Overview of Smithsonian Institution Libraries. Created May 14, 2008

1. Smithsonian Institution Libraries A Snapshot May 14, 2008

2. Mission As the largest and most diverse museum library in the world, SIL leads the Smithsonian in taking advantage of the opportunities of the digital society. SIL provides authoritative information and creates innovative services and programs for Smithsonian Institution researchers, scholars and curators, as well as the general public, to further their quest for knowledge. Through paper preservation and digital technologies, SIL ensures broad and enduring access to the Libraries’ collections for all users.

10. Library Spaces National Air and Space Museum Anacostia

11. Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

12. National Museum of American Indian Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

14. Recent press reports about super-massive black holes caused a number of queries about the nature of black holes, how they are detected, how they effect us, and how long does one last, whether two or more can merge and what happens if they do.

15. For a curator’s research on the use of sugar in the United States and the sugar industry, we found an online copy of an 1890 cartoon on the business “trusts,” originally published in the “Rural New Yorker” magazine research.

16. SIL assisted a couple from New Mexico with their historical research on a territorial post office built in 1873 on the outskirts of Albuquerque. Staff provided support for STRI’s Legal Office by doing several searches on the topic of open pit mining.

17. SIL Staff Also Teach & Train Seminar on natural history illustration Explaining the value of trade literature

19. Book Conservation Laboratory

22. Digital Imaging Center

28. Online Exhibitions USA Today “Hot Site: January 13, 2005”. “this site will knock your socks off.”

29. Digital Books

31. Digital Books “ Aloha. I live on The Big Island of Hawai'i, a $300.00 plane ride away from Honolulu and the Bishop Museum. Even when I can make it to the Museum (where I study the Hawaiian Bird Skins), they do not have every single bird (moho apicalis, the Oahu moho is missing)….I have been looking for this text for over TWENTY YEARS. Mahalo nui loa for all your hard work.”

32. Distinctive Collections “ Obviously I am spending TOOOOO much time in your terrific collection.”

47. SIL’s Inflation Challenge

50. What Users Are Saying Extracts from User Assessments “ Users universally agree that the library collections are one of three inseparable pillars of superior academic research, alongside staff and collections. “ One thing that really makes the library wonderful is the librarian’s expertise in terms of really understanding the discipline and guiding people to things. I go in there and think I’m a great researcher and just talking to the librarian for five minutes I have five more things I wouldn’t have thought of….”