SMITHSONIAN greets the 21st Century!
On March 16, the NY Times published an article about the behemoth of a photograph collection at the Smithsonian – only 13 million images from 19 different museums and comprising 700 separate collections – and the fact that the Institution has finally figured out that collection should be on the web so it can be more easily found by the rest of us.
Well, I would have left putting all of these photographs online in my TO DO box for years as well, but there is a brave soul out there who has decreed that it must begin. Her name is Merry Foresta and she is in charge of this project and former senior curator of photography for the entire Smithsonian Institution.
I have to wonder why the heck they didn’t start this 10 years ago. But with that many images, it will be a long, long project stretching years ahead, so I’m glad they’ve finally figured out that this treasure-trove of photographs – the Smithsonian’s mission was to record and catalog the world (no small mission statement) and it started in 1846 - deserves to be seen by that world.
Read more at:
www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/arts/artsspecial/12photos.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Thanks to Lynn Karlin for bringing this to my attention…
