3. ABOUT SIL
July 30, 2012
Reports to Deputy Under Secretary for
Collections and Interdisciplinary Support
20 libraries
Total volumes: over 2 million
40,000 rare books, 10,000 manuscripts
About 95 staff
4. SIL’S STRATEGIC PLAN
July 30, 2012
http://www.sil.si.edu/PDF/Focus_on_Service.pdf
Service emphasis
5. SIL’S STRATEGIC PLAN, CONT.
July 30, 2012
GOAL 1 COLLABORATING ACROSS
BOUNDARIES
SIL creates a compelling environment for
connecting, collaborating and exploring across
disciplines and information boundaries
STRATEGY 1.1 SIL connects users to
people, information, and programs
STRATEGY 1.2 SIL exchanges information
and fosters interdisciplinary research
nationally and internationally
6. SIL’S STRATEGIC PLAN, CONT.
July 30, 2012
GOAL 2 DISCOVERING INFORMATION
SIL enhances and eases the discovery of information
in our collections for SI scholars, researchers, scientists, and
the larger world of learners
STRATEGY 2.1 SIL builds partnerships with
other individuals and departments in the Institution
who are developing an SI-wide digitization strategy
STRATEGY 2.2 SIL increases awareness of SIL
content and expertise through rapid prototyping of
discovery tools and new technologies
STRATEGY 2.3 SIL builds, sustains, protects, and
shares world class collections, making decisions
about acquisitions and preservation of print and
digital collections informed by a deepening
understanding of users’ current and future needs
7. SIL’S STRATEGIC PLAN, CONT.
July 30, 2012
GOAL 3 CONNECTING WITH USERS
SIL understands and meets user needs, serving users
where they live and work
STRATEGY 3.1 SIL looks to user generated
evidence for its decision-making framework
10. SIL’S CATALOGS AND DATABASES
July 30, 2012
SIL Catalog
http://siris-libraries.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=
Smithsonian Research Online
SRO is a set of services to the research community
both within and outside the Smithsonian Institution.
Managed by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries,
the program assists in capturing the research output
of Smithsonian scholars and making it available to
Institutional management as well as scientists and
historians world-wide.
http://research.si.edu/
Smithsonian Digital Repository
http://si-pddr.si.edu/dspace/
11. SIL’S CATALOGS AND DATABASES
July 30, 2012
Art and Artist Files
The Smithsonian Institution Libraries artists' files are an exceptional resource
for art historical research. Often these files are the only obtainable sources of
information on emerging regional and local artists. Until now, the files were
largely unavailable to those who did not travel to Washington DC. In 2004,
several efforts were combined to produce a searchable database of artist names
as the first step toward universal accessibility to these valuable file
http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/art-design/artandartistfiles/
Galaxy of Images
The Smithsonian Institution Libraries’ New Media Office provides reproductions
from preexisting digital files or new digital photography of material from its
collections to students, academics and creative professionals in publishing,
design, broadcast and other media. This collection currently contains 1,745
books/collections and 15,778 images.
http://www.sil.si.edu/imagegalaxy/
Trade Catalogs
The trade literature collection of the Smithsonian is internationally known as an
important source for the history of American business, technology, marketing,
consumption, and design. Manufacturers issued trade catalogs to promote and
sell their products. The present collection contains more than 500,000 catalogs,
technical manuals, advertising brochures, price lists, company histories and
related materials representing more than 30,000 companies. The Smithsonian
Libraries acquires trade literature through gifts and purchases.
http://www.sil.si.edu/tradeliterature/index.cfm
12. SIL’S CATALOGS AND DATABASES
July 30, 2012
Biodiversity Heritage Library
consortium of natural history and botanical
libraries that cooperate to digitize and make
accessible the legacy literature of biodiversity
held in their collections and to make that
literature available for open access and
responsible use as a part of a global
“biodiversity commons.” BHL also serves as
the foundational literature component of the
Encyclopedia of Life (EOL).
http://biodiversitylibrary.org/
13. SI’S CATALOGS AND DATABASES
July 30, 2012
Natural History Collections
Museum collection records
http://www.mnh.si.edu/rc/db/collection_db_policy1.html
The National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
(NMNH) captures electronic data about its collections to:
enhance access to, and ability to do research on its collections;
meet the Smithsonian’s mission and stewardship responsibility
to preserve its collections and the information inherent in them;
enhance informational integrity and value of collections as the
foundation for research, exhibitions, publications, and
educational programs;
facilitate legal, physical, and intellectual control over collections;
and
improve public access to the collections.
14. NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS
July 30, 2012
The National Museum of Natural History will make data in the following fields
freely available on the “Natural History Web” for collections that have been
electronically recorded, with certain exceptions (see below):
Catalogue number (USNM number)
Name (for biological and paleontological specimens this includes at least the scientific
name (binomial) and author(s) and may also include year published, identifier and year
identified; for rocks, minerals, gems, etc. the name(s) and sometimes the chemical
composition; for anthropological specimens the object name
Original collection locality including:
Country and/or Ocean
State or equivalent primary political and/or geographical unit within country
County or equivalent secondary political and/or geographical unit within country, if
available
Depth and/or Elevation (if available)
Geographic coordinates (if available, and sometimes rounded to the nearest degree)
Collector(s)
Collector’s number (if available)
Date collected
Numbers of specimens (if appropriate)
Type Status (if appropriate)
Low resolution thumbnail photo (when available)
15. NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS, CONT.
July 30, 2012
http://collections.mnh.si.edu/search/
A total of 5,443,341 specimen records are currently available from
this facility. Of these, approximately 292,000 represent all of the
museum's available extant biological primary type specimen
records. Approximately 139,000 are paleobiological type specimen
records and 560 are mineral type specimen records.
EMu (KE Software, http://www.kesoftware.com/emu)
21. SI COLLECTIONS SEARCH CENTER
July 30, 2012
The Smithsonian Collections Search Center is an
online catalog containing most of Smithsonian major
collections from our museums, archives, libraries, and
research units. There are 7.7 million catalog records
relating to areas for Art & Design, History & Culture,
and Science & Technology with 568,100 images, video
clips, sound files, electronic journals and other
resources.
http://collections.si.edu/search/about.htm
26. BACK TO THE LIBRARIES …
July 30, 2012
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Picklist, bidding on titles with member
libraries
Reusing our MARC data
Exporting into BHL, along with scanned materials
Linked by barcode data – all scanned materials must
be barcoded and linked to full bib records in SIRIS
31. SHAC (SMITHSONIAN HISTORY AND
CULTURE DIGITIZATION PROJECT)
July 30, 2012
Internet Archive
Scanning rare, requested materials in our
History and Culture Libraries
Reusing our MARC data
Exporting into Internet Archive, along with scanned
materials
Linked by barcode data – all scanned materials must
be barcoded and linked to full bib records in SIRIS
36. SPECIAL LIBRARIES & CATALOGING
July 30, 2012
Take aways
Collaboration
Creativity
MS Excel
Flexibility
Possibilities
Recycle
Get out there!
37. July 30, 2012
Andō Hiroshige
Tōkaidō Gojūsantsugi [Fifty-three
Stations of the Tokaido]
38. July 30, 2012
Maria Sibylla Merian
Raupen wunderbare
Verwandelung und sonderbare
Blumennahrung , 1730
39. July 30, 2012
John Lloyd Stephens
Incidents of Travel in Egypt,
Arabia Petræa and the Holy
Land , 1856