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Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Gene Luen Yang, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, launched his Reading Without Walls program during a Library of Congress event on April 10. It challenges young people to explore, through books, worlds outside their comfort zone. “Reading is a fantastic way to open your minds and hearts to new people, places and ideas,” said …
Posted in: Books, Pic of the Week
Posted by: Gayle Osterberg
When Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865, he was carrying the following: Two pairs of spectacles and a lens polisher Pocketknife Watch fob Linen handkerchief Brown leather wallet containing a five-dollar Confederate note Nine newspaper clippings, including several favorable to the president and his policies. These items …
Posted in: Abraham Lincoln
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Many college students head for the beach or perhaps to a city with a lively night life for spring break. The students in Joe Kobylka’s honors seminar on the Supreme Court had a strikingly different kind of destination this year: the Library of Congress. The students traveled from Southern Methodist University in Dallas to spend …
Posted in: Collections, Manuscripts, Researcher Stories
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
(The following is a repost from the National Book Festival blog. The author is Lola Pyne of the Library’s Office of Communications.) Spring is in the air and with it begins anticipation for our summer celebration of books and reading—the Library of Congress National Book Festival—which this year will take place on Sept. 2. Two weeks ago, …
Posted in: Books, National Book Festival
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
A new book exploring the history of the card catalog—that venerated chest of small drawers that contained the known universe—has been published by the Library of Congress in association with Chronicle Books. The lavishly illustrated volume tells the story of libraries’ organizing approaches from the layout of papyrus scrolls at the Library of Alexandria, to …
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
This is a guest post by Kimberli Curry, exhibition director in the Interpretive Programs Office. Library of Congress specialists often give presentations about ongoing Library exhibitions. We are pleased to introduce a new blog series, “Galley Talks,” featuring content from these presentations. This first post relates to the exhibition “Mapping a New Nation: Abel Buell’s Map of …
Posted in: Exhibitions, Maps
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
The Library of Congress opened a major new exhibition, “Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I,” on April 4. The exhibition examines the upheaval of world war as Americans confronted it both at home and abroad. It considers the debates and struggles that surrounded U.S. engagement; explores U.S. military and home-front …
Posted in: Exhibitions, Pic of the Week, World War I
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Ingrid Monson is the Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music at Harvard University and an award-winning author and scholar whose work in jazz, African American music and the music of the African diaspora is greatly respected. Her books include “Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa” and “Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation …
Posted in: Collections, Music, Researcher Stories
Posted by: Mark Hartsell
As a surgeon with the U.S. 6th Marines in France, Joel T. Boone saw the cost of World War I up close—comrades mutilated, amputations performed by candlelight, the frightful loss of life. “My heart has bled by the things I have seen,” wrote Boone, who earned the Medal of Honor for heroism under fire in 1918. …
Posted in: Exhibitions, History, World War I