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By: Jennifer Gavin
Well, we promised you two days’ worth of writers for the 2011 Library of Congress National Book Festival – and here they come: an unprecedented 112 authors, poets and illustrators will speak and meet with their readers at the free public event on Saturday, Sept. 24 and Sunday, Sept. 25 on the National Mall! What’s …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Butch Lazorchak
What’s on the minds of archivists these days? Well, lots of things, judging from the program from the 75th Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists, held at the end of August in Chicago. The theme of this year’s conference was “Archives 360°,” and the 75th anniversary providing a convenient milestone for the profession …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Leslie Johnston
On a recent trip I visited a funky vintage store to see if anything caught my eye. While I was easily able to keep myself from buying any jewelry or taxidermy, I came across a number of displays of family photographs available for sale. Not only were there bowls of loose photos, there was a …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Mike Ashenfelder
The popularity of genealogy websites and TV shows is rapidly growing, mainly because the Internet has made it so convenient to access family history information. Almost everything can be done through the computer now. Before the digital age, genealogical research was not only laborious and time consuming, it also resulted in boxes of documents: photos, …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Bill LeFurgy
Scientific data management has some buzz going. As a longtime data archivist/advocate this is a dream come true for me. I’ve pinched myself a couple of times to make sure it’s really happening. For decades, scientific practice focused attention on the published results of research. A substantial infrastructure supports this literature, including an article citation …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Martha Anderson
The following is a guest post by Abbie Grotke, Web Archiving Team Lead. The second in my series of “ask the Recommending Officer” posts features a conversation with Cassy Ammen, who shares her experience in helping to build the September 11 Web Archive. Who are you, and what’s your job at the Library of Congress? …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Susan Manus
When was the last time you wrote a letter, on paper? Other than my note-to-self stickies (my desk usually has a bunch), or greeting cards, I personally have not written much of substance, just on paper, in a long time. These days, of course, we are engulfed in the digital versions of note writing – …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Butch Lazorchak
The following is a guest post by Carl Fleischhauer, a Digital Initiatives Project Manager in NDIIPP. I am attending the annual conference of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) in Frankfurt, Germany, hosted by the Hessischer Rundfunk (the public broadcasting unit for the German state of Hesse), the German public broadcasting archive, …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Jennifer Gavin
If you love Broadway, we have a treat for you. The Music Division of the Library of Congress has received a collection from the estate of Broadway giant John Raitt, who originated the role of Billy Bigelow in the Rodgers and Hammerstein show “Carousel” and also starred in “The Pajama Game,” “Oklahoma!” and other top …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Butch Lazorchak
The following is a guest post by Kate Zwaard, a Supervisory Information Technology Specialist in the Library of Congress Office of Strategic Initiatives. I used to have a note on the wall of my office that said “get the records off the floor.” It reminded me that making sure the collections are safe comes first. …
Posted in: The Signal