Mapping sound at the British Library. The British Library has organized several of its archival sound collections on Google Maps. The results include Accents and Dialects, wildlife and soundscape recordings from Britain, music from India and Uganda, and a whole mess of noisy frogs. [more inside]
posted by LarryC on May 14, 2009 - 8 comments

Circuits are flipping on in the nation's attic. A couple of weeks ago, 31 "digerati" -- like Clay Shirky, Chris Anderson, and George Oates -- dropped in to the Smithsonian Institution for the invitation-only conference "Smithsonian 2.0: A Gathering to Re-imagine the Smithsonian in the Digital Age". Dan Cohen of the Center for History and New Media provides a great summary (and continues to pose provocative questions) on his own blog. Those whose invitations were somehow lost in the mail can play fly-on-the-wall by watching the keynotes, paging through the Flickr pool of envymaking glimpses of their behind-the-scenes lab and collections tours, reading the blog (where Bruce Wyman of the Denver Art Museum lays out a succinct road map for museums using social media), and poking around in the SI's website gallery. Want to cheer on the USA's favorite 163-year-old "Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge" without taking the trip to DC? Thanks to their recent efforts, you can now follow the SI on Twitter, listen to its podcasts, watch its YouTube channel, visit the Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life, or use the FaceBook gifts page to send your best friends their very own pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers, Hope diamond, Negro Leagues baseball, or coelocanth.
posted by Miko on Feb 27, 2009 - 13 comments

An unexpected treasure trove online... The audioguides for Rome's city museums are available as mp3s! Not only can you find guides to one of the oldest public museums in the world, the Capitoline Museums, but you can also hear several commentaries (including video) on the ancient Roman Altar of Augustan Peace, and download the audioguide of both the Barracco Museum of Ancient Sculpture, and that of the Museum of Rome. Download them before you go and save 5 euros at each museum, but they're *invaluable* even if you listen to them from home! Enjoy!!
posted by Misciel on Jul 26, 2007 - 7 comments

World Art Treasures :What is essential in my approach consists of not "letting the others profit," as is too often thought, but to PROFIT ALONG WITH OTHERS from the dual experience of my studies and travel, sharing the emotions of my discoveries and encounters, to maintain faith in this miracle that is life. J-E Berger .
posted by hortense on Dec 21, 2005 - 2 comments

Sir John Soane (1753-1837) was responsible for the design of quite a few of London’s public buildings (and to some extent, its phonebooths). His home, now a museum, is filled to the brim with architectural relics, sculptures, paintings, drawings, stained glass, and assorted curiosities. Almost unchanged since his death, it also contains the gravesite of his wife’s beloved dog Fanny, a mummified rat, an Egyptian sarcophagus, and an imaginary monk named Padre Giovanni. Best of all, on the first Tuesday of every month the museum has a candlelight tour which enhances the spooky splendor of the rooms.
posted by annaramma on Dec 15, 2005 - 18 comments

"A Collection of Rarities" The John Tradescants (Elder and Younger) lived in London in the 16th and 17th centuries. Adventurous travellers, diplomats, horticultural pioneers, polymaths, they were also collectors, acquiring (and asking their friends to acquire) specimens of the wonders of the world. Their growing collection was housed in a large house -- "The Ark" -- in Lambeth, London. The Ark was the prototypical Cabinet of Curiosity or Wunderkammer, a collection of rare and strange objects. The Tradescant's collection was eventually transferred to -- and some say it was swindled out of them by -- Elias Ashmole, who used it to start The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The Tradescants are buried in St. Mary's Churchyard, Lambeth, now home to the Museum of Garden History.
posted by carter on Mar 14, 2005 - 2 comments

Close to Home: An American Album. 'This exhibition is devoted to American family photographs that were separated from their owners and then rediscovered by artists, writers, collectors, and museum curators. ' Highlights and site visitors' submissions.
Site of related interest :- BBC Family History; and Third Generation: Family Photographs and Memories of Nazi Germany.
posted by plep on Feb 26, 2005 - 2 comments

The National Museum of the American Indian opened on Tuesday. Although generally praised, the occasion did draw some mild concern that some groups are under-represented. The museum occupies one of the last few coveted spots on the National Mall. Washington Post collumnist Courtland Milloy comments on the contrast between the opening ceremonies for the museum in the home of the 'Redskins'. And I can't resist throwing in a plug for The Eiteljorg (flash splash screen) which is the only other museum with a partnership with the Smithsonian collection.
posted by KirkJobSluder on Sep 22, 2004 - 4 comments

The Douglas Self Site is an eclectic mix of web oddities including The Museum of RetroTechnology, some less than successful audio projects and the truth about Roswell. The RetroTech Museum is full of forgotten mechanical devices like monowheels, pneumatic networks, gyrocars, and optical telegraphs. (via dm)
posted by euphorb on Jul 24, 2004 - 2 comments

The Beck Isle Museum , Pickering, North Yorkshire, chronicles rural Yorkshire life of the last 200 years. The collection of photographs by Sidney Smith is good. Via Museophile's museums around the UK links page.
posted by plep on Nov 27, 2003 - 2 comments

They Still Draw Pictures. Drawings made by children during the Spanish Civil War.
posted by plep on Oct 17, 2003 - 10 comments

Staffordshire Past Track. History and images of an English Midlands county : old photographs and online exhibitions on historic churches, celebrations, birth, death, serial killers and mining (and the 1984-85 strike).
Related sites :- the Museums of the Potteries, the area around Stoke-on-Trent which played a major role in the Industrial Revolution; thepotteries.org, including postcards and photographs; In Search of Agenoria, black and white photographs of the post-industrial Black Country landscape; A Miner's Son- more mining history in the Midlands (with more on the 1984-85 strike, possibly the most divisive political event in recent British history); save Bethesda Chapel, a historic Methodist chapel in Stoke; panoramic views and history of Lichfield Cathedral and other Staffordshire places.
posted by plep on Aug 25, 2003 - 4 comments

Flying Cloud flies for the last time On Wednesday, August 6, the last Boeing 307 Stratoliner landed at Dulles [WaPo; may require registration]. [more] [more] [more] This was the plane that ditched off Seattle in March, 2002 after being fully restored. Now, re-restored, it has arrived at its final destination, the Smithsonian's new Hazy Center. Dry eyes were a rare commodity.
posted by SealWyf on Aug 7, 2003 - 9 comments

A dissappearing history. The National Museum of Iraq recorded a history of civilizations that began to flourish in the fertile plains of Mesopotamia more than 7,000 years ago. But once American troops entered Baghdad in sufficient force to topple Saddam Hussein's government this week, it took only 48 hours for the museum to be destroyed, with at least 170,000 artifacts carried away by looters.
posted by the fire you left me on Apr 12, 2003 - 58 comments

Red-Haired Barbarians: The Dutch and Othe Foreigners in Nagasaki and Yokohama 1800-1865
posted by hama7 on Mar 30, 2003 - 9 comments

The Illustrated Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. An exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. Stunning illustrations of world-class poetry. 'nuff said.
posted by condour75 on Dec 10, 2002 - 11 comments

Not by Bread Alone: America's Culinary Heritage This online companion to a recent Cornell University Library exhibition has a handful of interesting images from the annals of food and drink. Does OXO make a Good Grips raisin seeder yet?
posted by staggernation on Dec 6, 2002 - 14 comments

The Computer Photography of Arthur Lavine. Got a reel-to-reel fetish? Does the phrase "hand assembled ferrite core memory" make you swoon? Take a look at some old-school nerds at work for Chase Manhattan, back in the days when computers were big and expensive, and a Macintosh was a raincoat. It's an exhibit at San Diego's Computer Museum of America, which is chock full of goodies. Check out the slide show exhibit too.
posted by condour75 on Nov 8, 2002 - 6 comments

This is a site for a book, and a traveling exhibit, of photgraphy of public lynchings in the Not-so-long-ago-as-you-might-wish American past. A friend of mine went to the exhibit in Pittsburgh and said it was hardest thing he's ever done, it was moving and horryfying of what people are capable of when they become an angry mob. However BAD you thoguht the world is now, it was worse just several decades ago.
posted by Dome-O-Rama on Jan 25, 2002 - 9 comments

Tulsa Race Riots of 1921: Who pays? I don't think Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating's pledge to fundraise for a memorial/museum will suffice as a remedy -- or cut much mustard with survivors and their families. (Background info here.)
posted by allaboutgeorge on Mar 1, 2001 - 26 comments