The Southeast Asian Rare Book Collection, accessible at the Asian Reading Room, contains some unique items from the Cold War era; specifically, documents produced by the United States Information Agency (USIA) and disseminated in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Myanmar. This blog features the USIA Cold War-era Thai collection and a series of posters, “Communism or freedom?”
The following post is by Troy Smith, Nordic Area Reference Librarian in the European Reading Room of the Latin American, Caribbean and European Division Today is Greenland’s National Day. The holiday takes place on June 21 because that is the summer solstice, or the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere. In Nuuk, Greenland’s capital city, …
Lao poetry in America has gone in diverse directions since the end of the Southeast Asian conflicts in the 1970s. It has served a variety of social and cultural purposes for many of the communities who were rebuilding their lives and considering their next directions. Over the last five decades, poetry has been one of the leading forms of literary expression among those with roots in Laos, including ethnic Lao, Khmu, Tai Dam, Lue, Iu Mien, and Hmong, with works composed primarily in American English but often introducing new words from their heritage, in addition to sharing their perspectives on history and traditional beliefs, myths, and their personal and collective dreams as they engaged with an America on the verge of significant cultural shifts thanks to computers and the internet. This post takes a look at some of the opportunities and challenges readers and writers alike have faced to collect and share these works.
This is a guest post written jointly by Tatiana Cherry Santos and Melissa Flores, graduate students from the Center of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Tatiana “El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido,” I chanted into the buzzing crowd around me. Even as a young child I knew these words, …
While staff work is what allows researchers to conduct research, their presence in the Library of Congress is foundational to the creation of the culture at the Library. This blog is an interview with Phong Tran, a librarian, and currently, Deputy Director of the New Delhi Overseas Operations Field Office, conducted by Charlotte Giles.
In conjunction with May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, a new display titled “Celebrating the Art and Literature of Jade Snow Wong (1922-2006)” is open to the public in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building until June 5, 2023. This blog introduces several display items that showcase the career of this pioneering Chinese American ceramist and author.
The Yongle Encyclopedia (Yongle dadian), completed in 1408, was premodern China's, and perhaps the world's, largest reference work. The Library of Congress holds 41 unique volumes, which have been fully digitized and made available online. This post traces the compilation, transmission, near loss, and contemporary preservation of this momentous work. We invite book-lovers to enjoy in high resolution its exquisite calligraphy and illustrations.
Using AMED’s unparalleled research resources on African, Jewish and Middle Eastern studies, this post showcases a reading room display that offers a taste of diversity reflected in the religions and cultures of Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
This blog celebrates the New Delhi Overseas Operations Field Office’s 60th anniversary, looking to the office’s past, present, and future operations of acquiring and processing library materials in multiple South Asian languages and formats.
