News of Library of Congress acquisitions and initiatives led the headlines in July, with stories on the recent donation of the Lilli Vincenz papers and work of the Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation to preserve television.
“History is written by the victors, but also by the scrapbookers, the collectors, the keepers, the pack rats. By those who show up, at the beginnings of things and with the right technology,” wrote Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse. “In one corner of the climate-controlled manuscript division, on a series of otherwise empty shelves, sits Lilli Vincenz’s unprocessed collection. … Twelve boxes. Cream-colored. Heavy. Inside: meticulous fragments of the gay rights movement of the latter half of the 20th century.”
Also running pieces were The Blade, The Associated Press (in the Las Vegas Sun), advocate.com and the Huffington Post.
“Preserving these shows turns out to be a challenging and time-consuming task. But unless the videotapes are transformed, experts say, future generations will have a diminished appreciation of the era of JFK, flower power and Watergate” wrote Washington Post reporter W. Barksdale Maynard on the Packard Campus.
CBS This Morning’s Jan Crawford reported on the facility’s efforts as well.
News of the Library’s exhibition, current and upcoming, also made the media spotlight.
Opening Aug. 15 is “A Night at the Opera,” an exhibition featuring 50 items celebrating the musical art form.
“Open the shrine!” wrote The Washington Examiner, quoting Wagner’s “Parsifal.” The story also featured a 13-picture slideshow to accompany the article.
Also running brief announcements were the Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle and Washington Post.
The Library’s “The Gibson Girl’s America” exhibition, which opened in March, was highlighted in the Washington Post Express (June 27).
“With her arched eyebrows, corseted waist and elaborate updo, the Gibson Girl could have come off as stiff. But in Charles Dana Gibson’s iconic illustrations, which graced the pages of Life, Scribner’s and other magazines at the turn of the 20th century, she was vivacious, athletic and smart,” wrote reporter Sadie Dingfelder.
Where Magazine also highlighted the exhibition and the Library in its July 2013 issue.
In a headline not to be missed, “Busy Babies at the Library of Congress,” the Washington Post took a trip to the Library’s Great Hall in the Thomas Jefferson Building to enjoy its art and architecture.
“Washington D.C. is not exactly known as a laugh-riot city, and certainly not through its very serious marble sculpture. But it turns out the Library of Congress — of all places —offers something of a respite from that reputation,” wrote reporter Valerie Strauss. “On a recent trip to the library, I was amused by the sculpted baby boys — known as putti in Italian Renaissance art. … It is said, according to one of the tour guides, that the sculptor, Philip Martiny, was asked to sculpt putti in the tradition of the Italian Renaissance (as the building itself is designed). Martiny said he didn’t want to sculpt little Italian babies in an American building in the nation’s capital, but felt it was only right to create strong American babies who were busy and industrious. And so he did.”
Also continuing to make the news were announcements regarding teachers selected for the Library’s Teacher Institutes. Local coverage came from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Connecticut.
And in a last piece of interesting news, The Huffington Post took several of the Library’s Civil War stereographs and made them into animated gifs.