Let’s take a look back at some of the headlines from last month. The Library had several celebrity visitors in May, including lots of musicians and even Swedish royalty. Making the biggest headlines was singer-songwriter Carole King accepting the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. She was feted at both the Library and the White House May 21-22.
King told the Associated Pressthat it’s a tremendous honor to be recognized at such an historic place in history that she never would have expected. “It is yet another of the many important messages to young women that women matter, women make a difference,” she said. “That popular music is recognized by the Library of Congress as being worthy of a place in history is especially significant to me.”
Bloomberg News noted that a flag in King’s honor would be flown over the Capitol, according to Mississippi Congressman Gregg Harper.
UPI ran several pictures from the White House concert.
USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Examiner, NPR, salon.com and national and affiliate stations of CBS, NBC and ABC ran stories.
A writer in his own right, composer John Adams – who Anne Midgette of the Washington Post calls “the face of new music” – was in residency at the Library at the end of May, presenting and conducting a series of concerts.
“I particularly love the people at the music department at the Library of Congress,” Adams told Washington Times reporter Matthew Dicker. “The archives there are lovingly cared for. It’s just a joy to be at the Library of Congress.”
In other celebrity sightings, media picked up news of a visit from the King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, who took a tour of the Library while visiting Washington, D.C.
The Library’s Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation continues to regularly make the news. In May, PBS Newshour ran a piece on the conservation efforts done by the facility.
“Today, the treasure being protected is cultural, an effort born of a growing concern that audio and visual recordings were disappearing, in some cases misplaced, ignored or forgotten, in others due to film and tape literally disintegration,” said reporter Jeffrey Brown. “At the Conservation Center, technicians work on those that have managed to survive, however damaged, in an effort to ring them back to a form that can be copied, preserved and shown once more.”