 21 branch libraries serving the various Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers. The Libraries and Archives serve Smithsonian Institution staff as well as the scholarly community and general public with information and reference support. Its collections number nearly 3 million volumes including 50,000 rare books and manuscripts. The Libraries' collections focus primarily on science, art, history and culture, and museology. The archives include materials documenting the history of the 19 museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park, 9 research facilities, and the people of the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian Libraries and Archives is dedicated to advancing scientific and cultural understanding as well as preserving American heritage. The organization's Book Conservation Lab and other preservation efforts work to ensure long-term access to library and archival resources. Additional efforts include educational programs for learners of all ages, hosting internships and fellowships, and participating in collaborative projects such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Digital Public Library of America.Formerly two separate departments within the Smithsonian, the Smithsonian Libraries and Smithsonian Institution Archives merged in 2020...
"I’m Still Surviving. Jennifer Brier, project director. History Moves, 2020." The Oral History Review, 48(2), pp. 273–274
With limited staff resources, the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) in the early 2000s embarked on a new process to reveal the stories, people, and places embedded in their collections that document the history of the Smithsonian. This article looks at the earliest initiatives of publishing item-level digital collections that set the stage for hidden stories to rise to the surface through the public's engagement with materials in the Transcription Center. Such forms of engagement have included transcribing the SIA field books, following the SIA on various social media channels, and demonstrating interest in the “Women in Science Wednesday” campaign—all of which have enabled us to carry our message to new audiences and to enrich the information we had about our collections, something that would not have been possible with the SIA's small staff.
Utilizing crowdsourcing to make an organization's cultural heritage material more accessible can be a cumbersome and resource-intensive process. Without a digitization workflow designed to facilitate the use of image sets in multiple ways on a variety of platforms, large-scale crowdsourcing would be out of reach for the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA). However, such a workflow can also be a natural extension of regular operations. SIA's incorporation of crowdsourcing preparation into its normal digital preservation and access operations demonstrates how an organization can achieve higher levels of audience engagement and acquire high-quality enriched data while avoiding heavy impacts to existing staff resources. This brief article outlines digitization workflows, material selection, and the underpinning principles and practices that the SIA employs and offers these as one possibility for organizations to consider before embarking on such a project.
The Smithsonian Institution Archives is responsible for the Smithsonian's records of enduring value. Though the Institution was aware of the need to keep certain records permanently (dating back to 1852) and an archivist was first assigned the task of maintaining records and special collections in 1891, the first modern archives program did not begin until 1967. From its very beginning the Smithsonian collected personal papers and special collections and this trend has been continued by the Smithsonian Archives.
The lapidary term "jade" refers to two very tough, virtually monomineralic rocks used for ornamental carvings or gems. Both have metasomatic origins that are intimately connected with their host serpentinite bodies and convergent-margin petrotectonics. Amphibole jade is nephrite, a tremolite-actionalite rock with a felted, microcystalline habit; pyroxene jade is jadeite rock (jadeitite), which varies from micro- to macrocrystalline textures. Most nephrite occurs along fault contacts between serpentinite and mafic to felsic igneous rocks or metagraywacke in obduction settings. It forms by Ca- and Si-rich, aqueous fluid-mediated metasomatic replacement of serpentinite, typically antigorite, at greenschist-facies or lower P-T conditions. Other nephrite bodies reflect contact metasomatic replacement of dolomite by Si-rich aqueous fluids during felsic pluton emplacement. Like most nephrite, jadeitite is hosted by antigorite-dominated serpentinite bodies. However, these serpentinites are associated with HP/LT metamorphic terranes, in which jadeitite occurs as isolated tabular bodies or tectonized blocks. Based on textural evidence, particularly clear from cathodoluminescence studies, nearly all jadeitite bodies appear to have formed originally as vein crystallization of an aqueous fluid, most readily interpreted as Na-Al-Si-rich fluid at HP/LT conditions in subduction/collisional settings. The host serpentinite influences jadeitite compositions by lowering fluid aSiO2 during serpentinization, and contributing Ca + Mg ± Cr to late-stage jadeitite-forming fluids. Thus, although both types of jade form in convergent-margin tectonic settings, jade has two distinct primary modes of origin: (1) by siliceous replacement of already serpentinized ultramafic rock at low-P, low- to moderate-T conditions following obduction (nephrite); or (2) by the interaction of serpentinizing peridotite and Na-Al-Si fluids at HP/LT conditions during active subduction/collision (jadeitite).
