Here’s a sampling of some of the highlights in the Library’s blogosphere from February. Inside Adams: Science Technology & Business Turf Wars on the Football Field Jennifer Harbster debates the differences between natural and synthetic turf grass on the football field. In the Muse: Performing Arts Blog In Memory of Patty Andrews and the Andrews …
With pop culture changing at such a rapid pace, it’s no wonder our language changes with the times as well. Here today, gone tomorrow as they say. I wonder where that phrase came from? Barry Popik has made it his passion to discover word and phrase etymology. A lawyer and writer, Popik is a contributor …
Now, more than ever, researchers are using the books in Thomas Jefferson’s library. The following is a guest post by Mark Hartsell, editor of the Library of Congress staff newsletter, The Gazette. Mark Dimunation stands in a vault near the rare-book reading room and eyes a dozen volumes on a half-filled shelf, each bearing a …
“Moby Dick,” Herman Melville’s tale of high-seas adventure, heroic determination and the power of man, has been heralded as one of the greatest novels in the English language. Now, perhaps it can be given the same commendation in picture writing. ♥ You’ve probably seen these symbols in text messages and emails. So imagine an entire …
The following is a guest post from Mark Hartsell, editor of the Library’s staff newsletter, The Gazette. Danny Kaye was many things and, at the same time, a one and only: a live performer who combined comedy, song and dance in an utterly unique way; a celebrity humanitarian, one of the first; an actor with …
The following is a guest post by the Library’s Director of Communications, Gayle Osterberg. During one of my first visits to the Library of Congress’s Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation, one of the division chiefs there pointed out the 35 mm projector in the theater. He commented that the sound of 35 mm film being …
The wonders of modern science were used to positively identify a set of human bones found under an asphalt parking lot in England (site of a former church) as those of Richard III – a former king of England and one of Shakespeare’s most memorable villains. The world was fascinated – it isn’t every day …
Today, the Library of Congress joined 12 other government agencies and non-governmental organizations in signing a “Declaration of Learning” that formally announces their partnership as members of the Inter-Agency Collaboration on Education. The initiative is spearheaded by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who joined representatives at the signing ceremony in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms …
(The following is an article from the January-February 2013 issue of the Library’s magazine, LCM, highlighting “first drafts” of important documents in American history.) Robert Frost (1874 –1963) was the first poet commissioned to write a poem for a presidential inauguration. His poem, titled “Dedication,” was intended to be read at the inauguration of John …
The following is a guest post by Jason Steinhauer, program specialist in the Library’s John W. Kluge Center. Lindsay Tuggle, Ph.D., teaches English Literary Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her dissertation dealt with mourning and ecology in the work of Walt Whitman. As a Kluge Fellow, she has been researching and writing her …