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Embossed typsecript in gold and blue, with Hebraic writing alongside it.

Hundreds of Hebrew Manuscripts Now Online

Posted by: Maria Peña

The Library recently put online some 230 histortic manuscripts, some of them more than a thousand years old, in Hebrew and similar languages, such as Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Persian and Yiddish. The collection, available online for researchers and the public for the first time, includes a 14th-century collection of responsa, or rabbinic decisions and commentary, by Solomon ibn Adret of Barcelona, considered one of the most prominent authorities on Jewish law.

Color photograph of a young Wynton Marsalis in suit and ite, holding a trumpet

Wynton Marsalis, “Black Codes” and Thoughts on the Highway

Posted by: Neely Tucker

It is midafternoon on a recent weekday and jazz legend Wynton Marsalis is driving across the Southwest, taking the call on speakerphone that his 1985 album, “Black Codes (From the Underground),” has been inducted into the 2023 class of the National Recording Registry. With endless desert spreading about behind and before him, he took a few minutes to talk about the album and its pointed political statement.

Color portrait photo of Meg Medina, smiling at camera. She has shoulder-length brown hair, frame glasses and is wearing a black turtleneck and a dark green sweater

Meet Meg Medina, the Library’s New Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

Posted by: Leah Knobel

Meg Medina, a writer whose work explores how culture and identity intersect through the eyes of children and young adults, today was named as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature for 2023-2024, the Library of Congress and Every Child a Reader announced. Medina, a Cuban-American, is the eighth author to hold the position and the first …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

“The Master of Mysteries,” Latest in Library’s Crime Classics Series

Posted by: Neely Tucker

This is a guest post by Polina Lopez, Widening the Path intern in the Library’s Publishing Office. Can one detective successfully solve kidnapping, espionage and murder cases, uncover social poseurs and secret love affairs, all while maintaining the guise of psychic powers? In the newest addition to the Library of Congress Crime Classics series, Gelett Burgess’ Astro the …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Indigenous Cultures at the Library: Kislak Family Foundation Gives $10 Million for New Gallery

Posted by: Brett Zongker

The Kislak Family Foundation is donating $10 million to create a new exhibition at the Library that will share a fuller history of the early Americas, featuring the Jay I. Kislak Collection of artifacts, paintings, maps, rare books and documents, the Library announced today. The new Kislak Gallery will be part of a reimagined visitor …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

A Fond Farewell to John Hessler, LOC Polymath

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Every institution has its institutions, and one of the Library’s is John Hessler, who will retire from the Geography and Map Division at the end of this month. He holds many titles, official and unofficial. One of the official ones is curator of the Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Archaeology & History of the …