Photochroms, published primarily from the 1890s to 1910s, are prints that were created by the Photoglob Company in Zürich, Switzerland, and the Detroit Publishing Company in Michigan. The richly colored images look like photographs but are actually ink-based photolithographs, usually 6.5 x 9 inches. You can learn more about them here.

The Library is looking toward the power of crowd-sourcing to help enhance our records about these images:

“Your addition of current place names is much appreciated! Some locations have changed names or even countries since 1900. And, the titles we had to work with from the photochrom publishers based in Detroit and Zurich tended to be English or German versions of the place names.”

(The included image, “Native girls, Marken Island, Holland,” from the Library’s Prints and Photographs Online Catalog and also online at Flickr.)

Some years ago, a monk decked in an elegant black robe visited the Recorded Sound Reading Room in search of the music of his elders: Coptic Chant, which comes out of an Orthodox Christian tradition in the Middle East. Who knows how far he had travelled to revisit this ancient music? But today, this monk or anyone else can listen to these sacred airs from a secluded monastery, or from their laptop at the corner café. A wealth of Coptic material is housed at the Library of Congress, and the Music Division is proud to be making it available for scholars and virtual travelers in Coptic Orthodox Liturgical Chant & Hymnody, The Ragheb Moftah Collection at the Library of Congress.

The word Coptic comes from the ancient Egyptian ha-ka-ptah, meaning “house of Ptah’s spirit.” Ptah was the god of Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt. But as Coptic scholar Carolyn Ramzy notes, “the blues did sound just a little different during the Pharaonic age.” How fitting that this venerable musical tradition should share a name with a city that became the wellspring of a very different American musical heritage. Ramzy worked with the Performing Arts Encyclopedia team and made some surprising discoveries in the Library’s collections, including a Coptic music transcription dating back to 1643, and 17th-century maps of Coptic Christian sites.

The Coptic community has fascinated explorers, missionaries and scholars for centuries. Besides the many extant historical artifacts, Coptic liturgical chant was, and still is, regarded as the last living testament of an Ancient Egyptian art.

(Image of Coptic cathedral from the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.)

What will happen next??  Find out in chapter 3, by Kate DiCamillo, on Oct. 23.  And don’t forget our new social media sharing tool, so that you can easily alert friends on your social network of choice.

It’s catching on even halfway around the world!

1. Attend!  It’s tomorrow (Sept. 26) from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. EDT on the National Mall (between 7th and 14th), rain or shine.  If it’s the former, don’t worry!  We have huge tents for the author pavilions, many of which are even bigger than they have been in previous years.

2.Visit the National Book Festival website and get all the 411 you need.

3. Check the schedule of author pavilion presentations and book signings, along with the site map (PDF link), and make your battle plan ahead of time.

4. Visit our new NBF website that’s optimized for mobile devices, both before you come and on the grounds.  Just type in www.loc.gov/bookfest and it will automatically show you the mobile-ready version.

5. Sign up by tomorrow to receive text alerts.  Just send BOOK to 61399.

6. Listen to our podcast interviews with 2009 NBF authors, and archives from previous years.  (Also available on iTunes.)

7. Watch webcasts of every single author presentation at the National Book Festival.  This year’s webcasts will begin to be posted by mid- to late-afternoon tomorrow.  Archives from previous years are also available, with many also on iTunes U and YouTube.

8. Follow the action on Twitter (@librarycongress).  Use the hashtag #nbf to see what we and everyone else are saying.  All tweets with the #nbf hashtag will be shown in real time on large monitors in the Library of Congress Pavilion.

9. If you’re in D.C. tomorrow and are on Twitter, come be a part of our first-ever “Tweet-Up” at 3:30 p.m. at the Library of Congress Pavilion.  (PDF site map here.)  I’ll be there talking about the Book Festival and some of the things we’re doing with social media, and hopefully scores of fingers will be madly tweeting away.

10. Become a fan of us on Facebook, either the Library’s main page or the new Books and Beyond page, where we’re marking the 2009 NBF by starting a virtual book club.

11. Watch C-SPAN’s coverage tomorrow.  Starting at about 9 a.m. EDT, they will show the authors program from the NBF gala reception.  Slated to speak are David Baldacci, Judy Blume, John Grisham, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Julia Alvarez.  Then at around 10 a.m., they will broadcast live all day from the festival.

12. Check out the NBF website at washingtonpost.com.  Among the highlights are transcripts of three online author chats.

Our folks have been busily working behind the scenes on a revamp of our literacy.gov website, which promotes lifelong literacy and related programs at the Library.  The result, which we have launched to coincide with the Book Festival, is called read.gov, and not to be immodest, but it’s pretty dang fantastic.

Some of the new features include a huge array of classic books that can be read in their entirety with a nifty page-turning technology (I’m in the middle of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz“), author webcasts, writing contests promoted by our Center for the Book (CFB), and even a link to a new online book club that we have begun on Facebook, based on CFB’s Books and Beyond series.  It works like this: Folks can read the books featured in the series and watch the webcasts of the respective authors, and then go online to discuss.  (Paging Oprah … )  Oh, and I almost forgot: Every single page, book or feature of the site is sharable to a dozen of the most popular social-networking sites, a feature you’ll begin to see more and more on our websites.

But what is almost indisputably the coolest thing of all, and which has had many of us around here giddy with excitement, is the curiously named “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure.”  Actually, the full title is “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure: A Very Unusual and Completely Amazing Story Pieced Together Out of So Many Parts That It Is Not Possible To Describe Them All Here So Go Ahead and Just Start Reading.”

In the process, many of us learned that an “exquisite corpse” is an old parlor game in which people would write a phrase on a piece of paper, fold it over, and then the next person would continue writing from there, and so on, until a whole sentence was completed.  Our “Exquisite Corpse” debuts in at least two senses of the term (and don’t worry, the literal one is family-friendly).

Famed authors of books for young people will contribute 26 successive chapters, which will be released every two weeks on read.gov, with the final chapter coinciding with the 2010 National Book Festival.  (The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance has been a tremendous partner in this project, and the Ad Council has been an enormous help with the overall read.gov site.)

The first chapter was penned by none other than our National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Jon Scieszka.  It is zany, it is funny (I literally LOL’d several times reading it), and it makes you want to know just where the heck the story can possibly go from there.  I’ve had the pleasure of reading a few more chapters in advance (no spoilers), and so far, it’s a terrific ride.

I wanted to end with a testimonial that I received from Chris of our web development team.  (In many ways, this was his baby.)  Granted, he’s biased, but his kids aren’t:

Tonight I had one of the most memorable and rewarding experiences of my professional career.

Audrey asked me to put the boys to bed (as I had been dragging around the house all day with this cold, and watching her do everything).  Of course, before bedtime, we always read.

I told the boys to lie in our bed and that I had a surprise for them.  I got Audrey’s laptop and went to read.gov.  I sat between Jonah (age 7) and Sam (age 4) and I read the introduction (about content) of the Exquisite Corpse.  I then asked them if I should read it to them.  They were somewhat interested.

Then I launched the book viewer   Both of them perked up.  I began to read and both listened intently.  As I reached the end of the first page I asked Sam to push the button.  He did and the page turned.  They both oohed and awwed, but more importantly, they wanted me to read what was next.  They giggled in anticipation as I read this part of the story:

“If the train makes it over the last treacherous gorge, there is a good chance that you and Nancy and Joe will have to deal with werewolves and mad scientists, real ninjas and fake vampires, one roller-skating baby, a talking pig, creatures from another planet (possibly another dimension), killer poetry, clues from classic children’s books, two easy riddles, several bad knock knock jokes, plenty of explosions, a monkey disguised as a pirate, two meatballs, a blue plastic Star Wars lunch box (missing its matching thermos), three ticking clocks, and not just one bad guy – but a whole army of villains, cads, scalawags, sneaks, rats, varmints and swindlers. Also several desperados, a gang of evildoers, and one just plain bad egg.”

When we reached “To be continued”, Jonah tried to push the button to turn the page.  I told him that we would have to wait two weeks and then the book would magically add pages.   I then told them that Daddy had a team of people at work who created the story and the software.  I think at that moment he thought I was the coolest dad in the world.  He then asked,”Dad, if you are working on this, can’t the new chapters come out every week instead of every two weeks?”

Both boys loved the illustration and asked to see more. They kept making me go back so that they could look at the dynamite.

I told them that I would bring them a poster to hang in their rooms and huge smiles illuminated their faces.

Yes, we will indeed have Exquisite Corpse posters to give away tomorrow at the Library of Congress Pavilion, so get ‘em while they last.  They’re terrific, reminiscent of the cover of a well-worn pulp novel, and using the first illustration from the story as inspiration (see nearby image).

It truly doesn’t matter how old you are: I think you’ll really enjoy “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure”!  And I’ve added it to the long list of reasons why I work at the coolest place in the universe.

The NBF is special to me for more than one reason.  First, it’s something on which a huge team of talented folks including me work intensively for about five or six months every year.  It’s hard to describe the thrill of watching this labor of love be enjoyed by more than 120,000 people. I walk the grounds watching author presentations, working with the media, and listening for comments people make about the great time they’re having.  But my anniversary of coming to work at the Library coincides with the Book Festival, so it’s an extra-special celebration for me.  (Three years and counting.)

But enough about me.

One popular attraction has been a huge vinyl wall in the Library of Congress Pavilion on which people could write about their favorite books or authors.  This year, though, we’re going high-tech.  We want to encourage everyone who’s “tweeting” as they walk the grounds to use the hashtag #nbf.  Your tweets and everyone else’s (including yours truly) will be featured in the LOC Pavilion (link is a PDF map) on a large monitor displaying those messages in real time.  So send your Twitpics, your author encounters, your 12-second videos or any other thoughts to share them with your fellow book-lovers.

This week also marked another first for us, an additional nod to those who access the web by means other than a computer: We launched a version of the National Book Festival website that is optimized for mobile devices (AKA a “Wireless Application Protocol,” or WAP site.)  We think this will be especially helpful on Festival day itself.  When you visit http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/ from your mobile device of choice, the site automatically adjusts to a simple and less bandwidth-intense version.  You can still get all the author presentation and book-signing schedules, maps, directions, and other important information.

And as previously mentioned, you can get up-to-date information by text message by sending the word BOOK to 61399.  (Standard messaging rates may apply.)  You will be able to find out how to get specific information, such as pavilion schedules and schedules for individual authors.

These days, here on Capitol Hill, you can give Thomas Jefferson a jab … and dig a little deeper into his mind.

It’s possible because of a set of exhibitions featuring touch-screen interactive stations, all in the Library’s graceful and ornate Thomas Jefferson Building. These exhibits collectively are known as “The Library of Congress Experience.” This offering, available to you for a little over a year now, is winning awards all over the place, and if you visit the Library at First St. S.E. and Independence Avenue and check it out, you’ll find out why.

The Library of Congress Experience places touch-screen stations throughout three exhibitions: Creating the United States, which delves into the collaborative process that led to the major founding documents of our nation; Thomas Jefferson’s Library, featuring more than 6,000 books once in our third president’s personal library that he made available to replace the congressional library torched by the British in the War of 1812; and Exploring the Early Americas, which showcases the amazing pre-Columbian art collection of Library patron Jay Kislak.

There are also touch-screen stations showing off the art and architecture of the breathtaking Thomas Jefferson Building interior and explaining the rarity and relative importance of the Library’s Gutenberg Bible and its Giant Bible of Mainz.

Even better, if you pick up a “Passport to Knowledge” at the orientation desks as you enter the building, you can take just a moment to link your passport to a personalized online account and use the barcode on the passport to “collect” your favorite items in these exhibitions — sending a digitized version of the item to your personal web page.

Won’t be in town to pick up that passport? You can create a personalized web page from home.

About those awards: the latest comes from the GovMark Council, which awarded “Best Overall Marketing Program” to the Experience. There have been about a dozen previous awards, including Best in Show from the HOW Interactive Design Awards, Best in Show and Deployer of the Year from KioskCom, and a Silver Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America for Excellence in Integrated Communication.

Secrets_Success

With all the various reading rooms available at the Library, did you know there is one with a reference alcove dedicated to business?

The 5th floor of the John Adams Building on Capitol Hill, home to the Science & Business Reading Room, has a staff of business reference specialists to assist with your business-related questions and research needs.

They can assist you with all major business topics, including industry trends, commerce, banking, insurance, economics, finance, marketing, human resources and more.

Starting a business, or putting together a business plan? Need information on an old stock certificate or doing business history research? S&B has put together a number of guides and bibliographies to get you started. For something more in-depth, try the Business & Economics Research Advisor series intended to assist researchers on business- and economics-related topics.

You might be surprised at what can be found in the stacks of the Adams building (at 101 Independence Ave. S.E. in Washington). Looking for statistics? We have railroad statistics dating back to 1888, as well as many U.S. Census publications. Company research? In addition to a guide devoted to company research, the Science & Business Reading Room has a microfiche collection of corporate annual reports, some dating back to the early 1900s.

You business-history buffs might be interested in “The Secrets of Success in Business,” published in 1883. Within these pages you will find instruction on business writing, detecting counterfeit money, bookkeeping, and how to calculate interest, discount and insurance. Tips on how freight is received, handled, billed and delivered is in the pages dedicated to railroading and express business, and the 566-page book offers a glimpse at the world of Wall Street (as it existed then).

To learn more about the Library’s Business Reference section and view the variety of resources available, visit Business Reference Services online. It also has a number of databases and e-resources available for on-site use. If you’re not in the neighborhood, try the Library’s Ask a Librarian service.

Thanks to Business Reference Specialist Donna Scanlon of the Science, Technology & Business Division for this post!

There’s no doubt right now that times are tough all over.  The news media is among the industries that have been hit especially hard–in this case, by factors including changing technology and news-consumption habits, but also by lower ad revenues from the weak economy.

If there is a silver lining to be found behind that big ol’ cumulonimbus, however, it is that those same news media are generously donating much of their unsold ad inventory to important public-service messages.

Many of those messages are made possible by the Ad Council, which works with ad agencies on a pro bono basis, in conjunction with partners such as government agencies, to produce important public-service campaigns.  A couple of well-known examples are Smokey Bear’s anti-forest-fire admonitions, and Vince and Larry, those wacky crash-test dummies.  An article in The New York Times examines this trend.

The Library of Congress for the past several years has proudly been one of those Ad Council partners–initially promoting the value of learning history, and now getting out the word about reading.  One of the outcomes of that partnership has been our great (if I must say so myself) website, Literacy.gov.

To date, our Ad Council partnership has yielded a donated media value of more than a quarter of a billion dollars–billion, with a B–for these important messages.  (Coincidentally or not, The New York Times has been one of the single biggest supporters of our literacy campaign.  I’ve noticed a few of our full-page PSAs in that newspaper in the past several months.)

Hard times are known to bring out the best in people, so it is good to see a few of the ways some folks are giving of themselves to help others.