James McBride, winner of the Library's 2024 Prize for American Fiction, took the main stage at the National Book Festival last weekend, delighting a rapturous crowd with anecdotes and observations about his best-selling books and his remarkable writing career. "Love is the greatest novel ever written," he said. "That's it."
Gregory Lukow, chief of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, led the Library's efforts to construct the Center, teaming with the Packard Humanities Institute to make it one of the world's best film preservation facilities. He recently brought his 24-year career to a close. Here, he reflects on some major highlights.
New details about early European explorations along the North American east coast have been gleaned from a 16th-century portolan chart by the Library's Preservation and Research Testing Division. Using multispectral imaging and other techniques, Library staff has discovered multiple place names on the chart that could not be seen by the naked eye.
Kwame Anthony Appiah, the internationally recognized philosopher, author and professor, will be awarded the 2024 John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today. The $500,000 prize, awarded every two years, recognizes individuals whose outstanding scholarship in the humanities and social sciences has shaped public affairs and civil society. Since the 1990s, Appiah’s work has been widely regarded as having deepened the understanding of ideas around identity and belonging, concepts that remain deeply consequential. The Library is developing programming on the theme of “Thinking Together” that will showcase Appiah’s work for a public audience.
Karen Werth is the Library's deputy chief of exhibitions. She talks about her work on popular exhibits featuring Rosa Parks, the Magna Carta and baseball in this short Q&A.
"The Exhibit of American Negroes" was a display of hundreds of photographs, charts and graphs detailing the lives of Black Americans at the 1900 Paris Exposition, or world's fair. It was put together by W.E.B. Du Bois, Thomas Calloway and Daniel A.P. Murray, three major activists and educators of the era (Murray worked for the Library). Here, we look at three photographs of women that Du Bois selected for the exhibition.
Mila Hill, a a junior fellow in the Office of Communications this summer, made a startling discovery when she was looking at the Blackwell Family Tree in the new Treasures Gallery -- she was part of the family.
The folklorist Sidney Robertson was one of the trailblazing American women of the 1930s and 1940s, the kind of life you’d associate with Martha Gellhorn, Dorothea Lange or Zora Neale Hurston. Her work directing the California Folk Music Project from 1938-40 is the subject "California Gold," a new book from the Library and the University of California Press.
My Job is a recurring feature, presenting a Q&A with Library employees. This week, we chat with Mineeya Miles, a special assistant to the Health Services Division’s Wellness Program.
