Smithsonian Institution Archives

Website Records, 2014

Summary

Collection ID:
SIA.FA15-017
Creators:
Smithsonian Institution. Office of Advancement
Dates:
2014
Languages:
English
Physical Description:
Repository:
Smithsonian Institution Archives

Descriptive Entry

Descriptive Entry
This accession consists of the "Smithsonian Summer Showdown" website and selected associated social media. The Smithsonian Summer Showdown was a competition for which many of the museums, research centers, and zoo chose one iconic item to be voted upon by the public. Competitors included the National Museum of Natural History, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Zoological Park, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the Smithsonian Gardens, the Smithsonian Institution Archives, the Anacostia Community Museum, the National Museum of American History, the National Postal Museum, the Archives of American Art, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Asian Pacific American Center, the Smithsonian Latino Center, the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Folkways/Recordings, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the National Museum of African Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The competition was bracket-style with round one items grouped into science, history, art, and culture categories. Voters were eligible to win several prizes awarded by random drawings. The competition ran from July 28 through August 18, 2014.
The website was crawled during each of the three rounds and after the winner (Bao Bao the giant panda cub) was announced. The crawls include the brackets, the voting forms, the official rules of entry, and the prize details.
Throughout the competition, many of the Smithsonian Institution's Twitter accounts were used to promote the competition and encourage votes for particular items. One method used was "trash talk" between competing museums and research centers in which they engaged in playful conversations about how a particular item was better than another. The conversations often provided context to the items and their places in history. A search of the #SIShowdown hashtag in Twitter was crawled on August 29, 2014. Tweets with the #SIShowdown hashtag between August 15 and October 6, 2014 were also exported into a spreadsheet.
Several units within the Smithsonian Institution used Storify boards to collect and contextualize Tweets and other social media content documenting particular aspects of the competition, including the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Smithsonian Institution Archives. Several boards were created in the central Smithsonian Storify account as well. Each of these boards was crawled on August 22, 2014.
Materials are in electronic format.

Administration

Author
Finding aid prepared by Smithsonian Institution Archives

Using the Collection

Prefered Citation
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 15-017, Smithsonian Institution. Office of Advancement, Website Records

More Information

Notes

SI Records


Keywords

Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
National Museum of Natural History (U.S.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
National Air and Space Museum (U.S.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
National Zoological Park (U.S.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian Gardens Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian Institution. Archives Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Anacostia Community Museum Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
National Museum of American History (U.S.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
National Postal Museum (U.S.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Archives of American Art Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
National Museum of African American History and Culture (U.S.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
National Museum of the American Indian (U.S.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian Institution. Asian Pacific American Center Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian Latino Center Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian Institution. Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian Institution. Traveling Exhibition Service Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian Institution. Libraries Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
National Museum of African Art (U.S.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian American Art Museum Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Twitter (Firm) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smithsonian Summer Showdown (Website) Title Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Storify (Electronic resource) Title Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Web sites Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Museums -- Public relations Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Fund raising Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Contests Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Online social networks Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Social media Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Electronic records Genre/Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

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