Field Trip!

Since yesterday brought some of the cold and wet November weather we've been lacking for a while in the D.C. area, I thought - What better day to go to the library? Actually, I had already signed up to go on a tour of the libraries of the National Museum of American History, so regardless of the weather, I was library-bound. Part of the Smithsonian Libraries, the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology and the American History Library are both located in the newly renovated museum. The American History Library, houses a special collection of 300,000 historical trade catalogs. These catalogues represented are mostly from the late 19th to the mid 20th centuries, and were distributed by various companies, from John Deer to Singer Sewing Machines, directly to stores across the country advertising new products.

Now, why would something like trade literature be important enough for a library to hang on to? Aside from nostalgic value, trade catalogues gives historians an idea of how products like a sewing machine would have looked like and functioned, especially important if such devices are no longer produced or don't even exist any more. Jim Roan, one of the reference librarians, told our tour group interesting antidotes of how their catalogues have proven very useful. For instance, the library has often been visited by set and costume designers from the film industry who need to research period merchandise advertised in the catalogues. In a more macabre example, local police investigators came to study catalogues of coffins after a construction crew accidentally unearthed coffins from an abandoned grave yard. Judging by the date of the coffins catalogued in the collection, the police were able to acquire an approximate date of when the bodies were buried. Most of the catalogues are donated to the library through private collectors, some even discovered after years of collecting dust in attics and basements. Some of the collection has been digitized and is available to the public to browse in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries Digital Library.

The Dibner Library, as the full name suggests, is devoted to the history of science and technology. The library contains major scientific works dating from the 15th century including many manuscripts, scientific incunabula, and other rare items covering such subjects as physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. The collection was donated to the Smithsonian by electrical engineer Bern Dibner, who was also an avid science historian. Most of the collection is housed in a vault not far away from where Julia Child's kitchen is displayed on the main level. The vault makes the most of its tight space with compact shelving, which is operated manually. The vault is temperature controlled, well ventilated, yet still smells strongly of old books (not that that's necessarily a bad smell!). Some of the rare items we were able to see included original prints by John James Audubon, the Encyclopedie edited by Denis Diderot, and we were pointed in the direction of where some of Albert Einstein's papers are kept. Many of Dibner Library's collection are digitized and available online: Incunabula collection, Scientific Identity, as well as the SIL Digital Library. The Smithsonian Libraries also keeps a very interesting blog featuring more fascinating items from the collection and more photos on flickr.