Smithsonian Institution Libraries (SIL)

Smithsonian Institution Libraries Resident Scholar Programs

Accepting Applications for 2007

The Smithsonian Institution Libraries (SIL) offers two programs forscholars to use SIL Special Collections for the calendar year 2007. Eachprogram awards stipends of $2,500 per month for up to six months.Historians, librarians, doctoral students, and post-doctoral scholarsare welcome to apply. Scholars must be in residence at the Smithsonian.

Dibner Library Resident Scholars conduct research using rare works fromthe Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology. Thestrengths of the Dibner Library collection are in the fields ofmathematics, astronomy, classical natural philosophy, theoreticalphysics (up to the early twentieth century), experimental physics(especially electricity and magnetism), engineering technology (from theRenaissance to the late nineteenth century), and scientific apparatusand instruments. The rare books, which date from the fifteenth to thetwentieth centuries, include significant holdings of works by GalileoGalilei, Johannes Kepler, Euclid, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Leonhard Euler,René Descartes, and Pierre Simon, marquis de Laplace, and Aristotle.Scientists represented by significant manuscript papers includeDominique François Arago, Humphry Davy, John William Lubbock, IsaacNewton, Henri Milne-Edwards, Hans Christian Ørsted, Henry Hureau deSénarmont, Benjamin Silliman, Jr., and Silvanus P. Thompson. This awardis supported by The Dibner Fund.

Baird Society Resident Scholars will do research in SIL’s specialcollections located in Washington, DC and New York City. These specialcollections include printed materials on world’s fairs in the DibnerLibrary (19th and early 20th centuries); manufacturer’s commercial tradecatalogs in the National Museum of American History Library (285,000pieces representing 30,000 companies dating from the 19th and 20thcenturies) used to study American industrialization, mass production,and consumerism; natural history rare books in the Cullman Library(pre-1840 works on topics such as botany, zoology, travel & exploration,museums & collecting, geology, and anthropology); air and space historyin the National Air and Space Museum Library’s Ramsey Room (ballooning,rocketry, and aviation, late 18th to early 20th centuries); JamesSmithson’s library in the Cullman Library; and European and Americandecorative arts, architecture, and design in the Cooper-Hewitt NationalDesign Museum Library’s Bradley Room (18th to 20th centuries). Thegrants do not support research in other Smithsonian Libraries, Archives,or Museums. This award is supported by the Spencer Baird Society of theSmithsonian Institution Libraries.

Deadline for applications: March 1, 2006.

Application materials are available online at http://www.sil.si.edu

OR

Write:
Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Resident Scholar Programs
MRC 672 P.O. Box 37012
NMAH 1041
Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

Tel: 202/357-1568
E-mail: SILResidentScholars@si.edu