Founded in 1846, the Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum and research complex. More than 30 years ago, the lack of public awareness about research being undertaken at the Smithsonian prompted the Office of Public Affairs to initiate a news service to enhance the visibility to the public of the Smithsonian as an important research center. This paper explores this service, a topic that appears to have been more or less neglected in former studies.

1. The Smithsonian News Service

In October of 1979, the Smithsonian News Service was established to provide a nationwide, feature story service for daily and weekly newspapers. Every month, the service distributed a set of four stories, sometimes with illustrations and photographs, written about various research projects and activities being undertaken by the Smithsonian Institution. In the sciences, the stories described the process and benefits of research, while in the arts and history they discussed trends, perspectives and research. The service eventually became very popular.

2. Madeleine Jacobs (1946-)

The person who launched the news service is Madeleine Jacobs. She majored in chemistry and joined the Smithsonian Institution as chief science writer in 1979. In order to write science stories for the news, Jacobs actively visited Smithsonian research facilities, gained information directly from the scientists, and wrote about various activities carried out there. For example, her chosen subjects included photosynthesis as an energy system at the Radiation Biology Laboratory in Rockville, MD (December 1979); a new view of the universe from X-ray images at the Einstein Astronomical Observatory at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (April 1981); the important role of ants in ecology at the Chesapeake Bay Center for Environmental Studies near Annapolis, MD (June 1980); and fathers in the animal kingdom at the National Zoo’s Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, VA (June 1981). Jacobs also visited Panama, the location of the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute and wrote many stories on tropical biology, including an exciting new world of beautiful and bizarre marine creatures (September 1984).

Jacobs traveled all over the world with Smithsonian scientists. She shared not only their scientific knowledge but also their enthusiasm for research with the public through her writing for newspapers.