Gently, gently, the librarian opens the first of the five books displayed on the large wooden table, and age seems to rise up from the pages like a wavy distortion above heated pavement. It’s an English volume, “A New System of Modern Geography,” in its first American printing in 1794, bound in brown leather with marbled paper, and gold gilt along the top edge. On an inside right page is the neatly formal signature of its most famous owner — the first president of the United States. Read full article > >

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Mount Vernon replicates George Washington’s personal library

When journalist Bob Schieffer isn’t wearing his newsman suits, he dons blue jeans and joins the award-winning band Honky Tonk Confidential. They’ve even played the Grand Ole Opry. And on June 14, the band and Schieffer will perform in a special Flag Day event at the National Museum of American History . The retro/alt country band will interpret songs popular during the Civil War in conjunction with a gift to the Smithsonian of Broadcast Music Inc. Archives Confederate Music Collection . Read full article > >

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Bob Schieffer and Honky Tonk Confidential booked for Smithsonian on Flag Day

Are cuts in council funding to blame for recent museum thefts?

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Museum thefts: Are cuts to blame?

In 1966, IBM donated Sargent Johnson’s sculpture “Mask” to the Smithsonian American Art Museum , then called the National Collection of Fine Arts, marking the museum’s first receipt of a gift of African American artwork. Read full article > >

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American Art Museum gives a peek at vast collection of African American art

The skull of an indigenous Paraguayan girl kidnapped more a century ago is returned to her community for burial after being handed back by a museum in Berlin.

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Paraguay indigenous skull returns

In a city where the rich and influential like to see their names emblazoned on university buildings and museum wings, Frank Pearl so craved anonymity that he was regarded as the most powerful unknown man in Washington. Read full article > >

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Frank Pearl, D.C. financier and philanthropist, dies at 68

A man and a boy appear in court in connection with the theft of Chinese artefacts worth up to £40m from a Cambridge museum.

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Art theft haul worth ‘up to £40m’

David H. Koch, the executive vice president of Koch Industries and a prominent supporter of conservative causes, has donated $35 million to the National Museum of Natural History. The gift, which was announced by the Smithsonian Institution Thursday, will go to a new dinosaur hall, which has been high on the list of needed renovations at the museum. The Koch gift is the largest single donation to the Natural History museum and the fifth largest in Smithsonian history. Read full article > >

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David Koch donates $35 million to National Museum of Natural History for dinosaur hall

A plan to build a 140 million euro (£114m) Guggenheim museum on the Helsinki waterfront is rejected by politicians in Finland.

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Guggenheim Helsinki plan rejected

The best museum exhibits mix delight, education and provocation so subtly that the visitor isn’t aware where one bleeds into another. The National Building Museum ’s new long-term display, “ House & Home ,” explores a subject so wide and so fundamental to American life that it inevitably touches the pleasure buttons of nostalgia. Read full article > >

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Exhibit review: ‘House & Home’ at the National Building Museum

The space shuttle Enterprise makes a fly-by of the Statue of Liberty and other New York City landmarks on its way to its new museum home.

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Enterprise shuttle in NY fly-by

Tate Modern’s underground oil tanks are to become the world’s first permanent museum galleries dedicated to live art.

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Tate’s oil tanks to fuel live art

The Church History Museum in Salt Lake City shows the Mormon church in an American context.

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Critic’s Notebook: In Salt Lake City, Museum Shows How Mormons See Themselves

Police hope to “jog memories” by questioning people one week after Chinese art worth more than £18m was stolen from a Cambridge Museum.

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Art theft police ‘jog memories’

Retired Nasa space shuttle Discovery has arrived at its new home, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F Udvar-Hazy Center.

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VIDEO: Space shuttle arrives at new home