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Posted by: Erin Allen
(The following is an article from the September-October 2012 issue of the Library’s new magazine, LCM, discussing how the Library acquires its collections.) By Audrey Fischer Beginning with a purchase of 740 books by Congress in 1800, the Library of Congress collection has grown to nearly 152 million items. But purchase is just one acquisition …
Posted in: Collections, Copyright, Libraries
Posted by: Erin Allen
(This is the third in a series of posts featuring presidential campaign items from the Library’s collections. Read the others here and here.) Every election year, as candidates go head to head during their campaigns, a new wave of vocabulary is born. Political idioms that have found their way into our lexicon include POTUS, left-wing, …
Posted in: Collections, History, News, Newspapers
Posted by: Erin Allen
A simple label inside thousands of rare books bears witness to the origins of one of the great collections of Hebrew material in the world: “Deinard Collection Presented by Jacob H. Schiff.” Beginning next week, the Library of Congress will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its Hebraic Collection – started with a gift from Schiff …
Posted in: Collections, Exhibitions, Jewish American History, Manuscripts
Posted by: Erin Allen
LeRoy Gresham (1847-1865) was a teenaged invalid who kept a diary for nearly every day of the Civil War, recording the news, his Confederate sympathies and perceptive details about life on the homefront as he experienced the conflict through newspapers, letters and personal visitors. The son of an attorney, judge, and plantation owner in Macon, …
Posted in: Blogging, Civil War, Congress Blogs, Exhibitions, History, Manuscripts, Uncategorized
Posted by: Erin Allen
(The following is an article from the September-October 2012 issue of the Library’s new magazine, LCM, highlighting “first drafts” of important documents in American history.) O! say, can you see by the dawn’s early light …” These words are as American as, well, the American flag that inspired them. Francis Scott Key, a young …
Posted in: History, Manuscripts, Music, Uncategorized
Posted by: Erin Allen
With the announcement of the new Library website, congress.gov (you can read more about it here and here), media outlets in September were all over the story. The Washington Post’s Ideas & Innovations column called the site’s design a “boon” for mobile users, allowing those pages to expand or contract based on screen size. Other …
Posted in: National Book Festival, News, Newspapers
Posted by: Erin Allen
“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive …
Posted in: Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Collections, Exhibitions, History, Manuscripts
Posted by: Erin Allen
(The Library of Congress is not solely our collections. It’s also our people. Often our blog showcases the treasures. Now we’ll also showcase the minds. The following is a guest post by Jason Steinhauer, a program specialist in the Library’s John W. Kluge Center, to debut a new blog series, “Inquiring Minds.” We start with …
Posted in: Blogging, Capitol Hill, Kluge Center, Researcher Stories, Washington DC
Posted by: Erin Allen
(The following is an article from the September-October 2012 issue of the Library’s new magazine, LCM, highlighting 100 years of Copyright law.) By Wendi A. Maloney A hundred years ago, a new category of work became subject to copyright protection: motion pictures. The Townsend Amendment to the U.S. copyright law took effect Aug. 24, 1912, …
Posted in: Collections, Copyright, Film, History