If you love Broadway, we have a treat for you. The Music Division of the Library of Congress has received a collection from the estate of Broadway giant John Raitt, who originated the role of Billy Bigelow in the Rodgers and Hammerstein show “Carousel” and also starred in “The Pajama Game,” “Oklahoma!” and other top …
Today the Library of Congress, in conjunction with Sony Music Entertainment, launched a website – “the National Jukebox” – that streams 10,000 sound recordings from the historic Victor Records collection. It’s a fun and fascinating ramble for anyone who loves American music and wants to dig down into the roots of jazz, opera, a vast …
This year’s selections for the National Recording Registry were announced today — the ninth annual addition to a list now totaling 325 recordings deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant and worthy of preservation for all time. According to the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the Librarian of Congress – with input from the Library’s …
Today the Librarian of Congress named the 25 films that will comprise the National Film Registry’s entries for the year 2010. These are films that have cultural, historical or aesthetic significance that warrants their preservation for posterity. All in all, there are 550 films in the registry. Although there is great variety in this year’s …
The following is a guest post by Mike Mashon, head of the Moving Image Section in the Motion Picture, Broadcast and Recorded Sound Division: When I was a kid, I associated organ music with three things: church, baseball games, and roller skating rinks. As a teenager I became interested in silent films, and most of …
The following is a guest post by Mike Mashon, head of the Moving Image Section of the Motion Picture, Broadcast and Recorded Sound Division. You might already have seen news about this fascinating discovery of scores of old British TV broadcasts, but we wanted you to know the full story about just how the programs …
About a year ago, the Library worked in conjunction with HISTORY (AKA History Channel) to produce a series of two dozen video vignettes called “This Week’s Hidden Treasure.” Each highlights in roughly two or three minutes a fascinating item from our collections, with its story told by a Library of Congress curator. The videos were …
Developers for the iPhone and iPad have been able to say “there’s an app for that” about a quarter-million times–the total number currently available in Apple’s App Store. But not until now has there been an official app for the Library of Congress. (So far it’s the first and only app–don’t be fooled by imitators!) …
There are many avenues of research at the Library of Congress. Some are a laugh riot! Take, for example, the vast collections of cartoons and caricature in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division. For more than a century, the Library has collected pictorial humor – collections that range from a lifetime’s worth of cartoons by …