NASA's Europa Clipper has set sail for a moon of Jupiter to explore the possibilies of life. Launced last week, the craft carries a metal vault plate inscribed with the poem “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” by Ada Limón, the national poet laureate. NASA, Limón and the Library invited people worldwide to sign on to the poem and send their names to space with it on a microchip. More than 2.6 million people did so. Their names, alongside the poem, are aboard the Clipper for a six year journey to Europa.
A major portion of the papers of Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, consisting of approximately 600 containers, opened for research use this week. Housed in the Manuscript Division, the collection documents the trajectory of O’Connor’s life in politics and law in Arizona and, later, as the U.S. Supreme Court’s first woman justice.
Elton John and Bernie Taupin, one of the great songwriting duos of all time, will be the 2024 recipients of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today.
Mariah Carey surprised a festive crowd during the Library’s Santa Claus edition of “Live! At the Library“ last night, making an entrance as her signature hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” played in the Great Hall. Decked out in a stage-worthy sparkling dress and pink high heels, she picked up the song's framed certificate of induction from the National Recording Registry from Librarian Carla Hayden and - like most everyone else at the party - posed for a couple of pictures by the Christmas tree.
A sizzle reel introduces the 25 influential films from the past 102 years have been selected for the 2023 Library of Congress National Film Registry, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today, inluding blockbusters such as "Fame," "Home Alone" and "Apollo 13," the popular romance "Love & Basketball," and influential feature films and documentaries such as "12 Years a Slave," "Matewan," "Alambrista!" and "Maya Lin: A Strong, Clear Vision."
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.
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.
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 …
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 …