One of my favorite times of the year in Flickr Commons is March when the Smithsonian used to roll out more wonderful images from the collection of portraits of women scientists. In the fifth year they did so, there were so many photos to share. These are from the first batch in that fifth year:
Ethel Grace Stiffler (c.1900-1995) was an American trained botanist, taught biology at several universities, and was married to astronomer Edwin Carpenter.
Biochemist Lina Solomonova Stern (1878-1968) was born in present-day Latvia and studied the blood-brain barrier in the Soviet Union.
Gertrude Van Wagenen (1893-1978) was an American research anatomist at Yale University.
Delivering the Mail
One of the great advantages of The Commons on Flickr is the ability to find photos on a theme that span across the various institutions. With that in mind, “Across the Commons” was born. What themes can be found? Here’s one I discovered after seeing a photo of a young child mailing a letter.
We write a letter to a friend, post it, and sometime later our friend receives it. How does it get from here to there?
Clean Up Yer Mess
This is not a reprimand for sloppy tagging, but rather a careful collection of photos that reminds us that cleanliness is next to godliness and has been for a considerable time now.
Not all library work is glamorous. In the picture above, one man is operating the flow bee, another man is risking his lower back as he lifts heavy books, while a third man is scolding them for some sloppy work.
Finally, here’s Frank Hurley washing cinematograph film over the side of a ship. Must be some dirty pictures!