Top of page
By: Jennifer Gavin
From time to time, we ask ourselves: Where is the outrage? Well, for an amazing 72 years, it was on editorial pages, especially that of the Washington Post–in political commentary by the influential cartoonist Herblock (Herb Block), who made presidents and other public figures, from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush, ink-stained and wretched. The Library …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Matt Raymond
You know how some of the best jobs are the ones where you learn something new every day? I definitely have one of those. I was watching a new episode of History Detectives last night on PBS (one of the few shows to which I am hopelessly addicted). Tukufu Zuberi did a segment about a …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Matt Raymond
The Library of Congress acquires some 10,000 items a day for its collections. But many of our finest acquisitions are not bound between leather covers or captured on a reel of celluloid: They are the people who make our collections come alive, who unearth meaning and inspiration among our 653 miles of stacks. One such …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Matt Raymond
Blog. Twitter. YouTube. iTunes. Yeah, we speak Web 2.0. You nation’s Library has millions of stories to tell, so we’re trying to tell them as many places and to as many people as possible–whether on our own website or elsewhere. And now you can add another biggie to the list: iTunes U. For those who …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Matt Raymond
Starting about two decades ago, the Library of Congress–under the direction of Librarian of Congress James Billington–began moving more ambitiously into the K-12 education space than it had previously. In 1990 the Library began a pilot program to distribute digital primary-source materials on CD-ROM to classrooms. The program, known as American Memory, has today blossomed …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Jennifer Gavin
Let’s take a little test. I’m going to say a word, and you’re going to say the next word that leaps into your mind. OK, here goes: Nabokov. You said “Lolita,” right? Of course. Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” published in 1955 and made into a film directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, is the work most …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Matt Raymond
My capacity for metaphors is somewhat limited, so forgive me if I repeat a word I tweeted recently (“tweet-peat”?): Yesterday the Library and the NEH held a news conference celebrating the “odometer” of the Chronicling America program’s surpassing 1 million digitized pages from historic newspapers. Seven new partner states have been added, bringing the total …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Matt Raymond
Media consumers today are bombarded with imagery of current events — some of them ephemeral, on our TV screens, and some more indelible. A century ago, the use of halftone images was beginning to revolutionize newspapers and bringing the immediacy of photography to the masses. Today the Library launched a new photostream on our Flickr …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Jennifer Gavin
The Library of Congress has released the 25 recordings selected this year to be preserved for all time as part of the National Recording Registry. They range from the old and classical (violinist Jascha Heifetz’ recordings for Victor Records early in the last century) to more recent rock (The Who, singing “My Generation”) and from …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Jennifer Gavin
Ninety-six years ago today, a riot broke out among audience members witnessing the premiere of a piece that changed classical-music history. The composer, Igor Stravinsky, was horrified; the impresario, Serge Diaghilev, was delighted. Feelings ran high at the Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris that night, from the very opening bars of Stravinsky’s ballet “The …
Posted in: Timeless