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By: Susan Manus
We are pleased to announce that the Washington, DC National Digital Stewardship Residency class for 2015 has now been chosen! Five very accomplished people have been selected from a highly competitive field of candidates. The new residents will arrive in Washington, DC this June to begin the program. Updates on the program, including more information …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Bryan Cornell
Folklorist Norm Cohen has astutely observed that “[f]olklore thrives where danger threatens” (The Long Steel Rail, cited below, p. 169). The annals of commercially recorded traditional and popular song provide abundant support for this conclusion. In fact, by the early twentieth century — especially the decades of the teens and twenties — nearly every imaginable disaster or mishap was memorialized in song. Natural disasters are …
Posted in: Now See Hear!
Abigail Adams, in a letter dated March 31st, 1776 to her husband John Adams, advised him to “remember the ladies” in the creation of the new government, independent from Great Britain. This post will be published after March 31st and while Women’s History Month is past, I beg your patience as I also ask you …
Posted in: NLS Music Notes
By: Karen Fishman
This blog post was co-written with Matt Barton, Curator, Recorded Sound Section, Library of Congress Each year, the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress chooses 25 recordings showcasing the range and diversity of American recorded sound heritage in order to increase preservation awareness. The diversity of nominations received highlights the richness of the …
Posted in: Now See Hear!
By: Susan Manus
The following is a guest post by Jen LaBarbera, National Digital Stewardship Resident at Northeastern University Library. It’s hard to believe that I only have two and a half months left in this residency. Despite Boston’s interminable winter (officially the snowiest on record), my time as a National Digital Stewardship Resident at Northeastern University has …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Kristi Finefield
My fascination with hot air balloons dates back to childhood, and the first time I saw one in the movie The Wizard of Oz. I’m not sure if it was because of my youth or because the balloon belonged to the “Wizard of Oz,” but it seemed pretty magical to me that there existed balloons …
Posted in: Picture This
By: Butch Lazorchak
The following post is by Ted Westervelt, head of acquisitions and cataloging for U.S. Serials in the Arts, Humanities & Sciences section at the Library of Congress. Nine months ago, the Library of Congress released its Recommended Format Specifications. This was the result of years of work by experts from across the institution, bringing their …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Nicole Saylor
This is a guest post by American Folklife Center’s Judith Gray, an ethnomusicologist who curates the largest body of early recordings of indigenous American songs and stories recorded in the United States. After all the identifying, rehousing, cataloging, labeling, barcoding, and databasing activity on the part of AFC staff over the past year, the actual …
Posted in: Folklife Today
By: Susan Manus
The following is a guest post by Julia Kim, National Digital Stewardship Resident at New York University Libraries. I’m now into the last leg of my nine-month residency, and I’m amazed by what has been accomplished and the major steps still ahead of me. In this post, I’ll give a project update on my primary …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Karen Fishman
This blog post was co-written with Jan McKee, Reference Librarian, Recorded Sound Section, Library of Congress It wouldn’t be St. Patrick’s Day without some sentimental Irish ballads to listen to with our green beer, and the name that is most synonymous with Irish ballads is John McCormack. John McCormack (1884-1945) was an Irish born American …
Posted in: Now See Hear!