Celebrate National Library Week with Virtual Meeting Backgrounds

A year in to the COVID-19 pandemic and we’re guessing some of you might be missing your libraries. We know we are! To give your next video meeting some book-ish ambience and to celebrate National Library Week, we’ve put together a set of backgrounds that bring you into our spaces and, in some cases, right into the pages of our books.

Below are nine images just waiting to adorn your virtual walls. Some are recent photos of our library locations. Some are vintage views from the collections of Smithsonian Institution Archives. And a few are just favorite book illustrations with a collector’s vibe. Click on the image and save to your computer, then follow the instructions provided by your virtual meeting platform (Zoom, Teams, etc.) to upload and use.

Library stacks in the National Museum of Natural History Library, main location.

Vintage juvenile aviation adventures shelved in the National Air and Space Museum Library's rare book room.

Reading room of the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology. Photo by Liz O’Brien.

Double-page plate, Dell'historia natvrale di Ferrante Imperato napolitano libri XXVIII (1599), detail.

Plate No. 215, Le garde-meuble, v. 1 (1839), detail.

“Living Room”, The woman's book v. I (1894), detail.

Library Stacks, Lower Main Hall, Smithsonian Institution Building, or Castle, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Image no. SIA_000095_B31_F38_002, detail.

Conference on the Future of the Smithsonian, Smithsonian Library Exhibit, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Image no. SIA_000095_B41_F09_035, detail.

Museum of History and Technology Library, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 285, Image no. SIA2010-2160, detail.

Erin Rushing | READ MORE

Erin Clements Rushing is the Outreach Librarian for Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. She enjoys sharing the Libraries and Archives' treasures with new audiences and telling the stories from the stacks through various outreach efforts. She coordinates social media and the blog (Unbound), plans tours and manages the internship program. She also handles rights and reproductions for library collection images and acts as point person for copyright concerns. Erin holds an M.L.S from the University of Maryland, as well as a B.A. in History and Art History.