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Archive: 2024 (90 Posts)

A woman with sterile rubber gloves leans over a turntable to place a needle on a record.

Saving the Sounds of History

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

The Library's custom-designed multitracking studio at National Audio-Visual Conservation Center was built to house and preserve the collections of guitarist and audio-engineering innovator Les Paul. But it's also used to convert, preserve and save recordings made on formats that may not last. It's one of several labs that use cutting-edge technology to save the nation's recorded sound history.

Close-up photo of a colorful pocket-sized leather notebook with a small pen held by a loop.

Freud’s Notebook: “To Remember is to Relive”

Posted by: Neely Tucker

—This is a guest post by Meg McAleer, a former historian in the Manuscript Division. Sigmund Freud returned again and again to the problem of memory as he formulated his theories of psychoanalysis during the 1890s, as the Library’s significant collection of his papers show. “What is essentially new about my theory,” Freud wrote in …

Handwritten title page of an essay written on lined notebook paper.

Treasures Gallery: Surviving Hiroshima

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Haruo Shimizu, a Japanese schoolteacher, survived the United States’ bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. One year later, he wrote down his memories of that horrific day for a friendly U.S. soldier stationed in Japan, who brought it home after his deployment. Today, it is one of the items featured in the new Treasures of the Library gallery.

A colorful section of the AIDS quilt, featuring names of the deceased

Treasures Gallery: The AIDS Quilt

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The AIDS Memorial Quilt is often regarded as the largest folk art project ever created and the Library’s American Folklife Center has held the quilt’s archival collections since 2019. Parts of it are on display at the initial exhibit of the Library's Treasures Gallery, opening in June.

Comic book cover, showing Spider-Man swinging through the air, holding a criminal by the collar

Treasures Gallery: Spider-Man’s Origin Story

Posted by: Neely Tucker

One of the Library's many outstanding comic book holdings is the 24 original drawings by Steve Ditko for Amazing Fantasy No. 15 in August 1962, including the Spider-Man origin story. The iconic images were donated to the Library by an anonymous donor in 2008. They are included in the opening exhibit of the David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery.