This blog post is by Matt Barton, curator of the Recorded Sound Section. “Arch Oboler, a restlessly intelligent man…utilized two of radio’s great strengths: the first in the mind’s innate obedience, its willingness to try to see whatever someone suggests it see, no matter how absurd: the second is the fact that fear and […]
With the end of Women’s History Month approaching, the Library’s Recorded Sound Section would be remiss if we failed to mention the remarkable accomplishments of Barbara (Cohen) Holdridge and Marianne (Roney) Mantell, founders of Caedmon Records. These two Hunter College graduates with degrees in Greek wanted careers in publishing, but weren’t particularly excited about […]
All of us at the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center are teleworking during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we’re still getting a lot done. Copyright and gift collections are being processed and catalog records created or enhanced. We’re writing quality control reports and documenting Standard Operating Procedures. We’re doing research for film restoration projects and creating new […]
Today, the Dr. Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, announced the 25 newest inductees to the National Recording Registry. The selections range is date from 1920 to 2008 and cover almost every genre known to recorded sound including jazz, pop, rock, spoken word, classical, rap, children’s recordings and even disco. Some of the luminaries on […]
The Library of Congress beginning today will be cancelling all film screenings until Thursday, May 14, 2020. Both the Packard Campus Theater in Culpeper and the Pickford Theater on Capitol Hill will be subject to this temporary closure. The Library of Congress is taking this action to reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19 coronavirus. During the […]
Every month, films from the Library’s collection are shown at the Mary Pickford Theater in the James Madison Building, ranging from titles newly preserved by the National Audio Visual Conservation Center film lab, classics from the National Film Registry, and lesser known titles worthy of discovery. Thursday, March 19 at 7:00 p.m. SIMON AND LAURA (Group […]
The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson of the Packard Campus. Thursday, March 5 (7:30 p.m.) Saboteur (Universal, 1942) California aircraft factory worker Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) goes on the run across the country when he is wrongly accused of starting a fire that killed his best friend. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the […]
Here are some of the titles from the Library’s motion picture collections–many preserved by the NAVCC film laboratory–that we’re loaning for exhibition this month. As always, we can’t guarantee that schedules won’t change or links get broken, but this is our best information at the time of publication. HEIGHTS THEATER: Columbia Heights, Minnesota http://www.heightstheater.com/ RAW DEAL (1948) […]
Today’s post is by David Sager, Research Assistant in the Recorded Sound Research Center. In observance of Black History Month, we’re highlighting a little known song by the great Bert Williams, found in the Library’s National Jukebox. Although opportunities for African American performers during the early days of the recording industry were scant, they certainly […]
The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson of the Packard Campus. Thursday, February 27 (7:30 p.m.) The Phenix City Story (Allied Artists Pictures, 1955) Film noir comes to Alabama in this ripped-from-the-headlines tale in a film based on notorious real-life 1954 events. Albert Patterson (John McIntire) is an attorney trying to clean up […]