WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian Institution Research Information System/Art Inventories Catalog won the 2007 Building Better Communities Award for innovative use of technology to meet community needs. The $10,000 award from SirsiDynix was announced at an awards ceremony at the American Library Association's annual conference in Washington. Christine Hennessey from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Ching-hsien Wang from the Smithsonian's Office of Chief Information Officer accepted the award.

SIRIS is a shared database that manages and provides public access to holdings in 20 libraries, 14 archives and other specialized inventory and research databases at the Smithsonian. The flexibility afforded by the Horizon 7.33 and HIP 3.06 software application of the SirsiDynix employed by SIRIS allows the Smithsonian to take innovative approaches to accommodating the complex documentation of art objects for the national inventory project. Easily accessible via the Web at www.siris.si.edu, it provides worldwide access to 3 million text records with hyperlinks to images, video and sound files, electronic journals and related Web sites.

The Art Inventories Catalog on SIRIS, which documents and references more than 380,000 artworks created by artists working in America from Colonial to contemporary times, was created by the Smithsonian American Art Museum to serve as a national union catalog of the country's rich artistic output. Comprised of two comprehensive listings—the Inventory of American Paintings Executed before 1914 and the Inventory of American Sculpture, the online catalog includes works in museums and historical societies, as well as those of public and private collections. It supports the largest cultural volunteer effort across the United States for the preservation of American heritage, with many service and volunteer organizations performing local surveys and reporting works to the inventories.

Last year, the public conducted more than 1 million searches on SIRIS databases. Users range from art historians and museum curators to teachers organizing curriculum plans and students researching artists or subject themes to genealogists doing family research.