"A Library for You" is the Library's multi-year initiative to connect readers and patrons to our collections in new ways. These new galleries, exhibits and showcases will present some of the Library's most stunning items, whether they are recent or thousands of years old. These include Lincoln's handwritten first draft of the Gettysburg Address, fragments of the ancient Greek epic the "Iliad," cuneiform tablets that are among the oldest examples of writing, pre-Columbian artifacts, Rosa Parks' papers and watercolors by Diego Rivera. They'll begin to open in 2024.
Megan Metcalf is the Library's collection specialist and recommending officer for LGBTQ+ studies and women's and gender studies for the general and international collections. She's also a reference librarian in the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room. Here, she talks about her unique job and research.
Carol Lynn Ward Bamford curates the Library's collections of more than 2,000 musical instruments, including the James Madison crystal flute that Lizzo played at a concert last fall, setting social media afire.
Lizzo set the social media world afire last fall by playing, in concert, a short solo on a rare crystal flute that once belonged to President James Madison. The flute is one of the Library's most prized musical instruments and a showpiece of the collection of Dayton C. Miller, the famed physicist, astronomer and major flute aficionado. The collection, preserved in a vault at the Library, is not just the world’s largest of flute-related material, it is perhaps the largest collection on a single music subject ever assembled — and it’s what drew Lizzo to the Library in the first place.
Jan Grinci, a reference specialist for posters in the Prints and Photographs Division, describes her work in researching, preserving and curating the Library's dazzling collection of posters.
The Library of Congress on Wednesday bestowed its Gershwin Prize for Popular Song on Joni Mitchell, the singer-songwriter best known for such 1970s classics as “Both Sides Now,” “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Help Me.” The celebratory concert included performances by Annie Lennox, Graham Nash, James Taylor, Cyndi Lauper, Diana Krall, Angélique Kidjo, Ledisi, Lucius and modern folkies Brandi Carlile and Marcus Mumford. It will air on PBS stations on March 31.
Rachel Wetzel works in the Library's conservation lab, where she treats, assesses and preserves photos from across the Library, many of which are more than a century old. Many of these are torn, degraded, broken or otherwise damaged. They're printed on a varity of surfaces with different chemical compositions. It's a delicate job, as she often works on prints from the earliest days of photography.
Lincoln’s original drafts of the Gettysburg Address, the diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, Walt Whitman’s notes for “Leaves of Grass,” the journals of Alexander Graham Bell documenting his invention of the telephone, Irving Berlin’s handwritten score for “God Bless America,” the papers of Rosa Parks, the diaries of Orville Wright chronicling the first powered flight — all were obtained by the Library via donation, gifts from citizens to the American public, making it truly an institution by and for the people.
