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Posted by: Mark Hartsell
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.
Posted in: Concerts, LCM, Library Work and Employees, Music, My Job, Preservation and Conservation
Posted by: Neely Tucker
This is a guest post by Sahar Kazmi, a writer-editor in the Office of the Chief Information Officer. It appears in the January-February issue of the Library of Congress Magazine. Before the internet meme, there were posters. Once upon a time, posters full of dazzling images and arresting slogans dominated the media landscape. They were displayed in …
Posted in: LCM, Preservation and Conservation
Posted by: Neely Tucker
One of the Library's most unusual holdings is hair -- lots of it. The Library has locks and tresses and strands from people in the arts such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Walt Whitman and Edna St. Vincent Millay; presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, James Madison and Ulysses S. Grant; and any number of famous women, including Lucy Webb Hayes (first lady and spouse of President Rutherford B. Hayes); Confederate spy Antonia Ford Willard; Clare Boothe Luce and unidentified hair from Clara Barton’s diary. Nearly all of the hair stems from the 18th and 19th centuries, in the era before photographs were common and lockets of hair were seen as tokens that could be anything from romantic to momentous.
Posted in: Civil War, LCM, Manuscripts, Preservation and Conservation, Thomas Jefferson, U.S. Presidents
Posted by: Neely Tucker
The Library of Congress has unexpected items in its vast collections -- the contents of Lincoln's pockets when he was assassinated; cocaine used in a groundbreaking 19th-century surgery; a lock of Beethoven's hair; 3,000 year old cuneiform tablets from modern-day Iraq; Mesoamerican incense burners that are more than 2,000 years old; and a piece of Tom Thumb's wedding cake, now nearly 160 years old.
Posted in: Abraham Lincoln, Geography and Maps Division, Jay I. Kislak Collection, LCM, Preservation and Conservation, U.S. Presidents, Veterans History Project
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
The Library has dozens of 19th century animated toy theaters that were wildly popular in Europe and the United States, displaying dashing stories of pirates, undersea adventures, magic and adventure. Conservators have been painstakingly mending damage caused by historical use, making sure researchers can draw insights from the theaters for years to come.
Posted in: Library Work and Employees, Preservation, Preservation and Conservation, Rare Book and Special Collections, Theater
Posted by: Neely Tucker
The National Audio-Visual Conservation Center has found a never-before-seen home movie of the infamous Altamont Free Concert in 1969, during which a member of the Hell's Angels killed a member of the audience. The incident became a cultural turning point of the era.
Posted in: Library Work and Employees, Music, National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Performing Arts, Preservation and Conservation
Posted by: Neely Tucker
The ceramics created by ancient Maya potters make for some of the most vibrantly colored objects that survive in the archaeological record of the Americas. John Hessler, curator of the Library's Kislak collection, explains how their distinctive blue color has survived for centuries.
Posted in: Geography and Maps Division, Jay I. Kislak Collection, Library Work and Employees, Native Americans, Preservation and Conservation
Posted by: Mark Hartsell
Conservators at the Library build small models of ancient volumes in order to learn more about their inner structure and how to better preserve them for future generations.
Posted in: Library Work and Employees, Preservation, Preservation and Conservation
Posted by: Neely Tucker
George Willeman is the leader of the nitrate film vaults at the Library of Congress Packard Campus. Here, he tells about lost and nearly lost films he's discovered and helped preserve.
Posted in: Audiovisual, My Job, Preservation, Preservation and Conservation