Announcing the Library Service Survey Prize Winners!
Smithsonian Institution Libraries' staff extend their thanks to all who completed the spring 2002 web-based survey of library service quality. We are pleased to announce the winners in the local drawing for the survey incentive prizes-ten $50.00 gift certificates to Olsson's Bookstore. Our winners are:
Congratulations, everyone!
The winner of the national drawing for the Palm m500 is a student from Humboldt State University, Arcata CA.
Over 78,000 people completed this survey at 164 academic and research libraries across North America. Results of our local version of the survey will be shared with SI community later this summer.
NATURAL HISTORY RARE BOOKS TEMPORARILY CLOSES FOR MOVE
The SI Libraries' natural-history rare books, currently located in the Jewett Room in the Arts & Industries Building (A&I), are moving to their new home in the National Museum of Natural History
All books in the Jewett Room ("Special Collections A&I" in SIRIS) will be unavailable to researchers from July 8 to approximately August 30. If you know that you will need a work listed in SIRIS with the Collection Code of "Special Collections A&I" during this period, please contact Leslie Overstreet at 357-2376 or overstreetlk@si.edu . She will arrange to have the book sent for use in the Dibner Library, NMAH.
The new Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History is located on the ground floor, East Court of the National Museum of Natural History and will be open for readers in late August as soon as the books are unpacked, inventoried, and shelved. The date will be announced when it is known, and there will be open houses in September to introduce Smithsonian-affiliated researchers and staff to the collection's new home. We look forward to welcoming you to a beautiful and convenient new space!
Odyssey
in Print wins Best of Show! at
the 2002 Washington Book Publishers Book Design and Effectiveness Competition
Odyssey in Print, the book, won top honors
at the 2002 Washington Book Publishers Design and Effectiveness Competition.
Of thirty-seven award categories, Odyssey received two awards in the
Government Publishers and Copublishers division, including 1st place in both
the design of 'Illustrated 3-color Interiors' and '3-color Jackets/Covers.'
Odyssey also took home this year's Best of Show award.
To see Odyssey, the book, and to learn more,
visit the Smithsonian Press Web site, located at http://www.sipress.si.edu.
Be sure to visit the online version of Odyssey, the exhibition, at www.sil.si.edu/exhibitions/odyssey!
Wonder Bound: Rare Books on Early Museums
May 24, 2002 through October 31, 2002
National Museum of Natural History, Constitution Avenue Lobby, west end
Enjoy a digital version of Wonder Bound at: www.sil.si.edu/exhibitions/wonderbound
These are all part of the fascinating and complex story behind the development of natural history museums, a tale told in the new exhibition, Wonder Bound: Rare Books on Early Museums, a collaboration between the National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
The Smithsonian Institution Libraries' collection of rare natural history books are vital to museum-based research in taxonomy, systematics, bio-diversity, species distributions and extinctions, and other issues of current interest. They also document the development of natural-history museums over the course of four centuries. Curated by Leslie Overstreet, Smithsonian Libraries' Curator of Natural History Rare Books, Wonder Bound includes illustrations of Renaissance-era "cabinets of curiosities," also known as "Wunderkammern" (wonder-rooms), as well as 18th and 19th century publications containing specific instructions for collecting and documenting specimens. Such pamphlets were given to adventurers, merchants, and sailors in hopes of their returning with new specimens and materials for museum collections. Yet other books trace the development of preservation techniques for battling the bug infestations that destroyed many early collections. The historical survey continues into the present day, with illustrations of curators from the Smithsonian's own National Museum of Natural History engaged in similar collecting and preservation activities.
Smithsonian Libraries' Digital Edition Technology Revealed
In an article titled Let's Get Digital, appearing in the March 2002 print edition of Pix Magazine , reporter Hal Stucker explores the technology used to create Smithsonian Libraries' ever-growing collection of digital editions. To view the Libraries' current collection of Digital Editions, click here. Bookmark our site! New editions are launched regularly.
For a sneak preview of the exhibition, please visit www.sil.si.edu/exhibitions/Voyages
A 150-page catalog, including essays by Michael Dirda of Washington Post Book World, Storrs
Olson of the National Museum of Natural History, and exhibition curator, Smithsonian Libraries'
Mary Augusta Thomas, will be available from Smithsonian Institution Press in May2002.
To our valued benefactors: Preparing to send donations or other correspondence to the SIL?
An Odyssey in Print: Adventures in the Smithsonian Libraries
May 16 - December 2003
Smithsonian Libraries Gallery, 1st Floor, West Wing, National Museum of American History, Behring Center
Having made its successful debut at Manhattan's prestigious Grolier Club under the title
Voyages: A Smithsonian Libraries Exhibition, Odyssey now comes to the Smithsonian
Libraries Gallery on the first floor of the National Museum of American History, Behring Center.
The exhibition draws from the rich and multifaceted collections of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
So extensive is this survey of the Libraries' collection, that the exhibition will be divided into three parts,
shown over a period of 18 months: explorations of the physical world, journeys of the intellect, and
flights of the imagination as they have been recorded in lavishly illustrated books and manuscripts.
Among the show's highlights are: rare books published before the advent of the printing press, works by
adventurous explorers like South Pole navigator James Cook and pilot Charles Lindbergh, scientific pioneers
such as Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton, and creative artists like Albrecht Dürer and Walter Crane. Pop-up artist books from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Library will provide a glimpse of yet another imaginative realm ventured into by contemporary artists.
Smithsonian Mail Advisory
Due to recent events, Smithsonian Libraries is currently not receiving first class mail. All mail sent after October 1, 2001 has been diverted to Ohio for irradiation treatment.
If you sent monetary gifts or other donations to the SIL through the U.S. Postal Service after October 1, please call Gwen Leighty or Dale Miller in the Smithsonian Libraries' Development Office at (202) 786-2875 for further information and assistance.
Please call (202) 357-2240, and we will make the appropriate arrangements to receive them.
SRS
email: libmail@sil.si.edu