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By: Nicole Saylor
In this post, Nicole Saylor, Director of the American Folklife Center (AFC), highlights the 2024 accomplishments of the AFC. The post demonstrates how 2024 was a busy and productive year for the American Folklife Center, as it continued to meet its mission to document and share the many expressions of human experience to inspire, revitalize, and perpetuate living cultural traditions.
Posted in: Folklife Today
By: Taylor Gulatsi
Today's blog post announces the upcoming Foreign and Comparative International Law Webinar, "Yemen: The Judiciary and Governing Bodies in Houthi-Controlled Areas," on January 30, 2025 at 2:00 P.M, hosted by foreign law specialist George Sadek.
Posted in: In Custodia Legis
By: Nicole Saylor
The digital records collection of the AIDS Memorial Quilt--the largest folk arts project in history commemorating those lost to HIV/AIDS--was published on the Library of Congress' website on December 1 (World AIDS Day 2024). This milestone marks over ten years of collaboration between the American Folklife Center, the National AIDS Memorial (NAM), and the NAMES Project Foundation to preserve and steward the AIDS Memorial Quilt Records Collection. In this post, Nicole Saylor, Director of the American Folklife Center, recounts the history of this collaboration and the years of work that led to the online publication.
Posted in: Folklife Today
By: Maria Peña
The Library of Congress has released a groundbreaking online collection of the National AIDS Memorial Quilt Records, making one of the most poignant symbols of the AIDS epidemic in the United States available to a global audience.
Posted in: Timeless
By: Neely Tucker
Bestselling author Louis Bayard has written nine historical novels over the past two decades and has researched them all at the Library, poring over maps, sorting through personal love letters, consulting societal details of the lost worlds that he brings to life. His latest novel, “The Wildes,” a fictionalized account of Oscar Wilde and his …
Posted in: Timeless
Learn about six new collection finding aids that have been published by the Library's Music Division. These finding aids provide bibliographic access to the Irwin Bazelon Papers, Harry Chapin Collection, Ann Murphy Collection on the Rockettes and Radio City Music Hall, Alfred Newman Film Music Manuscripts, Park Avenue Synagogue Commissioning Project Correspondence and Hans Spialek Papers.
Posted in: In The Muse
By: Meg Metcalf
The Small Press Expo (SPX) Collection at the Library of Congress was established to preserve the history of both the artistic output of the creators who come to SPX, as well as the art that SPX itself generates as part of its yearly festival. SPX provides a forum for artists, writers and publishers of comic …
Posted in: Headlines & Heroes
By: Neely Tucker
Viet Thanh Nguyen fled Vietnam as a child, escaping Saigon with his family the day before the capital city fell. They went to military bases in the Philippines and Guam, then lived in Pennsylvania for a few years before finally settling in San Jose, California, where he discovered the American dream was complicated. His literary work, most notably his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Sympathizer," (now an HBO series) explores the duality that he feels as a refugee and as an American writer. He spoke about his work at the National Book Festival, sharing stories of how his local library was his "salvation" as a child.
Posted in: Timeless
By: Neely Tucker
Stories can be a lot of things, as journalist and novelist Annalee Newitz writes in “Stories Are Weapons,” but in the end they are powerful instruments that can be used for good or evil, to comfort the afflicted or afflict the comfortable. “The thing about stories is that they are emotional and oftentimes appeal to …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Nicole Saylor
In June 2024, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi had a special viewing of the AIDS Memorial Quilt Records stewarded by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. This post details Pelosi's visit to the Library, her previous work to advocate for the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, and the work American Folklife Center staff to steward these valuable collections.
Posted in: Folklife Today