Connecting Waterways: The Historic Significance of Portages
By: Abraham Parrish
This post will discuss the historic significance of portages and their depictions on maps found in the Geography and Map Division.
Posted in: Worlds Revealed
Blogs Categories: Uncategorized
Blogs Categories: Uncategorized
The Celebrated Pedestrian
By: Kristi Finefield
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the spectator sport of pedestrianism, or what we might today call racewalking, saw its greatest popularity. This post takes a look at some of the celebrated pedestrians of the late 19th and even early 20th century through photos and prints.
Posted in: Picture This
Relentless Curiosity: An Interview with Seth Langer
Today’s blog post is an interview with Seth Langer, a Digital Collections Technician here at the Library of Congress. You can read other interviews with digital collections staff here. Hi Seth, could you tell us a bit about what you do in the Digital Services Directorate? How would you explain your job to someone outside …
Posted in: The Signal
Thomas Merton, A Mystic Catholic Poet and Writer
By: Mark Manivong
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was an American Trappist monk, poet, writer, theologian, mystic, social activist, scholar of comparative religion, and pioneer of interfaith dialogue who wrote more than 50 books throughout his 27-year writing career. He is arguably one of the most influential and widely read Catholic authors of the 20th century. In 2025, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division acquired a Thomas Merton Collection comprising 143 items and containing first editions, uncorrected proofs, artwork, manuscripts, recordings, and portraits of this fascinating figure. This blog post includes a short biography of Merton and showcases some of the materials in this new collection.
Posted in: Bibliomania
Content Authenticity and Provenance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Call to Action for the Libraries, Archives and Museums Community
By: Isabel Brador
Today’s guest post is from Kate Murray of the Digital Collections Management & Services Division and co-founder of the C2PA for G+LAM Community of Practice. Released in February 2026 as a product of the C2PA for G+LAM Community of Practice, the white paper “Content Authenticity and Provenance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Call-to-Action …
Posted in: The Signal
A Birding Family Day on April 11, 2026
By: Rachel Gordon
Birds and all things ornithological featured at the Library will be the stars of Family Day on Saturday, April 11, 2026. Activities during the drop-in program (10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.) are primarily designed for kids and their families but everyone is welcome — so please do join us. There is no charge for the …
Posted in: Minerva’s Kaleidoscope
Anywhere Adventures Story Submission Extended!
By: Isabel Brador
Anywhere Adventures is a mobile-first website that brings local history to users through comics and travel logs. In the first year, 2025-2026 Innovator in Residence Vivian Li developed stories for three locations: Seattle, Washington, Chicago, Illinois, and Southeast Wyoming. She is now seeking story submissions from readers for two new locations: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the …
Posted in: The Signal
This Thursday (7:00 PM April 2) at the Mary Pickford Theater (Washington, DC)
By: Bryan Cornell
Announcement of screening of "Where Danger Lives" (1950) in the Mary Pickford Theater, Library of Congress
Posted in: Now See Hear!
Into the unknown: Tales of exploration and survival
By: Neely Tucker
From the vast reaches of outer space to the depths of the Mariana Trench, the Library’s collections chronicle some of the Western world’s greatest voyages of discovery and exploration. These are journeys that crossed time and space, shattering the old realms of myth and superstition and revealing the known world, a place of maps and charts and taxonomic tables. Giants and dragons did not exist, it turned out, but a whole new universe filled with strange and wonderful things did.
Posted in: Timeless
Meriwether Lewis, William Clark ... and Robert Frazer?
By: Neely Tucker
Pvt. Robert Frazer was one of the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition and his hand-drawn map of their route was one of the first to be published. However, his plans to publish the (error filled) map and his journal of the trip never came to anything. Today, his map resides in the Geography and Map Division.
Posted in: Timeless