November 13 



December 



■ Special Event The Smithsonian Associates awatded 

 the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal to musician 

 and inventor Les Paul fot his singular achievements. 



December 



■ Agreement An agteement with Simon and Schuster 

 to develop a CD-Rom product based on the "Earth 2U" 

 geography traveling exhibition. Nissan, a co-sponsor of 

 the exhibit, has a separate contract with Simon and 

 Schuster related to the Smithsonian agreement. 



■ Acquisitions The National Air and Space Museum ac- 

 quired two suits used by American astronauts on MIR: 

 the spacesuit worn by Norm Thagard, and one designed 

 to imitate the effects of gravity on the muscles and 

 bones of cosmonauts during long spaceflights used by 

 Shannon Lucid during her six-month stay on MIR. The 

 museum also acquired a set of Smithsonian 150th anni- 

 versary commemorative coins flown on the Space 

 Shuttle (STS-79) in 1996. These were the fitst U.S. 

 commemorative coins to be flown in space, and were 

 presented to the directors of both NASM and the 

 NMAH in a ceremony at NASM in December 1996. 



December 



■ Test Move The historic telocation of the National 

 Museum of the American Indian collection from the 

 museum's Research Branch in the Bronx to the Cultural 

 Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland, began with a 

 pilot move project in December. The pilot move project 

 relocated of 17,000 objects to a holding place near Suit- 

 land, tested strategies for the five-year move project, 

 and cleared a staging area in the cramped and anti- 

 quated Bronx facility. 



■ Latino Outreach The Office of Public Affairs ran the 

 first of three advertising campaigns for the year in local 

 Latino newspapers. OPA staff wrote the text in Spanish 

 and placed the advertisements in two newspapers. The 

 campaigns were geared toward the winter holiday, the 

 Folklife Festival and Hispanic Heritage Month. 



December 



■ Contract A master contract was entered into with 

 the Sloan auction house to allow for deaccessioned art 

 objects to be placed up for auction without having to 

 renegotiate a full agreement each time. Individual 

 museum's objects are consigned through amendments 

 to the basic agreement, saving resources and providing 

 a consistent framework for such activities. 



December 



■ "Publication The Office of Equal Employment and 

 Minority Affairs published and distributed the four- 

 teenth Smithsonian Institution Equal Opportunity 

 Report in response to a 1989 request from the House 

 and Senate Committees on Appropriations. This report 

 described the composition of the work force in terms of 

 gender, racial/ethnic identity, grade, and occupational 

 categories. It also contains a summary of the Institu- 

 tion's efforts to ensure that programs reflect the nation's 

 diversity and pluralism. It covered the period Septem- 

 ber 1996 to September 1997. 



December 



■ Awards Smithsonian magazine received Community- 

 Action Network's 10th Annual Media and Cotporate 

 Awards: Exceptional Merit award for "A Freedom Sum- 

 mer Activist Becomes A Math Revolutionary" by Bruce 

 Watson (February 1996), and Certificates of Metit for 

 "Making up for Lost Time: The Rewards of Reading at 

 Last" by Richard Wolkomir (August 1996); and "Ranchers 

 for a 'Radical Center' to Protect Wide-open Spaces" by 

 Jake Page (June 1997). The Acoustical Society of America's 

 Science Writing Award in Acoustics for Journalists was 

 awarded for "Decibel by Decibel, Reducing the Din to a 

 Very Dull Roar" by Richard Wolkomir (February 1996). 

 The Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science 

 Journalism from the American Geophysical Union was 

 awarded for "Geologists Worry about Dangers of Living 

 'Under the Volcano'" by Jon Krakauer (July 1996). 



December 3 



■ Training Seminar The Smithsonian Accessibility Pro- 

 gram conducted a "Two-Cents Seminar on Accessible 

 Programs" to staff and people with disabilities from its 

 Advisory Council. Four panelists spoke on issues of pro- 

 gram access for different disabilities. The presentation 

 was one of four training sessions focusing on guidelines 

 prepared by the Accessibility Program to improve ac- 

 cess to museums for visitors with disabilities. 



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