The Commons is busting with activity with various institutions preparing for Common Ground! You’ve got until 16 September 2009 to VOTE.

Heard around and about The Commons:

• The Commons: Using the Web to Unlock Little Mysteries of the Past, is a very good write-up by Philip Bump, a technology and communications consultant in New York City. He illustrates the article with an example from the Commons.
• A History of Our Own, Representing Communities and Identities on the Web (SAA09: Session 202), a summary of Andrew Flinn’s session at the Society of American Archivists’ recent conference, by Jeanne Kramer-Smyth. She wraps the Commons into her final thoughts about the session.
• Did you know that the Getty Museum has audio tours you can listen to on your mobile phone? Check this one out.
• Smithsonian Museum Day is Saturday, 26 September 2009! Enjoy free general admission for you and a guest to hundreds of museums and cultural venues throughout the United States.
• How did you witness history on September 11, 2001? Share your story with the Smithsonian Institute’s September 11: Tell Your Story.
• Take This Job & Shoot It! by Catherine Shteynberg, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, discusses photography and the documentation of labor through the years.
• Here Comes the Revolution? Marvin Heiferman, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, reports on the new open source initiative for photographic technology that’s happening at Stanford University.
• The Powerhouse Museum is preparing a new exhibition From Earth to the Universe with Photographic Astronomer David Malin, featuring photographs showcasing the beauty and mystery of our Universe. Catch the previews on their blog.
• The new high-definition restoration of The Wizard of Oz was made possible in part because of George Eastman House’s safekeeping of the original materials!
• There is still time to check out the Field Museum’s Water exhibition, and Marisa Naujokas, Chicago Environmental Health Examiner, tells you why you should visit. Hurry! It closes 20 September 2009.
• The hugely popular and inspirational BP Portrait Award returns to Edinburgh and to the National Galleries of Scotland, beginning 12 December 2009.
• Love Letter Update, from the Australian War Memorial. Learn more about a mysterious love letter from a young French woman to her soldier sweetie.
• Here’s an Animal Mummy Update from the Brooklyn Museum.
• The National Media Museum posts their Film Guide – yay, go watch a good flick with them!
• Hey cool, the Getty has a Dorothea Lange photograph in their collection. Let’s tweet them to get that into the Commons with the other Lange images!

Overheard on Twitter

Paula Bray
A lightcycle goes down under
to visit the Powerhouse Museum

…turns out the #lightcycle has made it to Sydney where @paulabray and @erikajoy are cooking up something http://yfrog.com/5hfersj – Brooklyn Museum tweet

The Smithsonian Institution’s brand-new Secretary, Wayne Clough, discusses the prospects of the 163-year-old largest museum and research complex in the world — including the long-term future of science and education.

Heard around The Commons on Flickr:

• Flickr Commons: It was a year ago…, a summary of the National Media Museum’s first year in The Commons. “100,000s of views, 1000s of comments, and 100s of arguments over whether they were fake or real, spooky or not. “
• The National Media Museum has podcasts! Check out their interview with the screenwriter and executive producer of ITV’s new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, held prior to a preview screening of the film.
• 1stfans Twitter Art Feed Artist at the Brooklyn Museum for September 2009: Duke Riley.
• They also release a nifty application, BklynMuse, a community-powered recommendation system for the objects that are on display there!
• Read the Wall Street Journal’s take on “state-of-the-art museum tours”; they talk to Shelley Bernstein at the Brooklyn Museum. The New York Post weighs in, too.
• artdaily praises the new exhibition at the Getty Museum, Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference.
• The Chicago Tribune writes about the acquisition of lynching victim Emmett Till’s casket by the Smithsonian Institution.
• The SI’s National Museum of American History launched a new exhibition earlier this year, On the Water: Stories from Maritime America. They also have a Flickr group for your images of maritime activities across the United States of America.
• SI experiments with ShareTabs, a quick way to share links.
• That Picture Looks Great On You: Marvin Heiferman, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, talks about the new ubiquity of photography.
• Photos, Guns, Africa, Stanley, & Kalulu, Catherine Shteynberg, Smithsonian Photography Initiative — a story straight out of The Commons.
• Bamboo, bamboo, bamboo bamboobamboobamboobam.
• Reading War and Peace, some advice on reading this classic literature, on the New York Public Library’s blog.
• The Library of Congress announces their September film series.
• Powerhouse Museum announces their Common Ground meetup in October!
• The U.S. National Park Service celebrated their birthday on August 25th. If you couldn’t get to a park this weekend, enjoy Yosemite — it’s in The Commons!
• The State Library of Queensland, Australia, hosted Commandant Henry Miller’s descendant, Quentin Miller, at Redcliffe, which was the first European settlement in Queensland, established as the Moreton Bay Penal Colony in September 1824.
• The butcher and the grocer: A Western Front story, by the Australian War Memorial.
• Oregon State University Archives reports on the 6-month closure of the The Southern Oregon Historical Society. :””(
• They also post a nifty history of Mazamas, a climbing club in Portland, Oregon.
• And! They announce their digitized book, Oregon, a story of progress and development, together with an account of the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition to be held in Portland, Oregon, from June first to October fifteenth, nineteen hundred and five, available on ScholarsArchive. Dang, Tiah, that’s a mouthful!

Monday Morning Mayhem!

Mehgan Murphy/Smithsonian’s National Zoo
Burrowing Owl Babies, August 28, 2009
Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo

The Smithsonian asked last week if the tweeples following them on Twitter could identify these newborns. They did!

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo welcomed two burrowing owl chicks Aug. 2—the first hatching of this species at the Zoo in 30 years. The chicks’ parents, a 5-year-old male and 4-year-old female, have been at the Zoo since June 2006.

The last time burrowing owls successfully bred at the National Zoo was in the late 1970s. A recent population-management plan recommended breeding the Zoo’s current adult pair. The chicks are with their parents in the Zoo’s Bird House. Currently, there is semi-transparent filter paper covering their exhibit, providing the chicks with privacy. As they become more comfortable with their new surroundings, the paper will slowly be removed.

A bag functions like a physical envelope that is used to send content through the mail but with bags, a user sends content from one computer to another. This video describes the preparation and transfer of data over the network in bags.

Heard around the Commons:

• Got a minute to vote for the Powerhouse Museum’s incredible Flickr Commons book? C’mon – click on over to Blurb.
• Stereo-view detail: The Powerhouse Museum gives a little background on the topic.
• All is not lost – using digital photography to recover daguerreotypes: a great preservation resource from the Powerhouse.
• Michael Feinstein comes to George Eastman House in October – get yer tickets!
• Oregon State University Archives explains their “trip to Mount Hood.”
• Are you reading the National Library of New Zealand’s Source? Every Friday, a wrap-up of things of use to digital libraries..
• Cataloging for Gold: Learn what college students have unearthed at the Library of Congress over the summer.
• Art review: The Chimaera of Arezzo at the Getty Villa: An LA Times article about happenings at the Getty Museum.
• Want to know where to stay up with the Smithsonian Institution online? card.ly can help.
• Right now in the Luce Foundation Center (Smithsonian Institution) you can borrow a Flip Mino and shoot a video of your museum visit!
• What price fame? by Marvin Heiferman, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, discusses Annie Leibovitz’s financial situation in a broader sense.
• And, Down at the Drive-In, by Christin Boggs, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, is an awesome take on the intersection of media and transportation.
• And the SI has some notes about the International Astronomical Union (IAU) meeting on their Chandra X-ray blog. Check out their 10th Anniversary post, too.
• Did Michael Jackson model face after Egyptian bust? The Chicago Sun-Times unearths some spooky stuff at the Field Museum.
• Fflur Dafydd wins £5,000 literary prize for book set at The National Library of Wales! yay!
• Plan a trip to the National Media Museum!
• Or, learn from them how to digitize motoring photographs!
• The State Library of Queensland, Australia, weighs in on conserving gilded frames in the Richard Daintree Photographic Collection.

Friday Fun!

… your welcome is assured…

History in the making, with a clip of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Happy Weekend!

• Virtuous circle – from visitor to speaker: Read about how the Flickr Commons transformed the relationship of one of the Powerhouse Museum’s guests.
• The mystery of Level One: what is happening at the Powerhouse Museum?
• What in the Powerhouse’s workshop? A telescope!
• The Brooklyn Museum releases v.1.3 of their iPhone application… and lessons learned.
• Cool – the Brooklyn Museum’s iPhone application gets a mention on the O’Reilly Radar.
• And check out their awesome Twitter profile at Beyond the Fail Whale.
• How Green These Valleys Were: Some info about the Library of Congress’s recent uploads to the Commons.
• Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy v 1.0: Hot off the press.
• Who do you trust? A post by Marvin Heiferman, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, on the veracity of photojournalism.
• Are You There? by Merry A. Foresta, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, on travel photography.
• Ten Years Later: A round-up of the Chandra X-ray Lab, from the Smithsonian.
• Matthew Lewis talks Harry Potter 7, IMAX, and weird fans, all at the National Media Museum.
• Praise for PANDORA: A post from the State Library of Queensland, Australia, on Australia’s Web Archive. They also have 3 new digital stories available.
• Fellowship Awards Preserves Films: A short report on this project by George Eastman House.
• Job Search: How to Avoid Interview Mishaps: Get armed for your next job interview, from the good folks at the New York Public Library.
• Also, The Craft of the Book: Reading List: A PSA from the NYPL
• Oh yea, and the NYPL is looking for a Senior Applications Developer. Apply now.
• The Australia War Memorial goes on the offense about the terms ‘wounded’ and ‘injured’.

Friday Fun!

Need more baby animals fix? Look no farther than Flickr and the National Zoo’s photostream.

Go Visit!

01 August – My Fair Lady at the Dryden Theatre, George Eastman House, a Lerner and Loewe classic.

Now through 18 October – In Focus: Making a Scene at the Getty Museum. Theatricality and photography: “the images in this exhibition are inspired by art history, literature, religion, and mainstream media.”

13 August – The New York Public Library partners with the NYC chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association to host screenings of HBO’s series on Alzheimer’s Disease.

CCC enrollees help to control the Malibu fire near Angeles National Forest, California, from the Oregon State University Archives

Today, the Getty Museum sent out this tweet:

Getty Center is closed the rest of the day due to brushfire. LAFD is on the scene.

They also followed up to say that everything was OK and that the evacuation was just precautionary. Yay!

Here’s a reminder that the Getty is on the Flickr Commons, and that you can take a tour of their holdings by visiting them online.

Their set Postcards of Algiers, a Virtual Tour is one of my favorites, and could use some tags and comments from viewers. These postcards are featured in the exhibition Walls of Algiers: Narratives of the City (through October 18, 2009, at the GRI).

Neurdein Frères
Algiers: View of the Lower City and the Marina, early 20th century
Getty Research Institute: ZPC2 A1A4

Heard around the Commons:

• Archives sharing content in the digital age — The Australian War Memorial summarizes an online research project by the Nationaal Archief, Afscheid van Indië (Separation from Indonesia).
• Graduate Student Projects — Take a sneak peak at the next Flickr set from the George Eastman House.
• Also, check out their blog post, Exploring the Archive.
• 1stfans Twitter Art Feed Artist for June 2009: Nick Fortunato — Read about a fun project from the Brooklyn Museum.
• Arts of the Islamic World Reinstallation — A quick tour of the behind-the-scenes goings-on at the Brooklyn Museum [video].
• The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web — This Friday’s collection of links from the National Library of New Zealand includes articles on copyright.
• What Katie Does — A design and craft blog that discusses the coolness of the Flickr Commons.
• The Collective Picture — A blog about old photographs which weaves stories around them.
• Free Family Fun at the Getty — A round-up of all the cool and free things families can do at the Getty Villa.
• The Library of Congress posts resources for you to learn all about Justice Sotomayor.
• Ghost Remains After Black Hole Eruption — More exciting adventures in outer space from the Smithsonian’s Chandra X-ray blog.
• All about Astronomy Visualization Metadata, also from the Chandra blog.
• Owney! A very cool video of Owney, the US Postal Service mascot … from the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum.
• Everyone into the White House Photo Pool! Nice summary from the Smithsonian Photography Initiative on being a photographer for the White House pool. Includes Flickr photos from the White House!
• The History of the John Oxley Library — Part Four — The State Library of Queensland, Australia, continues its series on its history in celebration of its 75th year.
• The D.C. Public Library Social Sciences division puts Flickr Commons images to use on the blog. Yay!
• A big shout-out to the ROTC from the Oregon State University Archives.

Go Visit!

30 & 31 May — Treeless Mountain is showing at the George Eastman House DrydenTheatre. “Director So Yong Kim’s second feature is a gentle and restrained semi-autobiographical account of two little girls, told from a child’s perspective.”

31 May – Last chance to apply for Rock Camp 2009 at the D.C. Public Library.

Heard on Twitter

Heard around the Commons:

• TwitterLeague puts the Library of Congress as top-ranked Twitter library! NYPL isn’t far behind … and NLNZ is edging its way up the list!
• Don’t despair, museums, AOL Search has got your rankings! Getty’s at #3, and the Brooklyn and Field are on that list too.
• Tweets from the Getty:
  

  Feathers, guts, lipstick, mummies… American art conservators are in LA @ annual meeting discussing techniques! Follow along at #AIC20

• Apply for the Web and eComm Summer Internship at the Field Museum in Chicago!
• The Multi-Platform Museum: A talk given by Nina Simon at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History on 18 May. Take in the rest of her blog while you’re there, too.
• “Flickrization is also another step to preservation of urban history in the virtual realm,” by Jaunted: The Pop Culture Travel Guide.
• Digital Cultural Heritage: Concepts, Projects, and Emerging Constructions of Heritage, by Marija Dalbello.
• Past meets present in Flickr’s museum project, an article in the Vancouver Sun.
• Spotlight on Click! You can use the Smithsonian’s Flickr Commons images (or your own) with your stories to add to a growing collection … and Smithsonian curators will be looking at your entries!
• Did you know the Smithsonian is on UStream? They’re working on their social skillz.
• Smithsonian Hopes To Cash In On Stiller Movie, by Elizabeth Blair, NPR’s Morning Edition.
• The Library of Congress discusses the magic of Hollywood; visitors up nearly 70%!
• And the Brooklyn Museum was in the movies before either of them: Robert Redford, The Hot Rock.
• Crowdsourcing the Clean-Up with Freeze Tag! A new tagging game from the Brooklyn Museum.
• Book discussion of The Holy Woman by Qaisra Shahraz: A podcast from the D.C. Public Library.
• Below Ground: Tales of HVAC pipes at the George Eastman House.
• Carnival of Space: a round-up of Hubble news by the Chandra blog at the Smithsonian.
• Ludwig Marx: A Unique Australian’s Story, by the Australian War Memorial.
• Chirp, chirp: new Flickr Commons set! It’s spring and time to look at the pretty birds … from the Oregon State University Archives.
• Milstein joins the Flickr Commons! And the New York Public Library tells you all about it.
• Uncle Sam 2.0: U.S. Government Goes YouTube — from the Library of Congress.

Friday Fun!

Dear beloved Library of Congress: Can haz these short videos on Flickr, plz? KTHXBAI!

Go Visit!

Now Open — Walls of Algiers: Narratives of the City, at the Getty. Can’t go? You can see the exhibition on Flickr and download the PDF file of the exhibition brochure!

22 May — Ernst & Young 3-D Theater opens at the Field Museum. Dinosaurs Alive!

23 May – RIT Student Honors Show at the George Eastman House’s Drysdale Theatre. The annual Honors Show highlights some of the year’s best student work from RIT’s School of Film & Animation.

27 May – Looted Art in Europe 1938-45 and its restitution since the Second World War, a talk by Professor Richard J. Evans, a renowned historian and one of the leading experts on the Nazi period, at the National Library of Wales.