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Posted by: Erin Allen
Jazz’s greatest drummer once earned D’s in music in school, once wrote an essay entitled “I Hate Jazz” and once even launched a venture to break into the soft-drink market. The Library of Congress on Monday announced the acquisition of the papers of Max Roach, the groundbreaking drummer who helped birth bebop, the adventurous musician …
Posted in: Capitol Hill, Collections, Events, Manuscripts, Music, Uncategorized, Washington DC
Posted by: Erin Allen
(Trevor Owens, digital archivist with the Library’s National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and special curator for the Library of Congress science literacy initiative, contributed to this blog post.) “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself,” once said American astronomer Carl Sagan. Profoundly interested in the universe and our place in it, …
Posted in: Blogging, Collections, Education, LC Web site, Manuscripts, Science, Uncategorized
Posted by: Erin Allen
Folk singer, activist and friend of the Library of Congress Pete Seeger passed away Monday in Manhattan. He was 94. The Library’s American Folklife Center and the Music Division are home to multiple collections documenting Seeger and his family’s extraordinary musical accomplishments. (The following is a repost from the American Folklife Center blog, Folklife Today.) Pete …
Posted in: American Folklife Center, Collections, Folksonomies, Music, Uncategorized
Posted by: Erin Allen
Distinguished architectural photographer Carol M. Highsmith began donating her work to the Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress in 1992. She has photographed landmark buildings and architecture in Washington, D.C. — including the Library of Congress and many monuments — and throughout the United States. Starting in 2002, Highsmith provided scans or photographs she shot …
Posted in: Abraham Lincoln, Collections, Photos, Pic of the Week, Washington DC
Posted by: Erin Allen
(The following is a guest post written by Gene DeAnna, head of the Recorded Sound Section at the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation.) With this year’s Grammy Awards event coming this weekend, it seems a good time to talk about recorded sound preservation. While you may not be on the edge …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Preservation
Posted by: Erin Allen
More than 25 years ago, retired music executive Joe Smith accomplished a Herculean feat – he got more than 200 celebrated singers, musicians and industry icons to talk about their lives, music, experiences and contemporaries. In 2012, Smith donated this treasure trove of unedited sound recordings to the Library of Congress. In an effort to …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, History, Researcher Stories
Posted by: Erin Allen
(The following is a guest post from Audrey Fischer, editor of the Library of Congress Magazine.) Fifty years ago, the Library installed its first computer and began charting a course to bibliographic control and global shared access. On Jan. 15, 1964, the first components of a small-scale computer system were delivered to the Library of …
Posted in: Cataloging, LC Web site, Technology, Washington DC
Posted by: Erin Allen
(The following is a guest post from Mike Mashon, head of the Moving Image Section in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.) The Library of Congress’s collection of television programs is broad and deep, consistently revealing some rather unexpected finds. A recent case in point: in the course of selecting two-inch Quadruplex tapes …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Film, Video
Posted by: Erin Allen
(The following is a guest post by James Sweany, head of Local History and Genealogy in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division.) The best way to preserve your family history is to write it down. By publishing your family history, you are able to capture and preserve the stories, pictures and genealogical data, making it …