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Archive: 2011 (9 Posts)

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

The Warmth of the Electronic Hearth

Posted by: Matt Raymond

Before I came to the Library, I was privileged to do communications work for UNICEF. A colleague of mine, Steve Cassidy, a former CNN newsman and the head of UNICEF’s electronic media programs, and I would discuss the concept of the “electronic hearth,” a phrase that had been used to describe television in America. Where …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

The Library Heads SXSW

Posted by: Matt Raymond

Butch Lazorchak of the Library’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program brings us this guest post on the Library’s involvement in one of the most important conferences for the creative and technology communities: The South By Southwest Conference, being held in Austin, Texas, March 11-20, 2011,  has rapidly become one of the most influential …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

BREAKING NEWS: Hawk Rescued from Main Reading Room

Posted by: Matt Raymond

A hawk that became trapped about a week ago in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress’s Jefferson Building has been safely captured.  I will update this post a little later with details and images (and possibly video). UPDATE, noon EST: Mark Hartsell, editor of the Library’s weekly staff newsletter, The Gazette, provided …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Time for Another Hawk Update

Posted by: Matt Raymond

(Previous posts from last week are here and here.) The hawk is still in the Main Reading Room. The rescue team found a trap that she was attracted to (which is good news for humane capture); however, the hawk had swooped in and took just enough of the bait late Sunday afternoon and was able …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Watching Our Researchers Like a Hawk

Posted by: Matt Raymond

You know that poem “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Allan Poe?  The one where a guy holes himself up in a room surrounded by books, only to be pestered by a bird looking over his shoulder?  Yeah, that one. Well, a few of our researchers might have been getting a similar feeling lately, but on …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

There’s No Place Like (a New) Homepage

Posted by: Matt Raymond

Starting Monday, Jan. 10, our homepage at www.LOC.gov–our virtual “front door,” if you will–is getting a new look. Periodically, the Library changes its homepage (and other parts of its site, of course) to make it more useful and more responsive to users’ needs.  This is one of our most ambitious refreshes yet, and many of …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Elizabeth Ridgway: A Colleague, a Friend, an Inspiration

Posted by: Matt Raymond

Winston Churchill is widely quoted (although perhaps apocryphally) as having said, “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”  But there are some whose living is also rife with giving. Such was the case with Elizabeth Ridgway.  This remarkable woman, the Library’s director of Educational Outreach, passed …