OUTREACH AND EXHIBITIONS

• National Collections Program
• Institutional History Division
• Archives Division

National Collections Program

The NCP staff began developing an office website that will serve as a collections management resource for the Smithsonian as well as the broader museum community and the general public. The website will contain the annual Collection Statistics; the Smithsonian Collections Management Policy; guidelines for developing a collections management policy; a listing of professional codes of ethics; and publications such as A Primer to Endangered Species Law, Smithsonian Data Content Committee's Transaction Terms, and NCP's newsletter ArtiFACTS. Visit the National Collections Program site.

In addition, the National Collections Program disseminated information and provided professional assistance to Smithsonian museums, office, and research institutes, as well as the national and international community, regarding Smithsonian collections and collections management policy, practice, and standards. NCP staff continued to contribute to an annual workshop on the management of museum collections, sponsored by the Center of Museum Studies, for staff working in small, emerging, minority, and rural museums. Staff also met with visiting professionals and responded to inquiries from such diverse locales as Sydney, Johannesburg, Nairobi, and The Hague.

Institutional History Division

Exhibitions: The Division continued to participate in exhibition planning and execution. Efforts this year included the exhibition, Expeditions: 150 Years of Smithsonian Research in Latin America, on display at the Inter-American Development Bank from 27 September to 9 November 1996. Pam Henson and Bill Cox (SIA) served on the exhibition's curatorial team, and Henson continues to work with others on a World Wide Web version of the exhibition. Smithson's Gift: The Story of a Bequest continued on exhibition in the Great Hall of the Smithsonian Castle. The exhibition's time line section was revised and expanded when the sesquicentennial calendar was removed. The exhibition, 150 Years of Working at the Smithsonian, prepared by the IHD and staff of the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies, continued on display in the International Center. Work was begun on a World Wide Web version of the exhibition. From Smithson to Smithsonian: The Birth of an Institution, on display in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries Exhibition Gallery in NMAH, was deinstalled in January 1997. Eyes on Science: Illustrating Natural History, on display in NMNH from July 1996 through January 1997, was also taken down. Preliminary work was begun on developing an on-line version of the exhibition, with permissions secured and images acquired.

Lectures: Henson continued to coordinate the OSIA Research in Progress Lectures Series. Four lectures were delivered during FY1997. A list of FY1997 speakers and topics for this series appears in "Appendix E: Lecture Series." In addition, Henson co-organized with Tom Crouch of NASM the Smithsonian Institution Lecture Series, sponsored by the 150th Community Committee. The last five of 23 lectures on various aspects of the history of the Smithsonian were delivered this year to Institution staff and the general public. A list of FY1997 speakers and topics for this series appears in "Appendix E: Lecture Series." Plans are proceeding to prepare an edited volume of the lectures documenting the history of the national collections. During the year, volunteer Caroline Farquhar prepared transcripts of ten of the lectures. Henson also worked with Margie Gibson, Office of Public Affairs, National Zoological Park, to develop another series of lecture on Smithsonian history for the zoo staff during the summer months. Henson and Frank Millikan presented two of the four lectures. Research collaborator Linda Lear gave a lecture on Rachel Carson at an August 1997 NMAH Tuesday Colloquium.

Electronic Outreach: Program assistant Jennifer A. Nichols mastered HTML coding and web page design and completed a number of major web page projects during FY1997. She revised the OSIA home page, linking it to the pages developed by each OSIA division. She developed a very attractive and informative website for the Institutional History Division, and a number of subsidiary pages, including an exhibition on the second Secretary, Spencer Fullerton Baird; directories of the oral history and videohistory collections that have generated public inquiry from a broad audience; and an introduction with links to the online exhibits on the history of the Smithsonian. Visit the Institutional History Division site.

Frank Millikan, with major assistance from Nichols, developed an extensive and informative website for the Joseph Henry Papers Project, including articles about Henry, information on the project, and a guide to activities celebrating the 200th anniversary of Joseph Henry's birth. Visit The Joseph Henry Papers Project site.

During the 1997 Presidential Inauguration, the Smithsonian's site on America On-Line included a page on the history of inaugural events at the Smithsonian prepared with the assistance of IHD staff.

Databases: The two SIRIS databases created by the Institutional History Division proved of value to a wide array of scholars and the general public. The Smithsonian Institution Chronology lists some 2200 events in the history of the Smithsonian, with references to primary and secondary sources. It received extensive use in 1997 and was selected for the Student Guide to the Internet and the "Cybersurfari," an educational program to teach web searching to children. The Smithsonian Institution History Bibliography contains some 2000 annotated bibliographic entries for publications on the history of the Smithsonian. Additional entries were prepared this year by volunteers Lillian Pharr and Christina Wassum.

A third database, the Smithsonian Institution Historical Image database, contains some 3300 entries for images of people, places, objects, exhibitions, expeditions, and events important in the history of the Institution. Volunteer Zoe Martindale reviewed and refined existing entries and prepared new entries. This database will be placed on-line in 1998 and digitized image files will be linked to the text entries.

Three other database projects were begun this year. Topical databases provided detailed access on special subjects to Smithsonian Institution Archives collections. With grant funding, work was begun on databases on archival materials documenting African Americans, Latin America, and Women. Program assistant Pilar Somma, intern Laura Garrett, and volunteer Patricia Loughran surveyed collections and wrote summaries of materials in the Smithsonian Institution Archives collections that document African Americans who worked here, exhibitions of African American art, Smithsonian expeditions to Latin America, barriers to women scientists who wished to work in the tropics early in this century, and networks between women botanists, to name a few examples. The work on the African-American database was greatly facilitated by earlier work by archives technician Terrica M. Gibson.

Finally, IHD issued a redesigned and updated Division brochure this year, created and edited by Jennifer Nichols.

Archives Division

The Archives Division curated and installed the exhibition, Pages from the Past, in the rotunda of the Arts & Industries building in April 1997, having previewed the exhibition on the second floor balcony the previous December. The exhibition is a brief visual display of the Archives documentary strengths on the history of the Smithsonian. The exhibition was coordinated by Paul Theerman and curated by Libby Glenn, with assistance from Bruce Kirby.

The Archives Division launched a home page this year on the OSIA website, providing access to general information about the Archives as well as finding aids to a number of processed collections. Tammy L. Peters coordinated this important effort. Visit the Archives Division site.

The Division was pleased to sponsor William Brown, archivist for the University of Miami, as a Visiting Scholar during October and November 1996. Mr. Brown reviewed the Archives collection of non-Smithsonian organizational records and OSIA's past collecting policies in this area.

The Archives Division hosted several individuals and group visitors during the year. They included a visit in April 1997 of three British archivists: John Thackray, Natural History Museum (England); Ms. Shawcross, London Borough of Sutton; and Lesley Price, Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. In May, two colleagues from the Latvian National Archives visited SIA: Ms. Klavina, director, and Mr. Brancis, in charge of manuscripts. In July, a dozen Smithsonian interns took a tour of the Archives and talked with Kathleen Williams and Bruce Kirby about archives in museums. Also that month Ms. Chang, Kyung-Suk, Public Relations and Education Manager, Ho-Am Art Museum, Seoul, and Executive Secretary of the Korean Section of the International Council of Museums; Ms. Yu, Sun-Nam, Librarian, The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, and intern at the Hirshhorn Museum and National Gallery of Art; and Ms. Lee, Nyun, International business Intermediator and Communications Consultant, visited the archives to discuss archival administration and training of Korean museum archivists with Alan Bain.