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R.S. Brashear (Smithsonian Inst.)
The upcoming 2004 transit of Venus provides a great opportunity to develop programs to educate the public about the history of the observations of the transits. The Smithsonian Institution Libraries is well-placed to take part in this effort with its collection of rare books that deal with the 17th- and 18th-century transits. The exhibition called ``Chasing Venus" will be on display at the National Museum of American History, Behring Center, from March 2004 to April 2005. The Museum will loan a number of its 19th-century artifacts and the US Naval Observatory is also cooperating with the loan of a telescope and some rare books from the USNO Library to flesh out the story of the 19th-century transits. The talk will take a closer look at the books and artifacts that will be used to tell the history of the transit observations in the special context of a library exhibition. Books from a wide variety of authors such as Kepler, Horrocks, Capt. Cook, Rittenhouse, Mason & Dixon, and even John Philip Sousa (!) will help express the authors' excitement about the event to the public at large.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/upcoming.htm. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: brashearr@si.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.