Top of page
Posted by: Gayle Osterberg
The Library of Congress launched its first website in 1994. Since that time we have digitized and made available millions of items from our collections and added new features to help you take advantage of all that the Library offers. During the past three years, the Library’s web team has been transitioning these vast online …
Posted in: Collections, LC Web site, News, Technology
Posted by: Gayle Osterberg
Next April begins the centennial of America’s involvement in World War I, from April 6, 1917, when the U.S. Congress formally declared war on the German Empire. It concluded November 11, 1918, with the armistice agreement. I am going to risk embarrassment by confessing that I have retained very little of what I learned about …
Posted in: Collections, Curators, Education, Exhibitions, History
Posted by: Gayle Osterberg
The visual richness of the Library of Congress never ceases to amaze me – from the extraordinary architecture of its Thomas Jefferson Building, to the diverse public programs, to the collections themselves. Many Americans will never have the opportunity to visit the Library in person, so we are always looking for ways to share the Library …
Posted in: Capitol Hill, Events, Photos, Social Media, Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington DC
Posted by: Gayle Osterberg
I have been reading with enthusiasm recent interviews with the screenwriter/director Wes Anderson about his forthcoming film “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” not only because I am a fan of Mr. Anderson’s work, but because he has been talking about the Library of Congress. Specifically, he’s been talking about how he has recently used the Library. …
Posted in: Collections, Copyright, Film, LC Web site, Photos
Posted by: Gayle Osterberg
There is joy in Mudville today, as we mark the 125th anniversary since “Casey at the Bat” was first published on June 3, 1888, in the San Francisco Examiner. The poem, dubbed the “single most famous baseball poem ever written” by the Baseball Almanac, has inspired everything from political cartoons to entire operas. Written by …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Education, History, LC Web site, Music, Poetry, Uncategorized, Washington DC
Posted by: Gayle Osterberg
Good news, Washington baseball fans: the Washington Nationals come home today, closing out their pre-season schedule against the New York Yankees. Today will also mark the inaugural Presidents Race at the ballpark for the 2013 season, and the first appearance of a fifth presidential runner, President William Howard Taft. Those who have not had the …
Posted in: History, Newspapers, Photos, Washington DC
Posted by: Gayle Osterberg
During one of my first visits to the Library of Congress’s Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation, one of the division chiefs there pointed out the 35 mm projector in the theater. He commented that the sound of 35 mm film being fed through a projector is an “endangered sound.” My furrowed brow and quizzical look …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Music, News, Preservation
Posted by: Gayle Osterberg
It has been a busy first two weeks for the Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey, who is working this spring from the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center – a first for a laureate. She visited with fellow poet Richard Blanco about his poem “One Today”, which he read at Barack Obama’s second presidential inauguration. …
Posted in: Capitol Hill, Poetry
Posted by: Gayle Osterberg
(UPDATE: Here’s a December 2017 status report on our work with the Twitter archives.) An element of our mission at the Library of Congress is to collect the story of America and to acquire collections that will have research value. So when the Library had the opportunity to acquire an archive from the popular social media …
Posted in: Collections, Social Media