For people of a certain age ? for instance, mine ? few performers or artists have defined American music quite so distinctly and significantly as Paul Simon. I remember watching ?Simon and Garfunkel: The Concert in Central Park? on HBO as if it were yesterday, and Paul Simon?s ?Graceland? was one of the first CDs …
Several folks who read the blog via RSS feeds have been requesting the full text of posts rather than just excerpts. Ask, and it shall be given unto you. You should now receive the full text of all posts if you subscribe to our syndication feed. (By the way, I wrote that headline even though …
I appreciate all the feedback I have gotten about the blog thus far ? the vast majority of it, thankfully,? positive. One comment that has come across the transom, however: ?Less ?Today in History?!?? Hey, I like history! While I prefer to interpret that as a yearning hunger for even more posts across the breadth …
I?m overdue in mentioning this, as I had promised several days ago, but in addition to the other annual diversity months, the Library of Congress is joining in the official May observance of Jewish American Heritage Month. A list of our events can be found here. In addition ? and I believe this is a …
Seeing as how we now have a few more readers than, well, zero, I wanted to try my first ?open thread.? This one is topic-specific and might also become another recurring feature, asking a simple question: What are you reading? (Aside from this blog, of course.) It?s a natural question for this blog. After all, …
I was thinking about doing something slightly different with today?s ?Today in History.? The results had me laughing so hard here at my desk that I was thinking about spinning it off into its own feature. You see, a few weeks ago we launched a new subsite called ?Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers,? in conjunction …
National Poetry Month ended exactly one week ago, but today?s ?TIH? celebrates the May 7, 1892, birth of the ?poet-librarian,? Archibald MacLeish, the ninth Librarian of Congress. The Pulitzer Prize winner was Librarian of Congress for five years ? a relatively brief span, given that only 13 individuals have held the post in the Library?s …
The Library of Congress-led Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control has its next meeting Wednesday, May 9, in Chicago. While registration closed last week, you can go to the working group’s Web site here to see where the discussion is going. The background paper for the Chicago meeting is here (PDF). A final …
May 4 is for the birds. Literally. Today’s “TIH” discusses “Bird Day” and all things ornithological. I truly do learn something new every day here.
It’s an oft-cited fact that the Library of Congress takes into its collections a staggering 10,000 items every single day. So it’s nice to be able to talk, about what we try to give back, at least in the broadest sense of the term. Today I received the following report from Library Services (the largest …