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Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Today, the Library of Congress celebrates its 218th birthday. On April 24, 1800, President John Adams approved an appropriation of $5,000 for the purchase of “such books as may be necessary for the use of [C]ongress.” The first books purchased were ordered from London and arrived in 1801. The collection of 740 volumes and three …
Posted in: Capitol Hill, Libraries, Thomas Jefferson Building
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
A new book from Library of Congress historian John Y. Cole, “America’s Greatest Library: An Illustrated History of the Library of Congress,” tells the story of the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and how it came to be the world’s largest library. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden calls the Library “a place where you can …
Posted by: John Sayers
This post is reprinted from the November–December issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The entire issue is available on the Library’s website. John Cole has enjoyed a remarkable 51-year career at the Library, culminating with his most recent appointment as the first official Library of Congress historian. Throughout his long tenure at the …
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, chief of the Prints and Photographs Division, about “American Libraries 1730–1950,” published this fall by W.W. Norton and Company in association with the Library of Congress. You can find libraries at the heart of many different communities, from the center of a town or a college …
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
This is a guest post by Elizabeth Fulford, a librarian in the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access (ABA) Directorate, and Susan Morris, special assistant to the ABA director. The Library of Congress provides many resources to support information professionals worldwide. To streamline access to that content, we’ve redesigned our portal for librarians and archivists. The new …
Posted in: LC Web site, Libraries, New Online
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
The Library of Congress and the U.S. military service academies signed a cooperative agreement this week to provide researchers with enhanced access to the institutions’ collections and grow representation of service members in the Library’s collections—including the Veterans History Project. The three-year agreement, which took effect on September 18, provides greater access for Library researchers …
Posted in: Libraries, Pic of the Week, Veterans History Project
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
This post is by Madison Arnold-Scerbo, a 2017 summer intern with the Junior Fellows Program. She is a student of history and museum studies at Haverford College. Her Junior Fellows project in the Science, Technology and Business Division combined many of her interests—the history of science, exhibition curation, library science and cats! Rodent catchers, lab …
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
The library card catalog was one of the most versatile and durable technologies in history—a veritable road map for navigating a “wilderness of books”—says Peter Devereaux of the Library’s Publishing Office. His new book on the subject, “The Card Catalog: Books, Cards and Literary Treasures,” explores the history of this once-revolutionary system and celebrates literary …
Posted in: Books, Cataloging, Libraries, Researcher Stories
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
A new book exploring the history of the card catalog—that venerated chest of small drawers that contained the known universe—has been published by the Library of Congress in association with Chronicle Books. The lavishly illustrated volume tells the story of libraries’ organizing approaches from the layout of papyrus scrolls at the Library of Alexandria, to …