Top of page

About this Blog: Timeless

Timeless is the main blog of the Library of Congress. It tells entertaining stories about what we have, what we do and the experts who work here. This covers nearly 200 hundred million items from thousands of years from all over the world. In a building where the Gutenberg Bible is in the lobby, you never know what wonder you’ll come across.

One day you might read about our copy of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, or Abraham Lincoln’s handwritten copy of the Gettysburg Address (and what his voice, never recorded, sounded like to his listeners). Another, you might read about 4,200-year-old Sumerian cuneiform tablets, or the gorgeous 900-year-old “Diving God” Mayan vase from Mexico. Another day might bring you a postcard from Broadway, in the papers of playwright Neil Simon or the musicals of Jonathan Larson. (If you want to see, line by line, how Oscar Hammerstein wrote “My Favorite Things,” we’ve got his yellow legal pad where he worked out the lyrics, too.)

You’ll also want to keep an eye out for on-camera interviews with our honorees from the worlds of film, music and literature. Recently, we’ve brought you Garth Brooks, Lionel Richie, Mark Hamill, Sissy Spacek, Nas, Billy Crystal, Alicia Keys, Edward James Olmos, Joni Mitchell, John Waters, Patti LaBelle and, of course, Kermit the Frog.

AUTHORS

SIGNATURE IMAGE

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face
The magnificent clock and sculpture high above the Library’s Main Reading Room was cast in 1896 and has been known ever since as “Mr. Flanagan’s clock” for its designer/sculptor, John Flanagan. (You’ve held his work hundreds of times: He designed the U.S. quarter.)In this close-up, two young men, one reading and one writing, lounge on either side of time itself. The clock still keeps good time and is wound once a week by technicians in the Architect of the Capitol’s office. (Shawn Miller/Library of Congress)