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Posted by: Erin Allen
News of Library of Congress acquisitions and initiatives led the headlines in July, with stories on the recent donation of the Lilli Vincenz papers and work of the Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation to preserve television. “History is written by the victors, but also by the scrapbookers, the collectors, the keepers, the pack rats. By those …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Education, Exhibitions, Manuscripts, News, Newspapers
Posted by: Erin Allen
Let’s take a look back at some of the headlines from last month. The Library had several celebrity visitors in May, including lots of musicians and even Swedish royalty. Making the biggest headlines was singer-songwriter Carole King accepting the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. She was feted at both the Library and …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Music, News, Newspapers, Washington DC
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: Jennifer Gavin
It’s the year 1933. There’s a 13-year-old kid in the front row at the movie palace. He’s watching “King Kong,” completely transfixed. And there, in the flickering light of the screen, in the roar of the soundtrack, a famous career is born – as a youngster named Ray, already obsessed with dinosaurs, tells himself “Wow. …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Blogging, Film, Uncategorized
Posted by: Erin Allen
(The following is a guest post from Mike Mashon, head of the Moving Image Section in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.) One of the great joys of working with the Library of Congress film and video collections is learning more about our holdings from the astonishing variety of researchers the Moving Image …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Film, Today in History
Posted by: Erin Allen
The following is an article written by Christel Schmidt of the Library’s Publishing Office, who has edited a book on Mary Pickford, for the March-April 2013 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine. It has been 100 years since Mary Pickford was first dubbed the Queen of the Movies. At the time, the phrase simply …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Film
Posted by: Erin Allen
Growing up, I loved to watch old movies, in particular movie musicals. Of those, I remember “Hans Christian Andersen” starring Danny Kaye. It would turn up from time to time on television, so naturally I felt compelled to watch it. I haven’t seen the movie in years, but the Library’s online presentation, The Danny Kaye …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Events, Exhibitions, LC Web site, Music
Posted by: Erin Allen
The Library of Congress exhibition “The Civil War in America” and Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey continued to make the news last month. Edward Rothstein toured the exhibition for The New York Times. “This is one reason the Library of Congress exhibition ‘The Civil War in America,’ which opened late last year in honor of the …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Civil War, Exhibitions, News, Newspapers, 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