Smithsonian Libraries from Panama to Cambridge, Mass.

STRI Library, Panama

This year (2012), I had the opportunity to visit the extremities of libraries at the Smithsonian. Now the majority of the library facilities for the Smithsonian are in the greater Washington, DC area and under the administration of the centralized Smithsonian Libraries. The one exception to this is the John G. Wolbach Library, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics located on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, MA.

I started off 2012 with a visit to the most distant Smithsonian Libraries' location, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Library (STRI Library), also known as the Earl Silas Tupper Library in Tropical Biology. I went to Panama on other business (related to the Biodiversity Heritage Library) but was also able to spend some time with the staff in the library (photo set of trip here).

CfA Library

Later in the year, September, I was in Cambridge on yet more BHL business, and took the chance to visit the John G. Wolbach Library, which I hadn't been to since the early 1990s. There's a whole new and vibrant staff there and I hope I'll be visiting more often.

Of course I regularly visited the nearby libraries at the Natural History museum (NH Main, Botany, Anthropology, Cullman Rare Book collection), and the others on or near the National Mall: American History, Research Annex, National Zoo, American Art/Portrait Gallery, Freer-Sackler, Hirshhorn, Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, African Art, Air & Space, and the National Postal Museum. I didn't get a chance this year to visit Anacostia, National Museum of the American Indian, Museum Support Center, or the Environmental Research Center. Maybe next year!

CHM Library

But that does leave one more, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Library in New York City which I did get to twice this year!

List of Smithsonian Libraries