Ghana. Four Cape Coast staff interns spent several 

 months at OEC gaining experience in exhibit design 

 and production; OEC staff traveled to Ghana to share ex- 

 pertise in exhibit production techniques. OEC also 

 worked with a museum staffer from the South African 

 National Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa, as part of 

 the office's mandate of outreach in training in exhibit 

 processes and techniques. The arrangement was in- 

 tended to lay the groundwork for a future Folklife 

 Festival program, as well as for the development of a 

 national support organization akin to OEC/SITES that 

 would service South Africa's national museum network. 



tional Museum of Natural History capped a two-and-a- 

 half-year modelmaking effort by the Office of Exhibits 

 Central (OEC). Major modelmaking components of the 

 renovated space include full-size dioramas of mines in 

 Arizona, Missouri, and Virginia; a Coyote Creek Fault 

 trench peel and model; a model of a pyroplastic flow 

 from Crater Lake; a re-creation of a San Diego tour- 

 maline pocket; and an eight-foot-diameter fiberglass 

 and epoxy model of the Moon. OEC's work was based 

 on extensive on-site research, photographs, sketches, 

 and ongoing experimentation with modelmaking 

 materials and techniques. 



September, October 



■ Rhino Births National Zoo efforts to breed the 

 greater one-horned Asian rhinoceros were rewarded 

 with the birth of two calves. On September 18, 1996, 

 Chitwan, a female, was born to 11 year-old Mechi; on Oc- 

 tober 31, Himal, a male, was born to Kali, also II. The 

 births are a critical achievement in the Zoo's continuing 

 efforts to breed this endangered species, because only 

 about 2,000 greater one-horned Asian rhinos are still 

 living in the wild. 



September 



■ Grant The Howard Hughes Medical Institute 1997 

 Precollege Science Education Initiative for Science 

 Museums, Aquaria, Botanical Gardens and Zoos 

 awarded a four-year, $100,000 grant to the National 

 Zoo. The funds will support refurbishing and expand- 

 ing the Zoo's existing science education materials, 

 developing new materials and activities for teachers, 

 and expanding and updating the Teacher Workshop 

 Program. 



September 



September 



■ Exhibition The Office of Exhibits Central provided 

 design, editing, and production services for We Shall 

 Overcome: Photographs from the American Civil Rights Era, a 

 SITES exhibition of landmark photographs of voter- 

 registration drives, literacy training, and acts of civil dis- 

 obedience. To open in abbreviated form at the National 

 Museum of American History (NMAH) in January 

 1998, the exhibition features about 70 black-and-white 

 photographs by Gordon Parks and other major 

 photojournalists. The photographs are noteworthy not 

 only as visual documentation of historic moments, but 

 also as works of art. 



September 



■ Special Program Office of Exhibits Central managers 

 met with representatives of the U.S. Holocaust 

 Memorial Museum to discuss the prospect of providing 

 modelmaking and graphic production services. OEC 

 agreed to create reproductions of an armband and a desk 

 calendar, both belonging to the police in the Jewish 

 ghetto of Kovno, Lithuania, and which will appear in an 

 upcoming exhibition. 



■ Public Outreach "Minds of Our Own," a PBS educa- 

 tional series for parents and teachers developed and 

 produced by SAO's Science Media Group and funded by 

 the Annenberg/CPB Math and Science Project, explored 

 how students' long -held and often erroneous beliefs can 

 block learning and confound even the most dedicated 

 and talented instructors. 



September 



■ Exhibition The opening of the Janet Annenberg 

 Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals at the Na- 



September 



■ Agreement The Chesapeake Information and Re- 

 search Library Alliance (CIRLA), of which the Smith- 

 sonian Institution Libraries is a founding member, 

 implemented a reciprocal borrowing program that 

 facilitates direct borrowing from the seven other mem- 

 ber libraries by Smithsonian staff. This service speeds 

 along research through prompt response to loan re- 

 quests and reduces costs associated with interlibrary 

 loans. Other members of CIRLA, a regional consortium, 

 are Georgetown University, Howard University, Johns 



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