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Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Jurij Dobczansky is a senior cataloging specialist in the East Central Europe Section of the Germanic and Slavic Division. Tell us about your background. Growing up in New Haven, Connecticut, I spoke Ukrainian at home until I went to kindergarten. My parents were World War II refugees from Ukraine. After regular school hours, I attended …
Posted in: Libraries, Library Work and Employees
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Describe your work at the Library. I’m the chief of the Visitor Engagement Office. I oversee a team of people — both staff and volunteers — who welcome thousands of visitors to the Library’s public spaces and exhibitions each day. In addition to acting as front-line customer service, we also help visitors connect to the …
Posted in: Concerts, Education, Events, Exhibitions, Library Work and Employees, My Job, New Visitors Experience
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
The Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2022. This post describes the remarkable history of the building's planning, construction and final grand opening in 1897.
Posted in: Library Work and Employees, News, Thomas Jefferson Building
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Ida B. Wells was 30 years old in 1892, living in Memphis and working as a newspaper editor, when a mob lynched one of her friends. Distraught, the pioneering journalist set out to document the stories of lynching victims and disprove a commonly asserted justification — that the murders were a response to rape. Wells’ …
Posted in: African American History, Congress, Education, Geography and Maps Division, Junior Fellows Program, LCM, Library Work and Employees, Maps, Technology
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Every institution has its institutions, and one of the Library’s is John Hessler, who will retire from the Geography and Map Division at the end of this month. He holds many titles, official and unofficial. One of the official ones is curator of the Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Archaeology & History of the …
Posted in: Curators, Geography and Maps Division, Jay I. Kislak Collection, Library Work and Employees, Native Americans, News, Writers
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
A film researcher at the Library of Congress has stumbled across the first motion picture to be copyrighted.
Posted in: Film, Library Work and Employees, National Film Registry, News, Performing Arts, Preservation, Rare Book and Special Collections, Researcher Stories, Technology
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Ashley Jones is a visual information specialist in the Office of Communications. She designs the Library of Congress Magazine, the Gazette and other publications. Tell us about your background. I grew up in Baltimore County, Maryland. Art has always been a part of my life. I credit my elementary school art teacher with igniting my …
Posted in: LCM, Library Work and Employees, My Job
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
The Library's 2022 National Book Festival was the first in-person festival in three years, since COVID shut down much of public life in D.C, and thousands of readers and fans thronged the Convention Center in search of a good read. Celebrities such as Janelle Monae, Nick Offerman, Leslie Jordan and Megan Mullally were there to greet them. So were big names in fiction, non-fiction and children's books, including Geraldine Brooks, Karen Joy Fowler and Mitch Albom.
Posted in: Events, National Book Festival, Washington DC, Writers
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Robert Cornelius, a Philadelphia photographer, is believed to have taken the world's first self-portrait -- the first selfie -- in 1839. The Library, which already had the world's large collection of his work, in December acquired a donation from Cornelius’ great-great-grand-daughter, Sarah Bodine, of more of his photographic materials. Preservationists are now at work on the new donation.
Posted in: LCM, Library Work and Employees, Photos, Rare Book and Special Collections, Technology