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Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
Our Pic of the Week features one of the walls in the center room of the Science and Business Reading Room that houses the massive National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints set. I bet many of you are asking, “What is the National Union Catalog?” Commonly referred to as the NUC or Mansell (Mansell is the …
Posted in: Favorites From the Fifth Floor, John Adams Building, Pic of the Week
Posted by: Ellen Terrell
Advertisements. We think of them as a way to find out about products and services, but they can also be useful for learning about companies themselves. I frequently use advertisements to answer historical questions on companies where information is harder to come by. For example, companies looking for capital will try to lure would-be investors …
Posted in: Business, Favorites From the Fifth Floor
Posted by: Ellen Terrell
Tax season has just ended, and I felt it would be an appropriate time to feature data that the IRS gathers from our annual tax returns (none of it attributed to individual companies, individuals, or non-profits!). There are two particular publications I wanted to mention that both use the data gathered from the forms: the …
Posted in: Business, Favorites From the Fifth Floor
Posted by: Ellen Terrell
The Women’s Bureau was organized in 1920 as an agency within the Department of Labor to represent the needs of working women. As part of its mission, it published many books and pamphlets about women’s issues and the working conditions of women. Since March is Women’s History Month, I thought this would be a good …
Posted in: Business, Favorites From the Fifth Floor, Heritage Months, Holidays, and Today in History, Labor, Women's History
Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
I am the granddaughter of a football coach and the Super Bowl XLV (45th) is this Sunday (Feb. 6), so I was inspired to write something for the blog about the history of football in the United States. I searched the Library’s online catalog, databases, and browsed the football section of the book stacks hoping …
Posted in: Favorites From the Fifth Floor, Heritage Months, Holidays, and Today in History, Sports
Posted by: Ellen Terrell
For my first post of February 2011, I wanted to give a heads up for a publication that I find very useful. Coming out this month from the Council of Economic Advisers is the Economic Report of the President. This publication, published annually since 1947, gives an overview of the nation’s economic progress along with …
Posted in: Business, Favorites From the Fifth Floor
Posted by: Ellen Terrell
In the 1987 movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Steve Martin’s character is desperately trying to get home for Thanksgiving. While working at the Library of Congress, I have answered many questions which might have interested Steve Martin’s character, from how people traveled, to how much a trip cost, to how long a certain trip was …
Posted in: Favorites From the Fifth Floor, Heritage Months, Holidays, and Today in History, Travel
Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
K-rations, better night vision binoculars, and synthetic rubber are just a few examples of innovations resulted from scientific research during World War II. The story of science during World War II is one of partnerships and prolific research. On June 28, 1941, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8807which established the Office of Scientific Research and …
Posted in: Favorites From the Fifth Floor, Heritage Months, Holidays, and Today in History, Inventions, Military science, Technical Reports and Standards
Posted by: Donna Scanlon
Aileen M. J. Marshall, our summer intern here in Business Reference is our guest author today. There are a lot of questions that come to us through our Ask a Librarian service and last week I had the opportunity to work on a question where the patron needed information on whether men were performing …
Posted in: Business, Census and Statistics, Favorites From the Fifth Floor