(This post is by Michael Neubert, Head of the European Reading Room.) In the European Reading Room college and graduate students often look for primary sources that they can use to support their research projects. Primary sources such as photographs, letters, and newspaper articles “provide an original source of information about an era or event.” …
A personal account of the author’s time as a student in France, followed by a discussion of Arthurian romances in Old French, regional dialects in France, and medieval images in modern cinema.
This is a two-part blog post by Pamela Padilla, 2022 Summer participant in the Library of Congress Internship (LOCI) program with the Hispanic Reading Room, and a Library Science and History graduate student at Queens College, City University of New York. Click here for the first part of Pamela’s research project. At one point one …
Puerto Rico is celebrating the 500th anniversary of the founding of Old San Juan, the oldest city in the United States, and we could not be more excited to share two recent acquisitions by the Latin American, Caribbean & European Division (LAC&E) which shed light on the historical details of Old San Juan and the …
(The following is a post by Levon Avdoyan, Area Specialist for Armenia and Georgia, Near East Section, African and Middle Eastern Division.) I first heard the rumblings early in 2017: “The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is going to have Armenia as one of its featured countries in 2018!” In Washington, DC rumors are rampant, but this one was …
(The following is a post by Marieta Harper, Area Specialist, African Section, African and Middle Eastern Division.) For almost a millennium, one of the world’s oldest manuscript collections has survived despite the vagaries of the weather, inadequate storage, termites, fire, theft, and wars. These are the manuscript collections of Timbuktu (a city on the edge …
(The following is a post by Susan Meinheit, Reference Specialist for Tibet, Asian Division) A very attractive task it is to pursue the gradual growth of the Kanjur and Tanjur through the course of many centuries, and to establish the chronology of the translations. (Berthold Laufer, “Notices of Books,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, …
(The following is a post by Muhannad Salhi, Arab World Specialist, African and Middle Eastern Division.) While famed for its splendid illuminated illustrations of Islamic holy sites including Mecca, Medina, the Ka’bah and the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), the uniqueness and significance of Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Jazuli’s “Dalā‘il al-Khayrāt wa-Shawāriq al-Anwār fī Dhikr al-Ṣalāt ‘alà …
