Smithsonian Open Access

Free digital archives from the nation‘s top museums

Every time I’ve walked through the doors of any of the Smithsonian museums I’ve been overwhelmed by what I’ve seen. I could easily spend weeks haunting the Mall in DC, eyes blurry, pockets stuffed with maps and pamphlets, and mind buzzing with teaching and research ideas.

That’s why Smithsonian Open Access has me excited. Watch the intro video below.

Look at some of the cool things I found:

Commemorative head of a king from Benin, West Africa, similar to the replica that I have in my classroom.

Untitled, 1982, by Jean-Michel Basquiat, one of the artists that my elective class learned about during Masterpiece Monday this school year.

Commodore Matthew Perry in 1856, three years after he first arrived in Japan. We read about him in my history classes right before school closed for the rest of the year.

There are so many ways to use this tool and since everything you can access is in the public domain, you are free to use what you find however you'd like.