Discoverability Work Across the Smithsonian

Since 2018, we’ve provided funding to 29 other Smithsonian museums and research centers in support of 194 exhibitions, education, research, and collections projects to amplify women’s history. Many of those projects have increased the discoverability of women’s history in historical collections and online.

Historical Data and Machine Learning

The Discoverability Lab brings historians and data scientists together to experiment with AI and machine learning to increase the discoverability of women’s history in historical collections at scale.

Human Computer Project

The Discoverability Lab partners with Hidden Figures author Margot Shetterly to increase the visibility of women in computing in American history. The team analyzes and addresses challenges in locating, interpreting, and sharing historical records documenting the lives and careers of women in computing fields.

Women’s History Metadata

Metadata is data about data. At the Smithsonian, collections metadata depicts, describes, and structures information about the Institution’s collections. The Discoverability Lab researches how the quality of collections metadata affects the discoverability of women’s history and experiments with interventions to improve metadata practices to surface more women’s history.

Wikipedia and Open Knowledge

Only twenty percent of Wikipedia English biographies are about women. The Discoverability Lab experiments with new approaches to Wikipedia editing to help close the gender gap on Wikipedia and make women’s history more discoverable online.

Read more about efforts to make women’s history visible.

Explore how five women’s stories have been recorded and remembered in American history.

Coming soon!