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By: Wendi Maloney
This is a guest post by digital library specialist Elizabeth Gettins. It is always interesting to examine how a particular book came to publication with a look toward the cast of characters involved as well as the influences of place. The rare book I am highlighting this month is “Olney Hymns,” written by an English …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Libby Smigel
Last week we featured a guest post from summer Fellow Rachel McNellis who shared discoveries from her work with the Daniel Nagrin Collection. This week she links an unidentified score titled “Vanity” to one of Nagrin’s seminal dance works, Indeterminate Figure. Daniel Nagrin, a renowned modern dancer with a humanist worldview, included this brief …
Posted in: In The Muse
By: Jennifer Davis
Last weekend I was pulling English ivy off the corner of my house where it had grown over from the neighbor’s yard, and I reflected on the large number of invasive plants I see growing all over the national capital area: kudzu, porcelain berry, water hyacinth, callery pear, and tree of heaven. I wondered what …
Posted in: In Custodia Legis
By: Anne Holmes
The following piece was written by John Sayers, a public affairs specialist in the Library’s Office of Communications. It originally appeared in the Library of Congress Magazine’s Summer Reading Issue. When The New Yorker magazine published in June of 1948 an allegorical tale of small-town American life with a horrific twist, neither the publication nor …
Posted in: From the Catbird Seat
By: Wendi Maloney
Robert Hanshew visits the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division almost every Friday. Over the past two or so years, he has sorted through literally hundreds of archival boxes containing photographs related to U.S. naval history. On other days of the week, he can often be found at the National Archives. His goal: to find rare …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Wendi Maloney
This post is by Zein Al-Maha Oweis, a summer intern in the Library’s Communications Office. You know that feeling when Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” walks into the beast’s library of books from around the world—the gleam in her eyes that shows you she is amazed to see so many books creatively filled with …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Libby Smigel
The following is a guest post from Rachel McNellis, one of the Music Division’s summer Fellows. Dance Curator Libby Smigel introduces her. I have been delighted to have two Case Western Reserve University Fellows this summer, and am pleased to have Rachel McNellis share her experience working with the legacy materials of choreographer Daniel Nagrin. …
Posted in: In The Muse
By: Anne Holmes
This post draws on an essay about Baldwin’s life and achievements by Alan Gevinson of the Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. It was originally posted on the Library of Congress blog. James Baldwin was born 93 years ago today, on August 2, 1924, in New York City. His many novels include his first, “Go Tell …
Posted in: From the Catbird Seat
By: Wendi Maloney
This post is by Katherine Walden, a 2017 summer intern with the Junior Fellows Program. Walden is a Ph.D. candidate in American studies and sport studies at the University of Iowa, where she is also completing a master’s degree in library and information science with a focus on digital humanities and archives. She has a …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Wendi Maloney
This week, interns participating in the Library’s Junior Fellows Program presented more than 150 rare and unique items they researched and processed over the summer. For the first time since the program’s launch in 1991, “display day” was open to the public. Items on view included blueprints for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, a letter …
Posted in: Timeless