I Yam What I Yam
Posted by: Matt Raymond
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, the new Science, Technology and Business blog has a timely post: “Candied Yams or Candied Sweet Potatoes?”
Category: Curators
‘Inside Adams’ Brought Inside the Blog Fold
Posted by: Matt Raymond
This feels a little like a birth announcement: The Library of Congress has launched its second official blog since the one you’re now reading took the blogosphere by storm in April 2007. (Hyperbole much?) The Library’s Science, Technology and Business Division is an excellent addition to our growing social-media family. The very name of the …
Posted in: Blogging, Collections, Curators, News, Science, Technology
Library Helped Finger Another 'Would-Be Assassin' Named Booth
Posted by: Matt Raymond
You know how some of the best jobs are the ones where you learn something new every day? I definitely have one of those. I was watching a new episode of History Detectives last night on PBS (one of the few shows to which I am hopelessly addicted). Tukufu Zuberi did a segment about a …
Posted in: Collections, Curators, History, Manuscripts, Preservation
Life in a Library 'Theme Park'
Posted by: Matt Raymond
The Library of Congress acquires some 10,000 items a day for its collections. But many of our finest acquisitions are not bound between leather covers or captured on a reel of celluloid: They are the people who make our collections come alive, who unearth meaning and inspiration among our 653 miles of stacks. One such …
Posted in: Books, Collections, Curators
Lincoln Photos Added to Library's Flickr Stream
Posted by: Matt Raymond
The general webby reaction to our pilot project with Flickr, which launched “The Commons,” has been rather Oliver Twist-like: “More, please!” We started with thousands of Bain news photos from the 1910s and color images from the 1930s and 1940s (a project of the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information). For Veterans …
Posted in: Abraham Lincoln, Collections, Curators, Events, Exhibitions, History, Photos
Cartography Buffs, Take Note
Posted by: Matt Raymond
Our very own John Hessler was featured in today’s Washington Post talking about some of the mysteries behind one of the grand-daddies of all maps, the 1507 Martin Waldseemüller World Map, the document that named “America” and one of the Library’s toppest of the top treasures. (OK, we don’t categorize the treasures quite that way, …
Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibit: Getting Ready for Prime Time
Posted by: Matt Raymond
Exhibits, especially major ones, take a lot of planning, often years’ worth. There is fund-raising, exhibit design, curatorial work, object selection, conservation, writing the label texts, brochure design, fabrication, mounting, installation … and several other steps that I’m undoubtedly forgetting. On Feb. 12, we’re opening the major exhibition “With Malice Toward None,” celebrating the 200th …
Posted in: Abraham Lincoln, Collections, Curators, Exhibitions, News
A 'Rare' Opportunity
Posted by: Matt Raymond
I know it is late notice, but if you have some time on your hands this afternoon (and you’re in DC), you might want to stop by an open house from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections Division (the Lessing J. Rosenwald Room, across from room 239 in the …
NT2 Goes 'Inside the Library of Congress'
Posted by: Matt Raymond
The DVD for “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” isn’t released until Tuesday, May 20, but we here at one of the chief locations in the film managed to get our hands on a copy. The two-disc collectors’ edition and the Blu-Ray edition include a bonus feature titled “Inside the Library of Congress,” and I have …
Posted in: Curators, News, Thomas Jefferson Building