(This is a repost from the Library of Congress Blog. The author is Sylvia Albro, a senior paper conservator in the Conservation Division. Earlier this month, the Library released online the Omar Ibn Said Collection, including Omar Ibn Said’s autobiography, the only known extant autobiography written in Arabic by an enslaved person in the United …
(This is a repost from the Library of Congress Blog. The author is Mary-Jane Deeb, chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division.) In the summer of 2017, the African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress acquired a collection of unique documents, some dating back to the 1830s. Although the documents are …
(The following is a post by Eiichi Ito, Japanese Reference Specialist, Asian Division.) The Library of Congress recently launched the Japanese Censorship Collection, an online archive comprising more than one thousand marked-up copies of government-censored monographs and galley proofs from prewar Japan. All the digitized materials in this collection are currently available for viewing onsite, …
(The following is a post by Amalia Castaneda, 2017 Library of Congress Junior Fellow, Hispanic Division.) This summer, as a Junior Fellow in the Hispanic Division at the Library of Congress, I worked on the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape under the direction of Catalina Gómez, Hispanic Division Reference Librarian, who co-curates the Archive …
(The following is a post by Taru Spiegel, Reference Specialist, European Division.) The 14th-century “Livre de Lusignan” (Book of Lusignan) by Couldrette reads like a soap opera, featuring interrelated characters who have the most unusual adventures. The work also advanced the claim by the important noble family of Lusignan from Poitou, western France, that they were …
(The following is a repost from the Library of Congress Blog.) The Library’s collection of Yiddish American sheet music is an unusual one for the Library of Congress, mostly because of the way it came together: It started not with acquisition of materials that were then cataloged, but with a catalog. Lawrence Marwick retired as head …
(The Following is a post by Catalina Gómez, Reference Librarian, Hispanic Division.) As Women’s History Month comes to a close and National Poetry Month approaches, this moment presents itself as the perfect opportunity to honor the work of women in poetry. For this, we have chosen to highlight three of the most beloved women poets …
(The following is a post by Angel D. Batiste, Area Specialist, African and Middle Eastern Division.) After European powers met at the event called the Berlin Conference in 1884-85 to negotiate and formalize claims to African territory, nations in Africa faced European imperialist conquest and eventual colonization. By 1900 most of the entire African continent, …
(The following is a post by Georgette Dorn, Chief of the Hispanic Division.) On Dec. 7, 2016, the Hispanic Division honors the great Chilean writer José Donoso on the 20th anniversary of his death. I recorded Donoso on three different occasions for our Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape — twice at the Library of …