A humanist and generally recognized as an uomo universal [“Renaissance man”], Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) is known for his works in painting, sculpture, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, music, physics, philosophy, and cryptography. The writing of the mysterious Hypnerotomachia Poliphili has even been attributed to him. The Law Library recently acquired a compilation of his lesser-known works, simply titled …
Since its beginnings in the Capitol in 1800, the Library of Congress’ recurrent theme has been that, as acquisitions outpaced storage, the need for additional buildings became evident. A series of acts passed by Congress and signed into law by at least six different presidents gave us our current campus on Capitol Hill. As early as …
I was at a Congress.gov meeting earlier this week where Jill MacNeice presented the results from a round of unmoderated Congress.gov testing. During the presentation Jill showed this wall with responses to questions posed that included a heat map of where people clicked on Congress.gov. Based on hundreds of responses received, Jill was able to draw …
Happy Friday! We’ve updated the links of our legal research guides for fourteen foreign jurisdictions. These research guides provide a one-stop primer on the legal systems of foreign countries by providing links to reference sources, compilations, citations guides, periodicals (indexes and databases), dictionaries, web resources, free public web sites, subscription-based services, subject-specific web sites, and country overviews. The …
The following post is cross posted on the From the Catbird Seat: Poetry & Literature blog. Earlier this week, I made a trip to the attic of the Thomas Jefferson Building to see the Poetry and Literature Center of the Library of Congress and meet with Brock Thompson (who has previously helped edit this blog) and Robert Casper. …
The Law Library of Congress is the largest law library in the world, and much of its vast collection is housed in the Madison Building’s sub-basement stacks. Whenever a patron requests an item that does not have “RR” at the end of the call number, our expert staff combs through our vast collection of over 2.5 million volumes to locate the item …
On January 30, 1835, an unemployed painter by the name of Richard Lawrence made the first attempt on the life of a sitting U.S. President. That damp, misty day, President Andrew Jackson had traveled to the Capitol Building to attend a Congressional funeral in the House Wing. As the President exited the funeral, he approached …
The arrival of the new year this week prompts us once again to think about the calendar and its place in law and legal research. In that connection, today’s Pic of the Week post turns back the clock to the beginning of the fourteenth century for a look at a medieval manuscript from the Law …