Field Book Project

Page scans for hundreds of Smithsonian field books now online!

By Carolyn Sheffield, Project Manager

The Field Book Project is pleased to announce that page scans for over 200 of the cataloged Smithsonian field books are now available online through the Smithsonian’s Collection Search Center: http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?tag.cstype=all&q=unit_code%3AFBR&fq=online_media_type:%22Electronic+resource%22.  Additionally, over 300 new records have been added since the field book records were launched in December. 

Although the project started out as a cataloging initiative in 2010, we recognized early on the need for not just remote access to the catalog records but also to the rich and varied content found in field books.  Starting with a grant from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, and continuing with the ongoing efforts of the Smithsonian Institution Archives’ Digital Services, we are thrilled to begin seeing this goal realized.

Cover of the Albatross logbook, Hawaiian exploration #1, Mch 14-31, 1902, dr 3791 - dr 3819, hy 4035 - hy 4052. SIA RU 7184.	Page from the Albatross logbook, Hawaiian exploration #1, Mch 14-31, 1902, dr 3791 - dr 3819, hy 4035 - hy 4052. SIA RU 7184.

The page scans that are now online provide great representation of the variety of topics and formats that field books can take.  For starters, there are numerous ship logs from the Albatross documenting voyages in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.   Built in 1882, the Albatross was one of the first large vessels designed specifically for marine research. The Albatross logbooks contain a wealth of information, not just about species, but about weather and other environmental conditions at the time.  As demonstrated by projects like OldWeather, ship log data can be extremely useful for understanding historic climate patterns and helping scientists model projections.  If you dig old ships and marine biodiversity, check out our earlier post on the Albatross collection: http://nmnh.typepad.com/fieldbooks/2012/10/new-uses-for-old-books.html.

Some of the other field books now online provide a look into terrestrial research.  From herpetologist James A. Peters, you can get a sense of what it was like to conduct field work in Mexico in 1949 and read detailed descriptions of some of the specimens he saw.  Peters' Field Notes: Mexico, 1949  also includes a bit of an unexpected treat--a sketch of a horse and buggy can be found inserted between his pages of notes.

Sketch of a horse and cart, insert in James A. Peters' Field Notes: Mexico, 1949. SIA RU 7175.

Page from James A. Peters' Field Notes: Mexico, 1949. SIA RU 7175.

Harrison G. Dyar’s field books, or “blue books”, are some of my personal favorites and several of these are also now available.  These include detailed notes on his daily observations and frequently include sketches.  Dyar was a renowned entomologist whose personal life is perhaps as well remembered as his professional life.  He served as honorary curator of Lepidoptera at the Smithsonian and as a mosquito specialist for the USDA.  He is perhaps best known for his peculiar habit of digging elaborate tunnels under his two homes in Washington D.C. 

Page from Harrison G. Dyar's Bluebook 532-574. SIA Acc. 12-447.

To view all of these and more, visit http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?tag.cstype=all&q=unit_code%3AFBR&fq=online_media_type:%22Electronic+resource%22.   To repeat our search strategy, you can also start from http://collections.si.edu, type unit_code:FBR in the search box and then use the Online Media facet to limit your search to records with electronic resources.  Enjoy!

Panamania: Connecting Collections and Reaching New Audiences

By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project

On April 5th, I had the opportunity to be a part of a panel discussion with some of my Smithsonian colleagues at the Annual Conference for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the Society for History in the Federal Government.

Alexander Wetmore and Watson Perrygo in El Valle, Cocle, Panama, on 31 March 1951. Photograph included in the transcript of the Watson M. Perrygo Oral History Interviews by Pamela M. Henson, November 13, 1976, in Smithsonian Institution Archives. SIA2008-2948.

The panel presentation discussed current efforts by staff at Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) to connect collections and reach new audiences, through ongoing cataloging, digitization, and online exhibits. We focused on efforts relating to the materials that document Smithsonian’s long history of research in the Panama Canal Zone.

Institution Historian, Pamela Henson opened the session by introducing the Smithsonian’s role in the Survey of the Panama Canal 1910-1912, the work of scientists and collectors like Alexander Wetmore and Watson Perrygo, and the role of Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in ongoing research.

My portion of the panel session focused on Field Book Project cataloging methods and how these records can help researchers reconnect types of natural history documentation; followed by managing the flow of digital information (Kira Cherrix); and wrapping up with how to reach and engage new audiences with the resources we’re making available online (Courtney Bellizzi).

Over the last few years, SIA has strived to not only to make more archival resources available to the public in digital form but to do so in a way that is consistent, thorough, and will stand up to constantly changing technological standards. For my colleagues and I, this is in many ways our day-to-day work; it was exciting to step back and actually hear and discuss how it is taking shape.

The Field Book Project's core mission is to locate, identify and describe the field books of the Smithsonian in a registry available to the public. Over the past couple of years, the Project has generated thousands of records and made them available online through the Smithsonian’s Collection Search Center (SCSC). Through the efforts of SIA and a grant from Smithsonian Women’s Committee, we have also been able to begin imaging those field books. The field book catalog records in the registry provide the heart of the metadata for each one digitized.

Participating on this panel provided a great opportunity to illustrate just how these records enable connections between multiple collections. Field Book Registry catalog records don’t just provide metadata for the digitized field books. Collection and creator catalog records play an important role in providing context for the digitized items. My presentation discussed how creator records are proving useful in reestablishing connections between field books, specimens, and scientific publications. Want to learn more? The Field Book Presentation is available as a PDF [Download EAC_and_Panama_pres_parilla].

You can also read about how Encoded Archival Context (EAC) records can reconnect natural history documentation in the ongoing blog post series on expeditions, available online through Field Book Project and Biodiversity Heritage Library blogs.

Connecting Users with Field Book Content

By Emily Hunter, Field Book Project

This post was adapted from an article originally published in Plant Press, Vol. 16 No. 1 (pdf).

In December, the Field Book Project made thousands of field book records publicly available and searchable through the Smithsonian’s Collection Search Center. After two years of cataloging efforts funded through the Council on Library and Information Resources, records describing over 6,000 individual field books spanning over 500 collections by number of individuals are now online.

In addition to the release of records, The Field Book Project has been promoting field book content via social media sites Flickr and Twitter, as well as here on our blog hosted on TypePad. Social media allows us to reach new audiences and connect in new ways. The Field Book Project blog posted its first article in March 2011; it now has over 200 posts, over 44,000 page views, and more than 100 comments. Blog articles highlighting field book content are posted about twice per week, and generate a substantial amount of traffic. Thank you to our readers for following our activities!

Flickr, a photo-based social media platform, allows us to share images of field book content with an audience that is visually-oriented. The Field Book Project regularly contributes images to the Smithsonian’s Flickr Commons photo stream.

A photo of a previously unknown specimen was posted to Flickr where users quickly identified it. See the original photo here.

Twitter allows the Field Book Project (@FieldBookProj) to reach out on an informal level to a huge community of active content creators in the fields of biodiversity, museums, archives, libraries, natural history, and more. Through this network we have been able to reach individuals who might not have otherwise heard of the Project. Though our Twitter presence is still quite young, Twitter allows us to reach new users, and connect them with links to blog articles, images, and other content.

While increased exposure for our Project is important, engaging with social media is not just about pushing content out towards new audiences. It is also about opening up a dialogue. Over the past two years we’ve worked to bring guest bloggers in to offer their insights on field books. Guests have included Smithsonian staff external to the Field Book Project, as well as colleagues from other museums, schools, and herbaria. Posts contributed by individuals outside of our Project bring new and different perspectives, questions, and ideas, and help all of us better understand the potential of field books.

Flickr and Twitter also expand the conversation around field books. On Flickr, users can tag images, “favorite” them, add them to galleries, and comment. Comments range from appreciation to questions about the collections to identifications of specimens. Via Twitter, users can ask us questions, give us feedback, and share our content with others.

As the Project moves forward, it’s more important than ever to promote the fruits of our cataloging labors. The public release of field book records not only makes it easier for Smithsonian staff to find related field book content, it opens up our collections to a much broader, international audience. Promoting our content via social media outlets promotes awareness of field books as research resources and opens up a dialogue about field book content. We encourage you to join in and to follow us!

Celebrating 200 Blog Posts with Staff Favorites

Today we are celebrating another Field Book Project milestone: our 200th blog post. Since our first post in March 2011, the project has featured regular posts by staff, interns, volunteers, and guest bloggers. We decided to take a cue from our friends over at Smithsonian Collections Blog who recently celebrated their 500th post by highlighting some of their favorites. We were intrigued by this idea of reflection, and decided to try it ourselves.  We asked Field Book Project staff members and advisors, “What past blog post is near and dear to you and why?” Below, you’ll find their responses.

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Notes from the Field, by Scott Thybony

Image courtesy of Scott Thybony.

I love the Field Book Project blog. It is hard to pick one favorite because I have so many favorite stories told through this blog. But I am choosing to highlight this particular entry by Scott Thybony, a guest blogger, who wrote a wonderful vignette about the human side of field work. This resonates with me because I have always been curious about how it felt to be out in the field pioneering new territory and making notes about the daily finds and the trials and tribulations that come with field work. A humanist by nature, I appreciate the extraordinary work that scientists and explorers have done to help us better understand our world. So, this blog touched me and made me wish I had written something like it. Perhaps I will.

- Anne Van Camp, Director, Smithsonian Institution Archives & Co-PI, Field Book Project

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Toumey and the Tonto Basin: A Tale of a Field Book, Ranching, and 19th Century Ecological Devastation & The Continuing Saga of the Tonto Basin, by Janelle Winters

Selecting my favorite blog post from among the many outstanding contributions by both our staff and outside colleagues is an unfair request. Every one of them has been thoughtfully composed and artfully written. But, since I’m not being allowed to beg out that way, I have chosen “one” that speaks to many issues that inspired the Field Book Project. Janelle Winters was a summer intern from Yale, who worked on a project for me involving historic plant specimens from Arizona. Her two-part blog post (see how I did that) first sprang from this project. The result was a beautiful story that blended westward expansion, dramatic landscape changes, and personal history. This story exemplifies what I like to say about field books … that they are scientifically irreplaceable as well as highly personal.

-Rusty Russell, Programs Director for Collections & Informatics, Department of Botany, NMNH & Co-PI, Field Book Project

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Sharing Culture through Plants, by Sonoe Nakasone

One of my favorite posts explores the ethnobotanical field notes created by William Fisher while he was working as a tidal recorder in Alaska in 1899. It’s always inspiring when we come across the field notes of citizen scientists and other enthusiasts who avidly devote their free time to collecting or observing nature for scientific study. What I really enjoy about the post though is how Sonoe Nakasone, the post’s author, leads us through some precursory research into how Fisher’s notes on medicinal and food uses of collected plants line up with some contemporary resources available online. It’s fascinating to browse through some of these resources and learn about possible uses for local fauna in your area or to do a little research on medicinal uses for plants passed down through your own family. Potatoes for treating burns? Anyone?

-Carolyn Sheffield, Project Manager, Field Book Project

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Butterfly Vision: Robert E. Silberglied’s Photographic Explorations, by Emily Hunter

Toumey and the Tonto Basin: A Tale of a Field Book, Ranching, and 19th Century Ecological Devastation, by Janelle Winters

Choose just one? Can’t! My two-ish: Tonto Basin series parts 1 and 2 by guest blogger Janelle Winters and Butterfly Vision by colleague Emily Hunter. The Tonto Basin series illustrates how information in field books can be pieces of larger stories—in this case a poignant one of ecological destruction. Winters also reminds us that field notes are windows into our past. Butterfly Vision was possibly the most original article we’ve posted. Hunter presents one of the most compelling examples of photographs as field notes, while giving equal weight to the biological and engineering accomplishments of her subject Robert Silberglied.

-Sonoe Nakasone, Cataloging Coordinator, Field Book Project

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Like Son, Like Father; Like Father, Like Son, by Sonoe Nakasone

One of my favorite blog posts was Like Son, Like Father; Like Father, Like Son, about Edgar Alexander Mearns and his son, Louis di Zerega Mearns. It is not uncommon that the collectors whose work we catalog have familial connections in the sciences. In some cases they come to their careers through a spouse, sibling, or parent. However there are not a lot of examples in the field books demonstrating the familial relationship between the scientists while in the field. I found it very touching to read about the father and son’s close friendship and mutual respect.

- Lesley Parilla, Cataloger and Graphics Designer, Field Book Project

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Glorious Day! Or A Bird Watcher’s Field Notes, by Sonoe Nakasone

My favorite blog post is Sonoe Nakasone’s story about James Eike, the bird-watching citizen scientist. Eike’s notes have such a personal touch that you don’t often find among the pages of specimen descriptions in other field books. It is hard not to get sucked into his field books because they occasionally read more like a diary than a list of bird observations. I think the fact that his field books spanned over 30 years of his life made it so that by the end, I felt sad to read about his death, and touched by his wife and daughter finishing out the book.

- Kira Cherrix, Image and Video Digitization Specialist, Smithsonian Institution Archives

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The Boys of Summer, by Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie

Photo courtesy of Northeast Harbor Library.

I loved guest-blogger Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie’s post The Boys of Summer. MacKenzie has a unique perspective on how historical field documentation is relevant to contemporary research; she studies climate and land use change on Mount Desert Island, Maine, and uses field notes in her research. The fascinating twist is this—the field notes she consulted were written by Harvard undergrad students on summer vacation, and yet, provide rich data for comparing to present day observations. Early citizen science!

-Emily Hunter, Cataloger and Social Media Coordinator, Field Book Project

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Catalog Records for Smithsonian Field Books Now Online

By Carolyn Sheffield

The Field Book Project is pleased to announce that catalog records describing thousands of Smithsonian field books—including those we’ve blogged about here—are now available online through the Smithsonian’s Collection Search Center: http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=unit_code%3AFBR&tag.cstype=all.

The launch of these records represents the first time they have been publicly available. Altogether, these records describe 6,679 field books comprising 542 collections housed at the Smithsonian Institution. A subset of these records includes digital images of field books for viewing alongside the records.  In addition to the detailed catalog records, there are also 927 authority files providing biographical and historical details for the persons, organizations, and expeditions involved in the creation of these field books. A few months back, supervisory archivist Tammy Peters blogged about the significance of these records and the veritable social network they form between collaborators, co-participants on expeditions, and institutional affiliations.

Frederick V. Coville. SIA Acc. 90-105. SIA2008-0296.

Take for instance Frederick Vernon Coville, a botanist and blueberry breeder, who was the subject of one of our very first blog posts. Looking at Coville’s authority file will tell you more about his life and career.  Use the file as a springboard to find information on collections related to him, as well as detailed descriptions about field books within those collections.  From those field book records, access links for expeditions Coville participated in, such as the Harriman Alaska Expedition (1899).  These links allow you to view field books related to Coville’s expeditions or view records about those expeditions.  From the expedition records, links are provided to learn more about other participants of that expedition and the field books they created.

Authority file for Frederick Vernon Coville.  Select the image of the record to view a larger version.

 

Authority file for the Harriman Alaska Expedition (1899). Select the image of the record to view a larger version.

We hope you’ll take a look around, search for some of the scientists you’re familiar with, navigate through their collections and field books, and explore materials created by some of their collaborators. 

Not sure where to start? Browse any of our blog posts by discipline to find a person or topic of interest. Be sure to try out the tagging option in Collections Search, too. And by all means, let us know what you think!

 

Images on Flickr Commons, November 2012

Two notebook pages with rubbing from Foshag's San Agustín Acasaguastlan notebook. Acc 91-144, Box 1, Field Notebooks (Re: Jade); Two notebook pages with rubbing from Foshag's San Agustín Acasaguastlan notebook, rubbing from sample 4734 of a jade carving SIA 2011-0945. http://nmnh.typepad.com/fieldbooks/2011/06/foshag.html

By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project

In September of 2012, we launched a series of Flickr sets to highlight the wonderful visual content of our blog posts. These images document the wide variety of field books we catalog here at the Field Book Project, and were kindly digitized for us by the Smithsonian Institution Archives Digital Services. Being on Flickr gives us a chance to share content with a wider audience and users the chance to interact with images more directly (e.g. tagging and commenting) than is possible in the blog format.

This is the third installment in the series, available to through the Smithsonian’s Flickr Commons stream. The set includes 27 images that accompanied blog posts from 2011. These come from scrapbooks, journals, photographs, drawings, and logbooks, and document field work completed around the world, over the course of two centuries.

So take a look, comment, follow the url in the caption to the related blog post to learn more. We hope you enjoy the images as much as we do.

See Flickr Set

Discovering the Artistry in Field Notes: Intersection of Art and Science

By Emily Hunter, Field Book Project

Recently, I had the opportunity to present on visual field notes at Revealing Hidden Treasures: the Smithsonian’s Archives Fair 2012, a day inspired by the month of October--American Archives Month. In case you missed it, here’s a recap:

Heteropogon near Masaya, Nicaragua. SIA Acc. 11-093, Box 1, Mary Agnes Chase Photograph Album 1898-1903. SIA2012-4623.

We’ve talked quite a bit on our blog about the variety of formats that field books may take, including photographs, sketches, maps, correspondence, journals, specimen lists, and more. I wanted to take a moment to discuss why visual field notes are important. Lists and diaries contain information like collector numbers, geographical names, specimen binomials, and all sorts of information for which it’s easy to see the use potential. They can be cross-referenced with the actual specimen labels, or offer missing or supplemental information. But what about visual materials? What can they offer that is useful or unique? Among other things, they can tell us specifically about specimens, the environment, and the collecting event.

Specimens

Photographs and sketches can give us important information about specimens that were collected or observed in the field. Together, words and sketches can give a fuller, richer description of specimens. As mentioned in a previous blog post, specimens, especially fish, can lose color and pattern information shortly after they are preserved—sketches can relate those details to us.  Similarly, images of live or just-collected plants can give us information about the living individual that pressed plants can not. In a world before photography, sketches were critical for illustrating specimens (and also field work and the environment). When photography became more popular, it also became a tool for capturing this information.

Environment

Sketch of Kanab Canyon by Charles D. Walcott during his field work for the US Geological Survey, October 15 - November 3, 1879. Smithsonian Institution Archives. RU007004, Box 32, Folder 1. SIA SIA2012-9643.

Sketches, photographs, and maps can give us important information about the environment surrounding a collecting site; they can, quite literally, paint us a picture of a certain place as it existed at a certain time. We can use photographs and drawings from the field to answer questions such as:

What did the landscape look like?

What species were thriving?

What was missing or scarce?

How has this location changed?

Maps can also give us clues as to what the world looked like at a past time. They can illustrate old routes that existed before modern roads did, and indicate locations where specimens were observed or collected. Some maps preserve information about a past landscape or historical political borders. In a past blog post, Eleonore Dixon-Roche discussed how the landscape has changed since Joseph Rock visited and created his hand drawn maps.

Constantine S. Rafinesque's Notes N. 17, pages 86 and 87, 1818. Smithsonian Institution Archives. RU 007250, Box 1, Folder 3. SIA2012-6086.

Collecting event

Vernon Orlando Bailey on horseback in Rabbit Hole Basin, Nevada, 1898. Smithsonian Institution Archives. RU 007267, Box 5, Folder 12. SIA2011-1382.

Visual field notes can illustrate fieldwork for us in a way that textual documents simply cannot. Photographs show us what fieldwork looked like. We begin to see things like who was there, how a specimen was obtained, how it was transported, and the cultural context surrounding the collection.

Through images, we get a sense of what it might have been like to be a part of an historical expedition. Images like these speak to us; they illustrate scientific explorations, and communicate to us in a very human way so that we can relate to these past stories. They make it real!

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Slides of this presentation are available on Slide Share. You may see a webcast of the presentation on YouTube.

Blog Post Images on Flickr Commons

SIA2012-3228. 3. -Q. macrocarpa var. depressa. Prairie border. S.W. corner of Lyon county, Iowa, circa 1878-1936. RU 007082, Box 5, Folder 3; Photographs document Bohumil Shimek's geological and botanical field work, 1878-1936. http://nmnh.typepad.com/fieldbooks/2012/05/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words.html

Here at the Field Book Project, we’re busy bloggers. We usually churn out two blog posts per week, and sometimes limiting ourselves to that takes restraint. So, needless to say, we include a lot of pictures of field books to illustrate our blog posts. We’ve decided to share these images on the Smithsonian’s Flickr Commons stream.

Why post to Flickr Commons? There are a few reasons. First of all, the kind and talented folks in Smithsonian Institution Archives Digital Services regularly digitize materials for us to use to accompany our posts (in addition to regularly digitizing field books for the Field Book Registry). Flickr’s The Commons is already a thriving forum for sharing images, so it made sense for us to contribute already digitized images to this resource. Secondly, Flickr allows users to interact directly with images by tagging, commenting, downloading large files, sharing, and marking images as “favorites”. Finally, it allows us to bring our visual content to a wider audience and allow more people to discover the amazing diversity of field notes.

This first set includes 24 images from seven blog posts and represent field notes in a variety of formats (photographs, codices, sketches) and subject areas (Botany, Herpetology, Mammalogy, Ichthyology). They represent some of our favorite collections and collectors. We hope that you enjoy the images as much as we do. To read more about something that strikes you, follow the url in the caption to the related blog post. Enjoy!

View the full set on Flickr: Field Book Project Blog Images, September 2012

Historical Context and Connections

By Tammy Peters, Supervisory Archivist, Smithsonian Institution Archives

Edgar Alexander Mearns, 1909-1910, Record Unit 95, SIA2009-1360 http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_9571

When describing archival holdings, context is essential. For example, the Smithsonian has numerous items from the 1899 Harriman Alaska Expedition, but it is important to know that botanist Frederick Vernon Coville’s field books will have a different focus than paleontologist William Healey Dall’s. Describing the “who, what, when, where and why” is how we understand items cataloged within the Field Book Registry.

When the Field Book Project started, we gave a considerable amount of thought to descriptive standards that would form the framework for all the data we collect. Among those chosen was Encoded Archival Context – Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families. EAC-CPF is a standard that primarily addresses the description of individuals, families and corporate bodies that create, preserve, use, and are responsible for and/or associated with records in a variety of ways.

The details of the standard are probably only interesting to a select few who like discussing the minutiae of XML tags, coding and cataloging. While part of my job is to be involved with and implement those details, the most exciting part, to me, is how this standard can help researchers understand and find information in the Field Book Registry and beyond.

At the most basic level, creating a biography for a person who authored a field book allows one to see their personal and educational background, their research specialty, and where and when they conducted their work.

Theodore Roosevelt on African Expedition, 1909, Record Unit 95, SIA2009-1371 http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_6821

EAC-CPF also helps make cataloging more efficient, and can make virtual links to materials dispersed among various places. Even within the Registry, there are field books from the same person or expedition that “live” in various departments at the National Museum of Natural History and/or the Smithsonian Institution Archives. Creating one EAC-CPF record allows us to link one history to many field books, no matter where they are located. As the Field Book Registry grows beyond cataloging Smithsonian items, that one EAC-CPF record can also link to items from around the world. This has always been a driving goal for the project: helping a researcher interested in a particular person, expedition or other topic find primary resources from many repositories.

At a broader level, it also allows us to link a person’s biography to details about the places they worked, the expeditions in which they participated, and other individuals. EAC-CPF helps outline an historical social network. Not only can a researcher find links to materials from that one person for whom they started their search, but they can also find resources concerning the organizations and people associated with that person.

John Alden Loring, 1909-1910, Record Unit 95, 21451 http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_9572

If I wanted to search for field books created by naturalist Edgar Alexander Mearns, I would find that his research is documented in various departments at the National Museum of Natural History, and in the Smithsonian Archives. The Registry can locate all the sites for those resources. Mearns’s biography links him to the Smithsonian-Theodore Roosevelt African Expedition, which in turn has its own  expedition history, which links to other personnel on the trip. Now I can look into his “network,” which includes mammalogist Edmund Heller, Theodore Roosevelt, and Roosevelt’s son Kermit, and naturalist John Alden Loring. While my search started with a specific focus, I can now see if following Mearns’ network will lead me to related materials that answer my research questions. It can offer quite valuable leads with relative ease, and that’s what we hope EAC-CPF records will offer to those who use the Field Book Registry.

In the near future the Registry will share EAC-CPF records with the Social Networks and Archival Context Project (SNAC), a prototype for a national registry of records that will point to hundreds of thousands of collections and resources in field book repositories around the world.

Tammy Peters is the Supervisory Archivist at Smithsonian Institution Archives.  She serves as a collaborator and advisor to the Field Book Project.

Related Links:

http://www2.archivists.org/ [SAA]

http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/ [Social Networks and Archival Context Project]

http://eac.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/ [EAC-CPF Home Page]

6,000 and Counting!

By Carolyn Sheffield, Project Manager, Field Book Project

When the Field Book Project kicked off in 2010, we were setting out to catalog all of the biodiversity field books at the Smithsonian, for a total of 6,000 field books, by the end of 2012.  Today, I am excited to share that we have reached that milestone nearly four months ahead of schedule!

Over the last couple of years, we’ve discovered that there are well over 6,000 field books, currently estimated at over 8,000, so we will continue cataloging and blogging about what we find.  We’ve discovered a lot of other things as well, and so I can’t help feeling what better time to look back on what we’ve found and look forward to where we’re going.

Field books come in many shapes and sizes

If you’ve been reading our blog for awhile, you’ve probably come across our musings on just what exactly is a field book.  The more obvious formats are handwritten notes and journals.  For more visually-oriented scientists, sketches, maps and photographs can comprise a substantial portion of their field notes.  Some of my personal favorites are those that combine the textual with the visual such as Moynihan’s illustrated notes or Chapin’s scrapbook approach.

Field notes of Martin H. Moynihan on Cyanerpes (Honeycreepers) observed in Barro Colorado, Panama, 1958, SIA Acc. 01-096, image SIA2012-1870, Smithsonian Institution Archives.	Journal of Field Explorations by Edward A. Chapin, Colombia, page 66 (Orchid Specimen, Article on Dr, Chapin's Mission), SIA Acc. 11-085, image SIA2011-0414, Smithsonian Institution Archives.

 Of course, the shape and size of field books also vary from collector to collector and from year to year.  Changes in manufacturing processes for paper, book binding and photographic processes have contributed to the wide variety of note taking materials ranging from quintessential government issued green journals to stereographs and lantern slides.  For an overview of these and other formats, see the timeline in Field Books Through the Ages: A Visual Timeline.

Barbour, Wortman, and Gidley on paleontological expeditions, 1900-1935.  RU 424 Box 6 Sub Box 1, image SIA2011-1415,  Smithsonian Institution Archives.	Stereoscope from Smithsonian-Bredin Expedition to the Belgian Congo, 1955, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7231, Image SIA2012-0404.

Field books provide useful information for many different types of research

There is no “right way” to take field notes and so it’s not surprising that field notes can vary greatly from collector to collector.  Anne Van Camp, Director of the Smithsonian Institution Archives and a Principal Investigator on the Field Book Project, notes that:

(Some field books) go way beyond just documenting the collecting and really record a much richer personal description of the whole process of exploration and collecting.  It surprised me how rich these things really are.  I think the whole process of understanding scientific exploration of the environment is really fascinating on so many levels.  I think there’s something exciting in it for everyone.

The purely scientific data and observations which form a large component of field book content are not only extremely interesting, but also useful for answering some big research questions.   In his post The Living Legacy of Field Research at the Smithsonian, Secretary Clough discusses how field work can reveal clues about both the causes and effects of climate change through the study of fossils and provide insights into how similar changes might impact us today.  More recent notes can also be useful in understanding what changes have occurred over a shorter time space.  Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie, a graduate student in Boston University’s Biology program, recently guest blogged for us on a set of field notes from the 1880’s, which she’ll use as the basis for a comparative analysis as she re-surveys Mount Desert Island’s contemporary flora.  For me, this kind of historical comparison, which field books enable, is one of the most powerful illustrations of the relevance of field notes to contemporary scientific research.  

Looking Ahead

As we continue cataloging the Smithsonian field book collections, we are also moving forward on some of our short and long term goals for making this content widely available.  Our larger vision for the Field Book Project is to not only deliver a public facing, online database of all of this rich content but to extend that into a Field Book Registry to accept content from institutions beyond the Smithsonian. 

Rusty Russell, Collections Program Manager of the Department of Botany and a Principal Investigator on the Field Book Project describes his vision for the future of the Field Book Project:

Longer term, we will invest in technologies to provide word level access to field book content for a broad range of scholarly study, and to compose triplets [that describe relationships between species, places and dates] to support studies of biological and planetary changes. 

Those efforts will involve both existing and emerging technologies and we’re looking forward to collaborating with potential Field Book Registry contributors, technologists, and the researchers who will use the Registry to explore those technologies and make this content widely accessible for a variety of research purposes.

Where would you like to see the project go from here?  Let us know in the comments!

Scientific Observations in a Grocery Log: The Field Books of Harrison Dyar

Typical Blue Book Page, Book 5 pg 225. 1890-1896. Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History. SIA Acc. 12-447. Photo by Blair Bailey.

As a summer pre-program conservation intern with the Smithsonian Center for Archives Conservation, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a variety of book and paper objects. The Center for Archives Conservation is a treatment laboratory located at the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) that provides conservation services for SIA’s permanent collections, as well as for sister archives and special collections within the Smithsonian community. Primarily I have worked on field books, paper objects from the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH).  As my time here is ending, I thought I’d share with you all some of the work I’ve been doing: the field books of Harrison G. Dyar.

Harrison Gray Dyar (1826-1929) was a leading early 20^th century entomologist who greatly refined the description of moths and mosquitoes and our understanding of their life cycles. Well known and deeply opinionated, Dyar was able to devise calculations on how to measure the growth of insects, while also discovering new species.

Though to some Dyar’s scientific focus could seem dry, no one could say that of his personal life. Dyar married his first wife, Zella Peabody in 1889, and they had two children, Dorothy and Otis Dyar. By 1914, many suspected Dyar of having two families in Washington, D.C.—one with Zella and one with Wellesca Pollack Allen. Dyar obtained a divorce from his wife Zella in 1916 and married Allen in 1921, adopting Allen’s 3 sons,  Wilfred P., Harrison G., and Wallace P. (thought to be his) upon their marriage. Additionally, Dyar dug tunnels beneath his two homes in D.C. These tunnels extended as deep as 32 feet and were multi-level with concrete walls. Discovered in 1924, the press hypothesized their creation by German spies. Dyar publicly claimed them as his pastime. His intriguing personal life, however, did not disrupt his work for the USDA and the National Museum (now the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History) as the Custodian of the National Lepidoptera Collections from 1897 until his death in 1929.

Mrs. Dyar Sr. Household Ledger, Book 22 pg 900. Department of Entomology, NMNH. SIA Acc.12-447. Photo by Blair Bailey.

 Dyar was a prolific researcher and created 29 “Blue Books” with notes on the numerous specimens he collected and observed. Dyar was thrifty despite being independently wealthy.  Some of these books were new and meant specifically for note taking, whereas others were originally designed for different purposes.  The latter included a day planner, numerous grocery store receipt books (where Zella wrote their grocery transactions–Dyar  wrote between her script), as well as his mother’s household ledger.

These varied types of books have necessitated a range of treatment types to ensure their readiness for digitization. Some books required simple mends to tears with Japanese paper (thin, long fibered paper known for flexible strength) and wheat starch paste, while making sure all of his inserted notes (such as on the backs of checks) are in their own safe little envelopes. Some inserts even contained beautiful watercolors of the specimens! During this process, I have grown to understand Dyar’s working method. He does not number his pages, but places them in chronological order of his numbered specimens and records his observations. It took working on a few books before both the cataloger and I  figured this out!

Female Nude Cutout Insert, Book 22. Department of Entomology, NMNH. SIA Acc.12-447 Photo by Kirsten Tyree.	Specimen Watercolors, Book 18 insert at pg 555. Department of Entomology, NMNH. SIA Acc.12-447. Photo by Blair Bailey.

Blair Repairing a Torn Page, 8/14/2012.  Photo by Janelle Batkin

This knowledge was extremely helpful when working with other books that necessitate more extensive care, for example, those with pages that have ripped free from the binding, are out of order, and are in danger of being lost. These books required more time as I needed to disbind the book into its individual pamphlets and then resew it. (For further details on this process, check out an awesome earlier Field Book Project blog post by conservator Anna Friedman!). This process is particularly satisfying as I know I have improved the longevity of the object, while also aiding in the researcher’s understanding of the object.

As my time here winds down and I finish the Dyar collection, it has reminded me of the many shapes, sizes, and ways field notebooks are created by different scientists. I thought I’d share some of the variety with you all that I have been so fortunate to work with this summer. I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I have enjoyed working on them!

 

Resources

Epstein, Marc E. and Pam Henson. (1992). Digging for dyar: The man behind the myth. The American Entomologist, 38(3), 148-169.

On the Bigger Picture...

David White’s Letter- page 5 DETAIL, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 305, Accession Number 41108.

The Center for Archives Conservation intern Blair Bailey shares a heart-stopping tale from the accession records of the US National Museum  in her article, "Scared to Death?: The Curious Case of a Pine Mouse."

In Honor of National Parks Month

By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project

Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850-1927), paleontologist and fourth Secretary of the Smithsonian (1907-1927), stands viewing the Grand Canyon, 1915. SIA RU000095, Box 24, Folder 3A. Image 83-14116 or 75-2248.

A sizable portion of field books we’ve cataloged document field work in the US National Parks. It seems logical. National park sites are chosen and preserved because they are unique natural resources; environments like these are bound to attract researchers as well as require environmental monitoring. A cursory search of our catalog records yields results on field notes taken in national parks from 1879 to the 1970’s, around 100 years worth of observations and collecting. However, it is the early years of collecting in national parks that most fascinate me.

I realized while looking through the chronology and content of the materials we’ve cataloged, that the earliest materials document a period of time when the nation was still figuring out how to best manage these sites. The first park, Yellowstone National Park, was established in 1872. Field books about Yellowstone National Park date back to 1887 or earlier in our collection, which is fascinating when considering that the National Park Service (NPS) wasn’t created until 1916. Before NPS, responsibility for managing historical and natural landmarks resided with the War Department and the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture. (More about the early management of these landmarks is found on the National Park Service website). Furthermore, the field work documented for locations like Yosemite National Park (established 1890) and Grand Canyon (established 1919) extends decades before their national park status.  We have field books for work conducted in the Grand Canyon by Charles D. Walcott in the 1870’s; C. Hart Merriam in 1889; and J. W. Toumey in 1892. William Brewer’s field books document collecting in Yosemite Valley in 1862 – 1865.

I contemplated the range of topics I could discuss about national parks before realizing I had the chance to share one of my first “finds”. During my first months of cataloging, I worked on the field notes of Charles Doolittle Walcott. He is best known for his work in the mountains of British Columbia and the discovery of the Burgess Shale. Some of his oldest field books, dating back to 1870’s, document time he spent in the Grand Canyon. I have included a few sketches from his collection below.

The first sketch is from 1879, when Walcott was working in the Kanab Canyon along the north rim for the USGS. The subsequent sketches document Chuar Valley, Grand Canyon, Arizona, c. 1883, and most likely were drawn by B. L. Young who accompanied Walcott.

Sketch of Kanab Canyon by Charles D. Walcott during his field work for the US Geological Survey, October 15 - November 3, 1879. Smithsonian Institution Archives. RU007004, Box 32, Folder 1. SIA SIA2012-9643 .

Debris slope, Chuar Valley, Grand Canyon, Arizona, c. 1883. Drawing was likely sketched by B. L. Young. SIA RU007004, Box 32, Folder 8. SIA SIA2012-9660.

Sandstone at butte fault line, Chuar Valley [Grand Canyon], c. 1883. Drawing was likely sketched by B. L. Young. SIA RU007004, Box 32, Folder 8. SIA SIA2012-9661.

South face of Temple butte [Grand Canyon], c 1883. Drawing was likely sketched by B. L. Young. SIA RU007004, Box 32, Folder 8. SIA SIA2012-9662.

 These drawings show different levels of drawing acumen and were created for different purposes. Walcott’s sketch with a note indicating the location of his tent marked “yours truly” seems to be for the purpose of showing the immense scale of the canyon. B. L. Young’s dramatic depictions of the valley probably prove a more accurate recording of the valleys current geological state. However, both sets of drawings impart important information about the scale and beauty of the region. 

This grandeur of scale, biodiversity, and beauty of the Grand Canyon and other National Parks has been depicted in countless other researchers' field notes for well over 100 years.  These notes stand as a testament to the enduring quality and importance of our nation's parks.

Digitization Interns Blog about Field Books on The Bigger Picture

Summer digitization interns, Catherine Cox and Alison Pinches, write about the field notes of David Crockett Graham on The Bigger Picture.

Catherine Cox:

The David Crockett Graham Field Book Collection: A Portal for Chinese Culture and Biodiversity

Alison Pinches:

Facing Adverse Conditions While Collecting in the Field

Cataloging Interns Blog about Field Books!

The Field Book Project would like to introduce two upcoming blog posts contributed by cataloging interns, Richard Jerome and Alice Doolittle. (Read their bios here).

Richard Jerome has been cataloging field books at the Smithsonian Institution Archives and the National Museum of Natural History Division of Birds. Richard’s blog post, New Animals in New Places, looks at the issue of invasive species, and highlights an interesting anecdote found in the field book of Alexander Wetmore. Richard’s post will go up tomorrow, July 20th.

Alice Doolittle has continued cataloging the large collection of POBSP (Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program) materials at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. She has also started cataloging field books in the National Museum of Natural History Division of Fishes. You can look for a blog post by Alice in early August.

We’d like to thank our interns for all of their hard work. Stay tuned to get a glimpse into what they’ve been up to this summer!

The Bryn Mawr School Students Visit Herbarium and Field Book Collections

Deborah Bell and students in the U.S. National Herbarium.  2012.  Photograph by Field Book Project.	Deborah Bell and students in the mounting room.  2012.  Photograph by Field Book Project.	Students look at Department of Botany field books.  2012.  Photograph by Field Book Project.

Last Wednesday, the Field Book Project received Dr. Eric Elton and 11 of his 9th-12th grade ecology students from The Bryn Mawr School (Baltimore, MD).  Dr. Elton and his students were given a tour of U.S. National Herbarium specimens and field books in the Department of Botany.  Deborah Bell, Collections Management in the Department of Botany, displayed samples of herbarium specimens, disucussing the history, depth, and breath of the collection.  Later students were taken to explore a variety of field books of botanists from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Field Work and a World War

View of French battleship, Richelieu, with buoys in the foreground marking the top of the anti-submarine net in port of Dakar, Senegal, 1940. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7293

Many field books contain observations of the effects of major world events, such as war.  Read about geologist Bohumil Shimek's field trip through a war-torn Europe and what he saw there in this poignant article by cataloger Lesley Parilla on The Bigger Picture:

 http://siarchives.si.edu/blog/field-work-and-world-war

Conservation and Digitization Field Book Interns

The Field Book Project is grateful to have five interns from the fields of conservation and digitization working with us this summer: Blair Bailey, Janelle Batkin, Catherine Cox, Cherie Edmonds, and Alison Pinches.  Four of the interns were funded through a generous grant from the Smithsonian Women's Committee (SWC) that the Smithsonian Institution Archives recieved earlier this year.  Learn more about these talented individuals below.  Also, be sure to visit this link for information about our cataloging interns.  Check back later this summer to learn about these interns' conservation and digitization projects.

 

	Blair Bailey is originally from Cincinnati, OH and received a BA in Art History and a BA in History from American University in Washington, D.C. in 2011. The Smithsonian Field Book Project is a great opportunity for Blair to gain additional practical experience prior to applying to a formal Master’s program in Art Conservation. Her previous conservation experience includes painting and paper conservation at the National Portrait Gallery, a paint mixture conservation research assistantship at the Museum Conservation Institute, glass object experience at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and archaeological objects conservation for Historic St. Mary’s City in Maryland.  Blair's internship was made possible through funding from SWC.
Blair Bailey, 2012. Credit: Sarah Stauderman.
	Janelle Batkin is originally from Ithaca, NY and received an AAS in Photography and a BFA in Art Restoration from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, NY. In 2011, She earned an AA in Art from Montgomery College, Takoma Park/Silver Spring, MD. The Smithsonian Field Book Project is a great opportunity for Janelle to gain additional practical experience prior to applying to a formal Master’s program in Art Conservation. Her previous conservation experiences include the treatment of mural paintings, gilded stone surfaces, and archaeological objects. Janelle's internship was made possible through funding from SWC.
Janelle Batkin, 2012.  Credit: Sara Stauderman.
	Catherine Cox is currently a graduate student at George Mason University. The internship at the Smithsonian Institution Archives is part of the curriculum for earning her M.A. in Applied History. Catherine feels working with the Field Book Project has provided her with valuable experience to begin her career in archives and the preservation of historical information and cultural heritage. She looks forward to pursuing future opportunities to work with audiovisual materials, such as sound recordings and oral histories.  Catherine's internship was made possible with funding from SWC.
Catherine Cox, 2012  Credit: Kira Cherrix.
	Cherie Edmonds is a 2nd year Master's student at the University of Michigan - School of Information, where she is also Treasurer for the student chapter of the Special Library Association, and Recruiting Chair for the Multi-Ethnic Information Exchange. Her specializations are Archives and Records Management, and Preservation of Information. She is centering her studies around digital preservation, and is particularly interested in image, sound, and motion preservation. She started working on the Field Book Project this past Winter during her school's Alternative Spring Break program, in which students spend their Spring breaks volunteering their time with various organizations around the country in order to gain practical experience. She returned this summer on an internship in order to continue her work digitizing and recording metadata for the Field Book Project.  Cherie's internship was made possible with funding from SWC.
Cherie Edmonds, 2012.  Credit: Emily Hunter.
	Alison Pinches is a recent graduate from the University of Calgary, (Alberta, Canada) with a bachelor's degree in Arts, majoring in History. Alison is interested in pursuing a Master's degree in Library Sciences and wanted to explore opportunities outside of library settings. Her eight week internship is funded by the government of Alberta.
Alison Pinches, 2012. Credit: Kira Cherrix.

Field Book Author Quiz - Answers Revealed!

As promised, here are the answers to the Field Book Author Quiz!

Thanks to all who took part. Let us know how you did!

You can also download the answers here (pdf).

Field Book Author Quiz

Left to right: Emily Hunter, Carolyn Sheffield, Lesley Parilla. Congress of Scholars tent at the Staff Picnic, 2012. Photo by Linda Hollenburg.

Thanks to everyone who visited our table in the Smithsonian Council of Scholars (SCOS) Research Tent at the Folklife Festival to take our quiz! If you didn't have a chance, you can still test your own knowledge of field book authors.

Download the Field Book Author Quiz (pdf)

We will post answers to the quiz next Monday, July 9, 2012.

Join Us on the Mall!

The Field Book Project team will be on the National Mall as part of the Smithsonian Council of Scholars (SCOS) Research Tent at the Folklife Festival. We'll be talking about the project and sharing images of field book.  Participate in our quiz for a chance to win your very own pocksized field notebook (limited supply).  Monday, July 2, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Hope to see you there!

The Field Book Project and YES!

Smithsonian YES! (Youth Engagement through Science) delve into field notes of Smithsonian Botanists from the late 19th / early 20th century. Photo by Field Book Project.

Tuesday, the Field Book Project welcomed 25 students from the Smithsonian YES! (Youth Engagement through Science) summer program into the National Museum of Natural History Main Library stacks to view field books from the Department of Botany. Students explored nine original field books created between 1897 and 1946, each field book highlighting different aspects of note taking. During their internships, YES students will create their own field notes while working with Smithsonian scientists. Forensic Anthropology Lab Educator Nicole Webster was charged with developing the students’ field book curriculum and the yellow notebooks seen in the photo above. Webster has agreed to blog for the Field Book Project at the end of the summer, so please check back for more about field notes from the YES! students.

André Goeldi Flickr Set: The Journey from 1920 to 2012

By Emily Hunter, Field Book Project

24. Calytrocarya [sic]. Photograph by André Goeldi, circa 1913-1920. SIA Acc. 12-045, Image SIA 2012-3890.

In January, I began cataloging field books in the Department of Botany. In my first week, I came across a box of materials related to the botanist André Goeldi. These materials had a note from our conservator that read “Extremely brittle!” Carefully, I opened the folder and gasped as I saw the contents--black and white photographs of botanical specimens, mostly grasses. Each one was stunning. The photographs themselves were “silvering” (also called silver mirroring)--something that happens to older black and white gelatin prints, in which the silver particles begin to oxidize, producing a blue-ish metallic look. Although a conservation problem, the silver mirroring gave the images an otherworldly glow.

The photographs depicted specimens, set upon a black background, with a tape measure in many of the images to indicate scale. The photographs were clearly taken to document Goeldi’s specimen collection, but it’s hard to deny their aesthetic merit as well. Grass is something usually taken for granted as common, but seeing the variety of grasses depicted in these 36 photographs made me think twice about the familiar plant family. Isolated clumps shown on the dark background gave focus to the form, while highlighting the elegance (and the occasionally tangled chaos) of some of these plants.

Man standing in a field with grasses and trees, possibly André Goeldi in Brazil, circa 1913-1920. SIA Acc. 12-045, Image: SIA 2012-3935.

I examined the contents of the folder for clues about the materials and their creator. A letter included with the photographs indicated that the images were sent to Albert Spear Hitchcock in 1920. Hitchcock was an expert on grasses, and presumably he and Goeldi corresponded regarding the identification or perhaps the exchange of the specimens. Also included with the photographs were specimen lists, with entries in Portuguese. These lists, handwritten on an extremely acidic paper, were even more brittle than the photographs. Some of the information had even crumbled away from the edges. After consulting with our conservator, I digitized the entire contents of the Goeldi box. This way, the information is captured digitally in case the physical objects wear down and lose additional information. From these images, I selected several of the most interesting to make up the flickr set.

List of grasses sent with photographs by André Goeldi to A. S. Hitchcock in 1920. SIA Acc. 12-045.

I was interested to find out who André Goeldi was. My initial research returned few results. I knew that André Goeldi was working in Pará, Brazil circa 1913 to 1920, and that he was not the same person as Emílio A. Goeldi, first director of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. I dug into the archives and also reached out to the Museu Goeldi to see if they had additional information. To my delight, Dr. Nelson Sanjad, researcher, History of Science at the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, responded to my email and offered additional details on Goeldi’s life. Dr. Sanjad helped to fill in many of the gaps, informing me that Goeldi (name variation Andréas Goeldi) was born in Switzerland in 1872 and immigrated to Brazil in 1893. He worked at the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi from 1901 to 1906 and then at the experimental farm Estação Agrícola de Peixe Boi. Dr. Sanjad also informed me that Emílio and André were cousins. The correspondence with A. S. Hitchcock dated 1920 may be the last documented mention of André Goeldi’s activities, so perhaps he died shortly after.

This set of field documentation serves as an example of how materials from all over the world end up in the care of the Smithsonian Institution. Curating this set of images sparked an interesting journey for me, and required the collaboration of colleagues across various fields at home at the Smithsonian as well as abroad. The collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of the Field Book Project was something that initially attracted me to apply as an intern over a year ago. I hope that you enjoy learning about the process of bringing these images to the public sphere, and I encourage you to share any comments or additional information on the man behind these photographs.

View the full flickr set here.

Acknowledgements:

Thank you very much to the following people for their assistance with various aspects of this project: Dr. Nelson Sanjad, Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Pará, Brazil; Anna Friedman and the conservation staff at Smithsonian Institution Archives; Tad Bennicoff and reference team at Smithsonian Institution Archives; Kira Cherrix and the digitization staff at Smithsonian Institution Archives; and all of my colleagues at the Field Book Project.

Trends in Collecting: Celebrating 5000 Records

by Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project

We have cataloged 5,000 field books, generated by collectors across the National Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Institution Archives. These include more than 400 collections encompassing botany, entomology, ornithology, ichthyology, herpetology, mammalogy, and invertebrate zoology just to name a few. Collections with confirmed dates range from 1815 to 2008. Cataloged items cover every continent – including Antarctica and northern Polar Regions. They encompass journals, videos, photographs, scrap books, diaries, correspondence, slides (including stereographic), species lists, maps…should I continue?

View of warehouses and boats in the port of Macao [Macau] taken by A. S. Hitchcock, 1921. Smithsonian Institution Archives. SIA2011-0565.

Taken by Waldo Schmitt off the coast of Palmer Peninsula, Antarctica, 1962-1963. Smithsonian Institution Archives. SIA2012-0666.

After cataloging so many field books, some interesting trends emerged. Here are a few highlights of what we have found while cataloging.

A Growing Nation

Early collecting trips were often surveys of newly acquired American territories -- Oregon, Nebraska, and Alaska, for example. Individuals like J. A. Cooper traveled along with military and other participants between forts and new settlements, collecting as much information as possible about vegetation and wildlife. Recorded observations frequently include details about agricultural and commercial possibilities. Often these types of field books are journals with descriptions of communities and inhabitants of these regions.

 

September 19, 1940, during Alaska King Crab Investigation with the Fish and Wildlife Service. Smithsonian Institution Archives. SIA2012-0672a.

Economic Needs

Some collections like those of the Bureau of Fisheries and Bureau of Biological Survey (later to merge and become the Department of Fish and Wildlife) were born out of economic needs. The Bureau of Fisheries came out of a commission established by the US Congress to study the health and locations of fishing grounds. Field books document interviews with local watermen and surveys of locations about the presence and stability of marine life along all major US coastlines.

In a similar vein, the US Biological Survey was created under the US Department of Agriculture, initially studying geographical distributions of flora and fauna and the interplay when relating to control of agricultural pests. The field books of the US Biological Survey often discuss agricultural needs alongside investigations for the creation of nature preserves and refuges, helping to balance economic and conservation needs.

Contemporary Accounts

Journals, correspondence, and diaries can contain fascinating details about contemporary life. Field books at the Smithsonian relate details about interactions with contemporaries, descriptions of communities, and sometimes even food encountered in foreign countries. Some of the most memorable accounts include William and Lucile Mann describing the conditions in European zoos during World War II; Bohumil Shimek’s challenges leaving Europe at the outbreak of World War I; Waldo Schmitt traveling with Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Galapagos in 1938; and William Dall’s interactions with Russians just prior to the purchase of Alaska.

Plan of the Day from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1938 Cruise to the Galapagos. Smithsonian Institution Archives. SIA2012-0050.

Page 2 of the Plan of the Day from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1938 Cruise to the Galapagos. SIA2012-0051.

Recording Biodiversity

Field books often include more than one scientific discipline. Many scientists focused on two or three areas of interest, especially those collecting in the nineteenth century. Some, like the field books of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque can include up to five different disciplines.

Relationships between Federal Agencies

Interagency collaboration is not a new concept. Just look through a few NMNH department field book collections. Several departments at Natural History have long-term, deep connections with other agencies. These sometimes remain intact even as federal departments evolve and merge. Smithsonian collections include field books created by military officers (United States Exploring Expedition, also known as the Wilkes Expedition, was headed by US Navy), Bureau of Fisheries, US Department of Agriculture, and Department Fish and Wildlife.

Page from “Color Notes on Hawaiian Fishes” recorded during Bureau of Fisheries field work at Hawaiian Fish Market. Smithsonian Institution Archives RU 7184, Box 16 Folder 8, 1901. 110726_0708.

In all, it has been thrilling to see the range of field work documented across the Institution. I think all of us at the Field Book Project will agree it has been a fascinating journey thus far, and look forward to seeing what we find next.

Botany Round-Up

By Emily Hunter and Rusty Russell, Field Book Project

Botany field books in National Museum of Natural History library stacks, photo by Anna Friedman

Last summer, Field Book Project staff and interns began to catalog the hundreds of field books that are in the care of the Department of Botany. This summer, the Field Book Project has reached a significant milestone. As of this writing, the final collection of Botany field books is being cataloged -- at least for now. “At least for now” because while the current cache of Botany field books has been documented they, like all of the collections at the National Museum of Natural History, grow and diversify. Field books are still being “found”, and some day current staff will contribute their own field books. For now, the Field Book Project only catalogs the field notes of inactive collectors.

The numbers are far greater than the original estimates. To date the Field Book Project has cataloged 1,018 botanical field books created by 168 field biologists. Many of these field books have received special conservation attention from experts at the SI Archives, and now exist in a more controlled environment. We’ve created consistent records and access points that ultimately make the field books and their content more accessible to researchers. The short version? You will have an easier time finding and using these field books.

In 1980 former Botany Librarian Ruth Schallert prepared an inventory of field books being stored in the Botany Library. For more than two decades, this listing was the only electronically available field book resource on the NMNH website. In the course of cataloging, however, we have found that some of the field books were missing. Their current storage in the Natural History Library improves our ability to maintain and preserve the Botany field books. The task of digitally scanning field books has begun, and soon researchers will be able to locate field book items through the catalog by several access points (dates, creator, locality, and others) and be able to see and read the individual field book pages.

Field books are the original source of information for collecting activities and the resulting collections. They are, therefore, even more important than specimen labels. The impact of reaching this milestone in Botany is significant in terms of improved access to this critical data, all of which bodes well for research and collections programs in the Department.

Welcome, Field Book Project Interns!

The Field Book Project extends a warm welcome to our two Summer Cataloging Interns Richard Jerome and Alice Doolittle.

Richard Jerome, 2012. Photo by Carolyn Sheffield.

 

Richard Jerome lives in Washington, D.C. where he received his Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS) in 2012 from the Library and Information Science program at Catholic University. He received his Bachelor's degree in English Literature and Philosophy from Colgate University in Hamilton, NY. In 2011 he completed a practicum in authorities cataloging for the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, MD. Richard is excited to work for the Smithsonian Institution, an organization he has always admired.

 

Alice Doolittle, 2012.  Photo by Carolyn Sheffield.

Alice Doolittle lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she recently completed her Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree at the University of Pittsburgh. Alice also holds an M.S. in wildlife conservation from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. in biology from Yale. Having worked as a science teacher, field biologist, and a desk jockey at a conservation organization, Alice looking forward to combining her biology background with her library science training. She views the Smithsonian Field Book Project as a great opportunity for her goals and is excited to be contributing to and learning from the project this summer. She is also excited to be back on her native soil, Washington, D.C. 

 

You will hear more from both Richard and Alice later this summer when they blog about their work, so keep reading.

International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB)

The Field Book Project would like to remind you that May 22, 2012 is International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB). This year's theme is Marine Biodiversity. Visit the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) website to learn more about International Day for Biological Diversity and how you can help raise awareness of this year's theme.

 

 

Smithsonian Institution Archives receives Funding for Digitization

The Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) received a grant of $22,000 from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee (SWC). The award will fund two graduate paper conservation interns and two digitization interns who will work during summer 2012 to conserve and digitize original 19th and early 20th century scientific field expedition notebooks located at the Archives and in the National Museum of Natural History. This funding marks an important milestone for the Field Book Project.

SWC Grants Committee Chair Pat Fiske recently announced funding for 18 grants, totaling $367,898, supporting a broad range of projects and activities within the Smithsonian Institution.  Net proceeds from the Smithsonian Craft Show, along with earnings from the fall Craft2Wear event, provides the funding for these initiatives through the SWC’s annual grants program.  The 30th Anniversary Smithsonian Craft Show, which will help fund the 2013 grant cycle, takes place April 19 – April 22, 2012 at the National Building Museum.

Mary Agnes Chase goes to Brazil (and Flickr)

By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project

SIA2009-4227. Photograph taken during Mary Agnes Chase’s field work on Pico das Agulhas Negras in Itatiaia National Park [Parque Nacional de Itatiáia], in Brazil.

The Field Book Project has made of a point of posting quarterly flickr sets, to highlight some of the great hidden treasures we catalog. In the honor of Women’s History Month, I would like to announce our newest set, featuring images of Mary Agnes Chase and her field work.

During the 1920’s and 30’s Mary Agnes Chase conducted field work in the mountains of Brazil collecting grasses now housed in the Department of Botany Herbarium, National Museum of Natural History. Much of her time in the field is documented in correspondence to A. S. Hitchcock and photograph albums she compiled that are now part of Smithsonian Institution Archives Record Unit 229 and Mary Agnes Chase Field Books, 1906-1959 in the National Museum of Natural History, Department of Botany. During her time in Brazil, Chase wrote to Hitchcock discussing challenges, progress, and observations of local life. Chase was a woman of strong opinions and wit, as you will see in the quotes shared below.

 SIA2009-4229. Photograph taken during Mary Agnes Chase’s field work in the mountains of Brazil.

 The first quotes are from Chase’s chronicle of her excursion to Serra do Caparaó (November 19, 1929).  During the trip, the trail and overnight camping were made more difficult by persistent rain.

 “We were to camp in at a cave. We reached it about 4:30. It looked very inviting at first, being dry, until the guide commented on the pulgas (fleas) then I saw that the dusty earth was alive. I got back into the rain and began to collect while the guide burned dry palm leaves over the ground. I went back and warned Mrs. M as they came up. It was raining hard and I supposed we would have to stand the surviving fleas.”(page 7)

 “Serra de Gramina [sic] which I climbed with the Rolfs was the only rain forest I had seen before. Everything was covered with ferns, from little filmies(?) to tree ferns. It was wonderfully lovely in spite of the discomfort and weariness. The trail had not been used for two years, the guide said, and he had to do a lot of cutting.” (page 9)

 

SIA2012-3336a. Photograph taken by Mary Agnes Chase, while climbing Itatiáia in Brazil.

Chase goes on to describe preparations for the trip up Caparaó, and her struggles to find local guides and staff, recounting the men who refused to assist, stating their belief that if the trip was difficult for men they knew, it would be impossible for women. Chase was a woman of unusual energy and endurance. Despite being in her fifties at the time of her ascent, she climbed several of Brazil’s peaks during her field work throughout the decade. The field work proved challenging, but she persevered with good humor, as shown in the recounting below when she and a female participant reached one the campsites during the climb.

 “We struggled out of the bamboo and saw the men resting on the camps. I shouted for joy and old Antonio grinned and said something about “muito(?) courageus” for senhoras to make that ascent. He said no women had ever done it before and very few men.” (page 11)

 The last quote I’d like to share exemplifies the humor that was typical of Chase. It was taken from Chase’s letter to A.S. Hitchcock, from Brazil in December 21, 1929:

“The summit was almost as rough and finding nothing up there I hadn’t found climbing up I stepped and slid downward to the more open campo near the base, getting in a drop on saccharoides group, not saccharoides itself and a few other things. Knowing my capacity for getting lost I told myself I could not get lost this time with the mountains ridge on one hand and river on the other.”

 Publications about Mary Agnes Chase over the decades have often focused on her dedication to her work, sometimes overshadowing her many other qualities and interests. Late in her life a story was commonly written in several articles about her. The story said that when meeting new people, she would ask "and what grasses do you work on?" If the person didn’t answer in the affirmative, the conversation came to an abrupt end. Chase’s ability to laugh at herself sharply contradicts the characterization of Chase as a serious woman only interested in her botanical specimens. It is this and many other qualities that make Chase a fascinating subject.

To see more of Chase’s images, see her Flickr set.

 Sherwood, John. (January 12, 1977). “Notes on Gentle People and Their Honest Love. “ The Washington Star.

 National Museum of Natural History. (1978). The Magnificent Foragers :  Smithsonian Explorations in the Natural Sciences.  Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. p. 24.

Will it Bend?

By Anna Friedman, Conservator, Field Book Project

My latest treatment was on Louis Forniquet Henderson’s journal from 1895. Over the decades, the original binding on Henderson’s journal began to deteriorate and was sent to be library bound, which provided the notes a very sturdy structure for sitting on a library shelf.

I have no way of knowing when in their 117 year history these volumes were rebound, but when these volumes came to the SIA conservation lab this month, their 117 year old paper had become brittle, and the stiff and sturdy library bindings enclosing them were not flexible, causing the brittle pages to crack when trying to open the book.

Photo of Henderson Library Bound Journal Before Treatment (closed)

Book bindings are a balance between support and flexibility. Bindings need to be strong enough to keep the pages protected, and flexible enough to allow the pages to open. On one side of the spectrum are Asian style bindings, where extremely flexible long-fiber papers are tightly bound with sewing that stabs through the spine edge of the volume, immobilizing the spine of the book entirely. Asian style bindings have zero flexibility in the spine, which is balanced by the flexibility of the paper. That combination allows the Asian style bindings to open. On the opposite end of the spectrum from Asian style bindings are children’s board books where the only thing that flexes is the binding, as the board “pages” do not bend at all.

Here in the United States, we are more familiar with Western-style “codex” bindings. These books have folded groups of pages that are sewn through the fold, the spines coated with adhesive and layers of cloth or paper, and are protected by hard covers. Often, modern bindings are now adhesive bound instead of sewn, but the stresses on the spines of codex bindings are similar. In western bindings, the stress and flexibility are more equally shared between the binding and the pages, as western papers are less flexible than Asian papers, but the spines of western bindings are considerably more flexible than their Asian counterparts.

Photo of Henderson 1895 Open before treatment

In this case, the paper in the journal had become incredibly brittle since it had been rebound. The pages would crack in the middle when even gentle pressure was applied to them. The library binding was too strong and too inflexible to open without causing too much stress on the brittle pages. In addition, there was no way to digitize the bound journal without destroying the brittle pages.

In general, I prefer to retain bound material in a binding, and unbound archival material unbound, so that when a researcher approaches the object, he or she will get the same feeling using the book or file as the original owner did when creating it. In this case, the intellectual content of the manuscript was so much more important than the unremarkable library binding, that it was an easy decision to disbind the journal. I retained the spine label and covers from the library binding as an indication to future users that it had at one point been library bound.

Photo Henderson 1895 Journal After Treatment flat pages

Now that the Journal has been disbound, the pages do not have to bend, and despite being brittle, the paper can be laid flat for digitization. Eventually, having a digital copy of the original will allow many more people to access Henderson’s Journal than would have been able to read the crumbling pages of the original.

Photo of Henderson 1895 Journal in box with spine label.

On The Bigger Picture...

Smithsonian Institution Pre Doctoral Fellow, Samantha Muka, shares how three scientists logbooks offered a glimpse into the research activities of the Bureau of Fisheries Division of Inquiry in her article "The Broad Mission of the Division of Inquiry" on The Bigger Picture.

New Staff Member Joins the Field Book Project

 

The Field Book Project welcomes back Emily Hunter, one of our summer 2011 interns, as a full time Cataloger.  This summer Emily cataloged 382 field books related to the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program, on which her article "Life in the Field: a Reflection on Cataloging Field Notes in the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program" and Flickr set are based. 

Emily holds an MLS from the University of Maryland's iSchool and a BA in Visual Arts and American Studies from University of Maryland Baltimore County.

New Burgess Shale Website

Together the Royal Ontario Museum and Parks Canada have created a spectacular website about the Burgess Shale or Les schistes de Burgess.  The English and French website contains high quality still and moving images of this amazing paleontological site located in Yoho National Park, part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site.  As you will read later, the Smithsonian played a small role in contributing to this project. 

   

Approximately a half billion years old, the Burgess Shale is a Cambrian period formation and one of the earliest fossil beds in which soft-bodied fossils of animals and algae are preserved.  The new website documents over 125 years of discoveries including current research by the Royal Ontario Museum Burgess Shale Expeditions through a number of dynamic features. 

• History page discusses the first discovery and subsequent discoveries most notably by Charles Walcott, Percy Raymond, the Geological Survey of Canada, and ongoing efforts by the Royal Ontario Museum.
• Science page provides information about a number of topics including the Cambrian explosion, geology of the Burgess Shale, and videos depicting various aspects field work currently taking place.
• Virtual Sea Odyssey and Fossil Gallery contain photographs and digital animations of fossils.

In addition to the features outlined above, the website also includes links to resources and information about Parks Canada.

Sarah Stauderman, Principal Investigator of the Field Book Project’s conservation efforts, is acknowledged on the Burgess Shale website credits page for her assistance with Smithsonian archival materials related to Charles Walcott. 

The Smithsonian Institution maintains a substantial collection of photographic and other materials related to Walcott, including 42 field books housed within the Smithsonian Institution Archives Record Unit 7004, all of which have been cataloged by the Field Book Project.  Although Smithsonian field books won't be available on the Burgess Shale website,the field books do provide rich information for further understanding the abundant information, media tools and resources available on the Burgess Shale website.

See an image from Charles Walcott's excavation of the Burgess Shale on The Bigger Picture.

More about the Charles Walcott field notes

Charles Walcott’s field books at the Smithsonian Institution Archives range more than fifty years (1879-1940).  Some of his early field notes were composed in a journal style, including general observations, daily work completed, sketches of landscapes, as well as geological information relating to the surveys he completed for the United States Geological Survey.  Most of the field notes in his collection contain few general observations and more commonly consist of geological sections, descriptions, and observations of fossils seen, and pertinent details about surrounding vegetation and environment.  Often his notes were on loose sheets of note paper removed from their original notebook and separated by entry.  

By the time he studied the Burgess shale in British Columbia, Walcott’s field note entries consisted of several pages clearly listing location and describing observed sections, with height of each layer, its composition, color, texture, other characteristics, as well as presence of fossils.   See examples of Walcott’s field notes below.

         

Field notes of Charles D. Walcott, August 6, 1909, describing of geological formation of
Moraine Lake at Valley of the Ten Peaks, Banff National Park, Canada.

An Archivist's Tour, Part Two: The Field Book Project

As you may have read in our November 11th post, archivist and blogger Deb Schiff recently visited a number of departments at the Smithsonian and is sharing her experience on her archives and cultural heritage blog, Here and There.  She has just posted about the portion of her tour that involved learning about the Field Book Project and some of the field book gems in the Department of Botany.  You can read the full post here: http://hereandthere123.blogspot.com/2011/11/visit-with-carolyn-sheffield-project.html.

 

Waldo Schmitt on Flickr

By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project

SIA2012-0662a. Participant sitting with a penguin on the Palmer Peninsula, Antarctica c.1962.

The fourth of the Field Book Project’s quarterly Flickr sets is now available here on Flickr’s The Commons. This set of images comes from the collection of Invertebrate Zoologist Waldo Schmitt. They were chosen primarily to show the geographical and chronological breadth of field work it represents. These images depict collecting for the Invertebrate Zoology department of the National Museum Natural History from 1939-1963, and relate to staff, specimens collected, and habitats in French Polynesia, Antarctica, Alaska, and Greenland.

SIA2012-0672a. Example of catch from gill netting hoisted on the vessel Tondeleyo, September, 19, 1940, during Alaska King Crab Investigation.

Most of these images are from Waldo Schmitt’s time in the Society Islands of French Polynesia, the coast of Alaska studying Alaska King Crab, and the Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica. Additionally, they depict a variety of activities beyond the specimen collecting. The portrait of the Smithsonian-Bredin Expedition crew and the snapshot of dancers on the ship eating lobster (some of which were originally purchased to be specimens), for example, relate to stories in Schmitt’s diaries and illustrate the lighter moments in the field.

Many of these images show the results and different methods of specimen collecting. Dredging, scuba diving, gill netting, and even rotenone sampling were all used. The image above shows collecting with commercial methods while investigating the Alaska King Crab industry in Alaska. The flickr set also has images of scuba divers in Antarctic waters, and collecting to show diversity of marine life in the reefs of the Society Islands.

SIA2012-0668a. C. Ray and large jellyfish, during underwater specimen collecting near Palmer Peninsula, Antarctica, c. 1962.

 Because Waldo Schmitt was the Curator of the Invertebrate Zoology department, his collection doesn’t just represent his own field work but also that of others who collected for the department under his direction. For this reason, Schmitt’s collection contains images from Robert Bartlett’s expeditions to Greenland in the 1930’s, some of which are included in the Flickr set. Photographs show how his crew collected and prepared invertebrate and botanical specimens, as well as visually documented habitats, as seen below with the crewman filming passing ice bergs.

SIA2012-0657. Crew member shooting footage of ice berg off the bow of the ship, Greenland, 1939.

We hope flickr users will learn about the diversity of Schmitt’s collection through these images.

Joint Presentation at MCN by the Field Book Project, Biodiversity Heritage Library, and California Academy of Sciences

Field Book Project Project Manager, Carolyn Sheffield, along with Becky Morin and Danielle Castronovo of the California Academy of Sciences, will presentYelling Across the Divide: New Contexts for Using Library, Archival, and Museum Collections on Saturday, November 19, 2011 at the MCN conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

Yelling Across the Divide will discuss how three separate projects--Smithsonian Field Book Project, Biodivesrity Heritage Library (BHL), and Connecting Content (California Academy of Sciences)--are collaborating to fulfill intersecting goals of improving access to natural history collections. 

An Archivist's Tour of Smithsonian Institution Archives

As a collaborative project between the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) and the National Museum of Natural History's Department of Botany, we're always excited to share fun news about either.  Earlier this week, the SIA was highlighted on the archives and cultural heritage blog, Here and There. You can read the full post and learn about some of the treasures that Deb Schiff, archivist and blogger, saw on her recent visit to SIA: http://hereandthere123.blogspot.com/2011/11/tour-of-smithsonian-institution.html.

This post will be part of a series detailing Schiff's tours of various departments at the Smithsonian including an upcoming post on field books that we'll be sure to share with you here as well!

 

 

October in Review

Entering a new month is always a chance to reflect on what has been accomplished in recent weeks.  October proved to be a whirlwind month of opportunities to share our work on the Field Book Project with our Smithsonian colleagues as well as many individuals at other institutions with similar collections and a desire to improve access to biodiversity research materials.

An excerpt from the Archives Fair presentation delivered by Sonoe Nakasone, Cataloging Coordinator.

Along with many of our Smithsonian colleagues, we spent October celebrating Archives Month.  We included several posts on  the archival aspects of our work on the blog.  Sonoe Nakasone, Cataloging Coordinator, presented at the Smithsonian’s Archives Fair.  Last month Sonoe also participated in Smithsonian’s Teachers’ Night with Lesley Parilla where they shared a fantastic K-12 curriculum for documenting observations of the natural world.  The Smithsonian Resident Associate Program organized a fantastic program, Capturing Nature, that brought Harvard lecturer Michael Canfield to DC to talk about the importance of field notes in the scientific research and discovery process.  Sonoe and Tammy Peters participated in the event and shared some field book gems from the collections.

Michael Canfield presenting on process and importance
of creating field notes.  Photo by Tammy Peters.

Rusty Russell, Principal Investigator, and Carolyn Sheffield, Project Manager, at the TDWG Conference with the new Field Book Project brochure.  Photo by Martin Kalfatovic.

Beyond the walls of the Smithsonian, Rusty Russell, Principal Investigator, and Carolyn Sheffield, Project Manager, were sharing the project's goals and accomplishments with librarians, archivists and museum professionals from around the world.  Carolyn presented on the project blog (yes, this very blog!) at the American Society of Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T).  She also presented a poster on the project’s cataloging approach at ASIS&T as well as at the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG… your name in lights if you’re the first to explain the acronym in the comments) conference that came into town right on the heels of ASIS&T.  Rusty joined Carolyn at the TDWG poster and also presented on our partner project, Connecting Content.  Last but certainly not least, Mark Leggott, President and CEO of Discovery Garden, presented on the design and development of the Field Book Registry which is currently underway in Islandora, an open source content management and digital repository system.  Rusty and Carolyn greatly enjoyed sharing the project with familiar faces and new colleagues and learning about other initiatives to improve access to field books.  We’ll be sharing some of those related initiatives here in the next couple of weeks under the Beyond the Field Book Project section.  Stay tuned!

[Shelf] Space: the Final Frontier

By Anna R. Friedman, Book Conservator, Field Book Project

Record Unit 007318 Box 32 G. Arthur Cooper Papers before treatment

Like most archives, space and staff time are both precious resources here at the Smithsonian Archives. Whenever possible, I try to achieve preservation and conservation best-practices, but I also endeavor to not make extra work for my coworkers. For example, this box of records came through the lab last week.

There are several piles of papers, tied together with twill tape in the back of this box. Each twill-tied packet is labeled a “folder” for ease of cataloging terminology. Twill tape is a convenient way to keep loose stuff together. It is cheap, durable and fairly stable. However, it can rub against fragile or brittle materials and cause tears or other damage over time.

RU007318 Box 32 Folder 4 G. Arthur Cooper Papers before treatment with 100% cotton rag blotter flags marking the places needing mending

If I were to remove the twill tape, and reorient each packet into its own folder so that it rested on its long side and backed up to the following one, this box of records would easily become two or more boxes of records. Since adding extra boxes between box 32 and box 33 involves adding even more work to one of my cataloging coworkers, and adds extra boxes to our shrinking shelf space, I needed a solution for these packets of records that would allow the records to remain in the space currently allotted to them.

 RU007318 Box 32 Folder 4 G. Arthur Cooper Papers before treatment

RU007318 Box 32 Folder 4 G. Arthur Cooper Papers in a four flap wrapper

I knew I would choose between four flap wrappers or corrugated clam shell boxes, since both are options that add minimal extra thickness to the original and are fairly easy for patrons to use. In this case, with all the loose papers, I was afraid the clamshell would be bulkier in the box, and have more potential for damage to the pages when patrons go to access the notes. The four flap wrapper fit nicely in the same amount of space that the tied up package used, and now it’s better labeled.

 

Before I put the folder’s worth of field notes back in its box, I mended the edge tears on the few pages that needed help using remoistenable tissue. I made the tissue in lab by brushing out a conservation adhesive called Methylcellulose A4M on a piece of inert polyester film and laying tissue down on the adhesive layer. For this treatment I used a very thin pre-toned Japanese tissue that is close to the off-white color of the paper. I applied the mend by tearing off a piece of tissue the size and shape appropriate to the mend I wanted to make and then brushed over it lightly with a brush that was dampened with deionized water. The mends were then sandwiched between non-woven polyester and blotter and weighted until dry.

RU007318 Box 32 Folder 4 G. Arthur Cooper Papers during treatment; local humidification, flattening and mending.

RU007318 Box 32 G. Arthur Cooper Papers after Folder 4 treatment

There are several more folders in this box that will get this same treatment, and similar packets of records in other boxes in this collection will also be mended and rehoused in four flap wrappers to maximize their longevity. We are planning to host interns on the Field Book Project like we did last summer, and this would be an ideal project for them to complete.

Flickr Statistics for Two Recent Flickr Sets

 

        

Social media has become a large part of the Field Book Project’s efforts to promote and increase awareness of our project.  Following the lead of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, the Field Book Project began posting photo sets to Flickr’s The Commons in March 2011 as part of the Smithsonian Institution's Flickr sets.  Currently, we have uploaded three Flickr sets and plan to continue uploading sets quarterly. 

Shortly after our first Flickr set, Albert Spear Hitchcock Field Books, was launched, the Field Book Project Blog featured an article summarizing the success of those Flickr images.  Since then, two more Flickr sets were launched, Field Book Lantern Slides and Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program.  Both sets have received much attention, and one, Field Book Lantern Slides, was highlighted in a Wired.com article.

In just two months, these two most recently Flickr sets have been viewed a total of 21,294 times.  Additionally, these images have been “favorited” 287 times, and received a total of 29 comments.  One commenter even added one of our images to a relevant Wikipedia article:

“Nice photo for scale of the beast. Added to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephas_imperator  Thanks for posting these!”

In total, all three Flickr sets have been viewed 43,257 times.  Thanks to all who have been making our Flickr sets a success.  Continue viewing, “favoriting”, and commenting on our images on Flickr’s The Commons.  Also be sure to check out other fun and educational Flickr sets from the Smithsonian Institution. 

Field Book Project at TDWG 2011

Rusty Russell, Principal Investigator on the Field Book Project, is serving as Program Chair for the TDWG 2011 conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. TDWG, which stands for Biodiversity Information Standards, also known as the Taxonomic Databases Working Group, focuses on international collaboration amoung biological database projects.

This year's conference theme is "Digitization Methods, Technologies, and Standards for Biodiversity Collections" and there will be many great ideas on how to make collections, like the field books, more accessible in digital environments. We're especially excited that Mark Leggott, President and CEO of Discovery Garden, will demo the Islandora repository along with the Field Book Registry implementation in Islandora.

Carolyn Sheffield will be presenting a poster on the Field Book Project. Rusty Russell will be delivering a lightning talk on the Connecting Content project based at the California Academy of Sciences.

Challenges and Solutions for Digitizing Field Books

By Kira Cherrix, Digital Imaging Specialist, Smithsonian Institution Archives

 

Cover of J. H. Sandburg’s Field Book from Idaho 1892.

As the digital imaging specialist at the Smithsonian Institution Archives I recently became involved with the Field Book Project to help develop the process of digitizing whole field books.  Since the Field Book Project is not currently funded for digitization, SIA has decided to include field books in the digitization queue as resources are available.  From the beginning the goal was to scan individual pages and then combine them together in a PDF.  With that in mind, I faced choices with the first field books that set the standard for the rest of the project.  The field books chosen for digitization first went through a conservation process where their stability for digitization was determined.

 

The greatest challenge about scanning whole field books was determining what would be meaningful for researchers to see.  We wanted to give readers a sense of how the book looks, without generating large files full of blank pages.  To achieve this, we opted to scan the front and back covers and any spine labels to provide readers with the context for the pages contained within the PDF.   This method makes the PDF look similar to the original object, simulating the sensation of actually holding the book. 

 

Many of the field books contain pieces of paper inserted between pages of writing, creating an additional scanning challenge.  To offer the most realistic experience for readers, we decided any page containing an insert would first be scanned with the insert included, then scanned without it to reveal the writing on the page. The insert itself would then be scanned if its contents were not visible in the first image.

Example of the pages scanned when an insert is present. L. Stejneger, South Dakota, 1894, Page 12-13.

The last important choice dealt with blank pages.  A lot of field books have several pages of notes at the front of the book, while the rest are blank, with the occasional note or item inserted throughout.  The decision we faced was whether or not it would be important for researchers to see scans of blank pages, or if a single blank page accompanied by a note would suffice.  Ultimately, we decided to scan the first blank page after the final page of text, as well as any following pages that contained markings or inserts. We also scanned the last inside page, regardless of whether or not it was blank.  We determined that showing the first blank page ensures researchers nothing was left out, and reduces the strains on bound volumes caused by scanning.  For every non-blank page scanned after the text, we added notes in our scanning database, as well as in the metadata embedded in the image, indicating that the images directly before and after the image were separated by blank pages that were not scanned.  In choosing to omit the blank pages, it was important to examine every page to establish if it was blank or if it contained something significant.  Often, a piece of paper inserted between the interspersed pages made it easy to identify them, but occasionally, the pages contained hard to find dried specimens or prints that warranted scanning.  

This page has imprints from a pressed flower that is no longer in the field book. L. Stejneger, South Dakota, 1894, Page 130-131. SIA2011-2703.

Since the standards set with the first digitized field books ultimately determined the method for rest of the project, all of the determinations were made with input from members of each portion of the project. In cases where the blank pages are relevant to the overall feel of the field book, or where the conservation team feels that digitization is the only means of preservation, the field books are scanned in entirety, regardless of the number of blank pages. We also made sure the digitized pages would be useful to catalogers, would not harm the objects, and met digitization standards. To date, we successfully digitized nine entire field books, with plenty more on their way.

Capturing Nature at the Ripley Center

Smithsonian Resident Associate Program
Tuesday, October 18, 6PM-8:30PM

Tickets: $15 members
                $13 senior members
                $25 general admission

 

Please join Harvard University lecturer Michael Canfield as he discusses concepts from his book, Field Notes on Science and Nature (Harvard Univserity Press).  Canfield's book contains examples from the field notes of twelve different researchers, illustrating various themes and techniques to field note-taking. 

Two members of the Field Book Project team--cataloging coordinator Sonoe Nakasone, National Museum of Natural History, and supervisory archivist Tammy Peters, Smithsonian Institution Archives--will discuss the field book project and share examples of field books.

We hope to see you there!

For tickets, please visit:

 http://residentassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/reserve.aspx?performanceNumber=223047&utm_source=RAad&utm_content=FEauto&utm_campaign=featevent

 

What Physical Evidence Can Show Us About Original Use

By Anna Friedman, Book Conservator, Smithsonian Institution Archives

William Dunlop Brackenridge field notebooks in SIA RU7186 Box 1 folder 4

So far on this blog, we have shown you some amazing images from the field notes here at the Smithsonian Archives and National Museum of Natural History. However, those images sometimes feel disembodied to me, since they are digitized out of their physical context, and my job as the project’s conservator is to protect, repair and rehouse the field books in their current physical form. The digital images are perfect, crystal clear surrogates for the written information, but do not necessarily convey the size or format of the notebook they’ve come from. One of the best parts of being a conservator is the ability to look at the physical evidence in an object and using the size, shape, orientation and construction of an object to inform a researcher on how it was used by its creator.

SIA RU7186 Box 1 folder 4 Pamphlet 3, Peru Expedition has a standard pamphlet binding sewn through the center fold

Take William Dunlop Brackenridge’s notebooks from his expedition to Peru or, more specifically, 16 quarto-size pamphlets. Normally, pamphlets are a single stack of papers, folded once and secured through that fold with staples or sewing, exactly the way magazines are secured together. The fourth pamphlet of the set, with notes from Obrajillo, Baños and Alpamarca, didn’t follow that pattern. Instead of being a pamphlet sewn through the folds like the others, this one had some pages that connected through the fold, some that didn’t and the whole thing was oversewn to keep all the pages together. Oversewing is a very inflexible binding. It creates fairly even perforations along the binding from the sewing, and adds extra stress in the paper along that same sewing line. Since paper gets brittle as it ages, oversewn pages frequently fracture along the sewing line and fall out of the binding. Oversewing also restricts the volume’s ability to open completely and therefore makes it harder to digitize because digitization equipment can damage the object.

After treatment image of oversewing holes; SIA RU7186, Box 1, folder 4, Pamphlet 4, Peru Expedition.

Elizabeth Childs and I spent some time looking at the odd pamphlet closely in order to figure out why it was sewn differently than the others, when it had exactly the same number of pages, was the same size and was made with the same materials. Inside the oversewing, the pages were in a strange order. The other pamphlets had 12 folios of paper sewn through the fold to create 24 leaves. In this pamphlet, the first six leaves of paper had been cut with a knife and were no longer connected through the fold, the following four leaves of paper were connected through the fold, followed by another six disconnected leaves, followed by another two complete folios. It became clear that someone, probably Brackenridge himself, had cut some pages out of the pamphlet and reorganized them, then secured them again in their new order.

After treatment image of the spine of an abnormal pamphlet whose sewing is not evenly dividing the pages; SIA RU7186, Box 1, folder 4, Pamphlet 4, Peru Expedition

Since the oversewing was problematic for the long-term stability of the pamphlet, we decided to remove the sewing and rebind the pamphlet by sewing through the fold, since that is so much less stressful on the paper. The problem: What to do about the pages that had no folds, because they had been sliced out?

The answer: loose guards. Since these pages did not have folds to sew through, we could repair some of the damage from the oversewing holes and add extra paper to sew through in one step. We adhered lightweight Japanese tissue strips to the cut-edge of the pages, taking care not to overlap any information if possible. Japanese tissue is a favorite of paper conservators because it is very thin, flexible and strong.  These Japanese paper strips extended the spine-side of the pages far enough to allow for a pamphlet sewing.

Loose guards extend the pages to allow for sewing and then are cut back so as to not interfere with original text. SIA RU7186, Box 1, folder 4, Pamphlet 4, Peru Expedition

The pamphlet now opens easily, the potentially damaging oversewing is gone, replaced by a binding that is considerably more flexible, and the stresses of folding will be borne by the new Japanese tissue guards, instead of the original material. With its new stable and flexible binding, this object is now ready for its digital debut! 

October is Archives Month!

October is Archives Month on the Field Book Project Blog and many other blogs across the Smithsonian.  Follow this link to see other blogs participating in this month long blog-a-thon, and to learn about the upcoming Archives Fair from 10AM-5PM on October 14, 2011: http://www.aaa.si.edu/archivesmonth.

The Field Book Project Blog will feature more of our cornerstone Collection Highlights, plus several guest blogs by staff of the Smithsonian Institution Archives and other institutions.  The guest blog posts will provide insight into some of the archival work involved in maintaining these collections.  All Archives Month Blog Posts will be tagged as Archives Month 2011, and you can subscribe to get the RSS feed for just this series using this link http://nmnh.typepad.com/fieldbooks/2011-archives-month/atom.xml.

The New SIA Website and Blog

 

Last week, the Smitsonian Instiution Archives (SIA) launched their new website and blog. Together with the National Musuem of Natural History, SIA is one of the driving forces behind the Field Book Project. Over 90% of the field books currently cataloged by the Project come from collections housed at SIA. 

For fans of SIA's blog, The Bigger Picture, there is even more good news: The Bigger Picture is now integrated into SIA's website, and searches conducted on the site will also search the full text of blog posts.

Highlights of the new website include 

• a new Collections Search feature

• dedicated pages on the history of each Smithsonian museum, research center, as well as resources on the overall history of the Smithsonian including a timeline of major events in Smithsonian history, and historic pictures of the Smithsonian;

• access to over 4,000 Finding Aids

• new online forums for the public to ask reference questions, and get tips on collections care and records management, from Archives staff.

Other exciting features to look for are an online exhibits page, currently containing 15 amazing stories of Smithsonian History, and a page for teachers with k-12 educational materials.

Take a virtual tour of the website on The Bigger Picture blog to learn more.

 

 

Conservation Interns on the Field Book Project

By Anna R. Friedman, Field book Project Conservator

Win Suen and Elizabeth Childs with a cart of Botany Field Notebooks; photo by Anna Friedman

As Nora mentioned in April, the Field Book Project was the recipient of a Save America’s Treasures grant to hire me as a part-time conservator to manage the physical treatment of collections being cataloged as part of the Field Book Project. We’ve been busy since I came on board in May, developing a workflow, and setting up a Preservation Module in the Field Book database.

Four flap wrapper, photo by Elizabeth Childs

Through funds from the Comer Foundation, we were able to bring in our two amazing summer interns, Win Suen from Princeton and Elizabeth Childs from UC Berkeley to aid in field book conservation. Between the three of us, we achieved some pretty incredible milestones, including nearly 100 custom boxes for field notebooks, and the relocation of the Botany Department’s field notebooks to brand new, climate controlled compact shelving in the Main Library of the National Museum of Natural History.

Botany Field books before the move, photo by Nora Lockshin

A custom box is the most cost-effective bit of preservation for any object. It keeps all its pieces and parts together, protects it from light, dust, pollution, water or fire events and buffers it from from changes in humidity and temperature. The downside to a custom box is that the object in its box will take up more shelf space than it did before.  In their old location, the botany field notebooks had outgrown the shelf space allotted to them, and had been split into two physical locations since there were three more shelves of books that there wasn’t space for. The new location for the Botany field notebooks has all of them in one continuous set of shelving and in order again, which makes the collection easier to access. The new stacks will increase the notebooks’ longevity by keeping them under controlled temperature and humidity conditions, as well as increasing the shelf space available to the collection for the items that are going to get custom boxes.

 

Botany field books in their new location, photo by Anna Friedman

In the next few months, I’ll continue rehousing materials into appropriate storage and making notes in the database for what conservation treatments are necessary on the items. We will have interns again next summer, and they’ll work their way through the queue, just like Win and Elizabeth did!

 

Lantern Slides of Field Work -- Updated September 15, 2011

Images from the Field Book Project's lantern slide flickr set are featured on the Science Section of Wired.com.  Many thanks to our summer intern Jenny Mathias for curating this fabulous set!

Learn more about what these images can tell us about paleontology work here:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/09/smithsonian-field-life/?pid=2044&pageid=72322&viewall=true

 September 15, 2011 -- Australia's Sunday Morning Herald shared this fabulous flickr set with their readers as well: http://www.smh.com.au/world/digging-for-dinosaurs-20110914-1k9bo.html

 

On Land and at Sea: Two Intern Flickr Sets on The Commons

    

 

Summer is drawing to a close for interns at the Smithsonian Institution.  Our own interns, Jenny Mathias and Emily Hunter, have left us with well over 600 catalog records, blog posts, and two spectacular sets of images now available to view on Flickr's The Commons.  These sets were created using images Jenny and Emily encountered during their internship.  We asked Jenny and Emily what inspired their selections of the images in their Flickr sets.  Here is what they had to say.

 

Field Book Lantern Slides by Jenny Mathias, MLIS Candidate, Pratt Institute

The first collection I cataloged for the Field Book Project consisted of lantern slides.  Who knew these beautiful 3.25 x 4 inch, hand painted, glass objects were also field notes?  Imagine my delight at seeing with my very eyes exactly what collectors saw in the field on the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition of 1909 (Smithsonian Institution Archives Acc. 06-093).  The next collection I cataloged at SIA was a collection of lantern slides documenting the work conducted by Division of Vertebrate Paleontology (SIA RU424). These slides include images of Barbour, Wortman, and Gidley, and countless other unnamed field researchers collecting and preparing fossils of dinosaurs and large mammals for display in the museum.  My flickr set contains just 19 of the 115 glass lantern slides I saw during the first 2 weeks of my internship.  Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Pacific Ocean Biological Survey by Emily Hunter, MLS, University of Maryland

 

 

 

 

After cataloging textual field notes by over 40 Pacific Ocean Biological Survey scientists, I was delighted to find two manuscript boxes of photographs, offering visual depictions of species I had read so much about.  Most of the photographs in the collection are of birds, representing the major focus of the biological survey to observe and band sea birds.  In creating this grouping of images, I was inspired by the range of species represented, the beauty of the photographs, and of the birds themselves.  Images include photographs captured up-close of birds in their natural habitats, as well as interesting nest constructions, and eggs, and a couple of illustrations by researchers in the field.

I was struck by the level of detail of the markings on a Fairy term egg that seemed almost to be scribbled on with a magic marker like a modern work of art.  A Black-footed albatross looking down towards the egg at its feet is kind of...well, moving.  A photograph of birds swirling over building ruins on East Island freezes a moment of blissful chaos.  Perhaps my favorite image, however, is a photograph of a Leach's storm-petrel specimen, held by its captor, and cropped square to show only the outstretched arm and hand holding the dead bird.  There is something both gentle and sad about this image.  The cropping, the soft background, and the warmth of the hand contracted with the sharp focus and stiffness of the specimen intrigued me.  The content is scientific, but the photograph is quite artistic.

 

Flora of North America Reports on the Importance of Access to Field Books

The latest issue of the Flora of North America newsletter highlights two presentations on field books given at the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC).  The first presentation was given by Rusty Russell, Principal Investigator on the Field Book Project. The second presentation was delivered by Andrew Doran, Administrative Curator of the Herbaria at the University of California, Berkeley.  Doran desribed resources for providing improved access to scanned field books from the important collections of Willis Linn Jepson, Ynes Mexia, and Joseph Rock.

Read the Flora of North America newsletter here: http://fna.huh.harvard.edu/files/FNA-Newsletter25%281%29_hi-res.pdf.

To view the Field Book Project slides from the presentation, check out our May 31 post.