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Ann Speyer, CIO, The Smithsonian Institution
Ann Speyer has led the Smithsonian Institute into the world of social media. Since she was appointed CIO in February 2007, the Smithsonian has started using Facebook and Twitter, and earlier this year launched the Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life.
The Smithsonian, which includes 19 museums, 20 libraries, and 9 research centers, also recently launched its Online Education Conference, a series of virtual events to bring teachers and students together with museum curators to discuss topics such as Climate Change and Abraham Lincoln. Speyer has also tackled the challenge of making the Smithsonian's sprawling physical collections accessible to the digital public. The Art Collections Information System provides pictures of and relevant information on 600,000 works of art, flagging those of unknown provenance and helping return them to their rightful owners. The National Museum of Natural History's Research and Collections Information System catalogues more than 4.8 million records and more than 500,000 images, helping track items borrowed and loaned out. Prior to becoming CIO, Speyer was CTO at the Smithsonian and was instrumental in bringing free Wi-Fi to many of the museums and parks around the National Mall in Washington. She also worked to more than double the storage capacity available for the Smithsonian's digital records. |

















































