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Posted by: Neely Tucker
Hannah Whitaker, interning this summer as a junior fellow in the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, discusses her work in helping preserve live recordings from early in the 20th century, including performances by stars such as Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.
Posted in: Audiovisual, Gazette, Junior Fellows Program, Library Work and Employees, National Audio-Visual Conservation Center
Posted by: Neely Tucker
The Library's Crime Classics series has just published "The Thinking Machine," Jacques Futrelle's 1907 short story collection. It follows eccentric professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, the Thinking Machine, as he solves a mind-boggling series of crimes. Van Dusen, in the mold of Sherlock Holmes, is “one of the most admired creations in the history of crime fiction," series editor Leslie S. Klinger writes in the introduction.
Posted in: Crime Classics Series, Library of Congress Crime Classics, Library Work and Employees, Writers
Posted by: Neely Tucker
Mari Nakahara, director of the Library's Center for Architecture, Design and Engineering, chooses favorite collection items related to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. These include the original 1981 drawings submitted by the winning designer, Maya Lin, then a 21-year-old student at the Yale School of Architecture.
Posted in: Library Work and Employees, My Job, Researcher Stories
Posted by: Neely Tucker
No Jewish marriage is complete without a ketubah, a traditional legal document introduced during the wedding ceremony. The ketubah not only legitimizes the marriage but, following Jewish law, also spells out the groom’s financial and conjugal obligations to his bride during their life journey. The Library holds 11 of these ornate, beautiful traditional documents, spanning centuries and many nations.
Posted in: Jewish American History, LCM, Library Work and Employees, Manuscripts
Posted by: Mark Hartsell
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.
Posted in: LGBTQ, Library Work and Employees, My Job, Women's History
Posted by: Neely Tucker
George Chauncey is the DeWitt Clinton professor of history at Columbia University and the 2022 recipient of the Library’s John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. He wrote this piece about how he used libraries to research his landmark book, “Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940."
Posted in: Kluge Center, LCM, LGBTQ, Libraries, Library Work and Employees, Researcher Stories, Writers
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Ada Limón, named the U.S. Poet Laureate last year, will serve two more years, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has announced, making the California native the third laureate to serve for as long as three years. Limón is composing a poem that will be engraved on NASA's Europa Clipper mission. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles to explore Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons.
Posted in: Hispanic and Latino, Library Work and Employees, Poetry, U.S. Poet Laureate, Uncategorized, Writers
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
This winter, President Lincoln's Cottage in Washington, D.C., exhibited "Create to Free Yourselves: Abraham Lincoln and the History of Freeing Slaves in America," an installation by Georges Adéagbo. In creating it, Adéagbo visited the Library's Manuscript Division to research Lincoln's words and handwriting. Born in Benin, educated in Cote I and France, Adéagbo works internationally. Here, he talks about how he created the Lincoln project.
Posted in: Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Gazette, Library Work and Employees, Manuscripts, Researcher Stories, U.S. Presidents, Washington DC
Posted by: Neely Tucker
Danny Elfman has composed or produced scores for more than 100 films, including blockbusters such as “Batman” and “Men in Black.” He’s composed themes for TV hits, as classic as “The Simpsons” and as recent as “Wednesday.” He was at the Library this week to present something more subtle: the world premiere of his latest classical work. “Suite for Chamber Orchestra,” commissioned by the LIbrary, debuted Thursday night at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in D.C. In this interview, he talks about his cinema and classical works, as well as original rock band, Oingo Boingo.
Posted in: Concerts, Events, Film, Library Work and Employees, Music, Performing Arts