Smithsonian Guidelines for Accessible Exhibition Design — 

 che first U.S. comprehensive standards for accessible ex- 

 hibition design — was distributed throughout the 

 Institution for immediate use. This experimental publi- 

 cation will be reviewed and revised by Smithsonian ex- 

 hibition teams on an ongoing basis. 



September 12 



■ Discovery Dr. Douglas Owsley, a forensic anthro- 

 pologist at the National Museum of Natural History, 

 was part of a team of researchers who announced the 

 discovery of James Fort, outside Jamestown, the first 

 permanent English settlement in America. The fort has 

 been lost to history since Jamestown was abandoned in 

 1699. 



September 15 



■ Video "Panama Wild," a 54-minute documentary 

 produced by Oxford Scientific Films for National 

 Geographic on the Smithsonian Tropical Research 

 Institute's biological station on Barro Colorado Island, 

 aired on public television. 



September 16 



■ Special Initiative The first phase of Cooper-Hewitt, 

 National Design Museum's $20 million renovation 

 project, which included the creation of a fully accessible 

 front entrance, improved temperature control and ven- 

 tilation systems in the Carnegie Mansion, and restora- 

 tion of the Mansions conservatory, was completed. 



September 16 



■ Exhibition Cooper-Hewitt, National Design 

 Museum reopened its first-floor galleries with the ex- 

 hibition Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary 

 Culture, which explored the power and pervasiveness of 

 visual communications during the last fifteen years. The 

 Museum was closed for one year to accommodate its 

 320 million renovation project. 



September 16 



■ International Conference The Migratory Bird Center at 

 the National Zoological Park hosted the first Sus- 

 tainable Coffee Congress. The international meeting 

 convened to discuss how conservation, the coffee in- 

 dustry, and the marketplace can work together. 



September ip 



■ Film Series Director Cade Bursell's work-in-progress 

 "Sheila Jordan: A Woman in Her Own Voice," about an 

 African American jazz singer's adolescence and evolu- 

 tion in Detroit, launched the fall series of free films at 

 the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Over 

 the previous season — running from early fall through 

 late spring — more than 22,000 people attended 

 Hirshhorn film programs featuring cutting-edge inter- 

 national cinema, documentaries on artists, and family- 

 oriented animation. 



September 20 



■ Exhibition "How Things Fly," an interactive exhibi- 

 tion designed to explain the principles of flight, opened 

 in the National Air and Space Museum. 



September 20 



■ Conservation Research The National Zoo's Conserva- 

 tion and Research Center (CRC) won Significant 

 Achievement recognition from the American Zoo and 

 Aquarium Association (AZA) in September 1996 for its 

 Burmese brow-antlered deer conservation research. This 

 collaborative study integrates reproductive studies with 

 field research in the deer's home range. International 

 conservation research projects are being conducted at 

 the CRC with collaborators in Burma, Egypt, Hon- 

 duras, Mexico, and many other parts of the world. 

 These studies focus on critically endangered species 

 such as the brow-antlered deer, golden cheeked warbler, 

 wood thrush, scarlet tanager, and Asian elephant. Located 

 on 3,150 acres in Front Royal, Virginia, the CRC is a major 

 animal breeding, conservation, and international training 

 facility, linking regional and global conservation, basic ap- 

 plied research, and environmental education. 



September 21 



■ Special Event The Young Benefactors, a membership 

 group of The Smithsonian Associates aimed at 25—45 

 year olds, held its seventh annual B last-Off Black Tie 

 Gala at the National Air and Space Museum and 

 presented the Institution with a record-breaking check 

 of $150,000, representing funds raised during the 150th 

 anniversary year. 



September 25 



■ Lecture James Smithson, geologist and Institutional 

 founder, was honored at the Smithsonian Institution 



4~ 



