This Autumn we offer a sequel to a post from this past Spring featuring pictures that cheer Prints & Photographs Division staff.
This post’s contributors are all staff members in the Technical Services Section, who work hard to organize, describe, digitize and house for preservation the images in the collections, making it possible for you to access them through the Library of Congress online catalogs as well as in person in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room.
Cataloging Specialist Arden Alexander notes that “I like the contrast between the playful kittens and the ‘serious’ congressional office setting” in the image below.
For Alexander the next photograph is pleasing for more personal reasons, as it brings to mind “church and town festivals from my childhood with their delicious baked goods.”
Michelle An, Processing Technician, got a kick out of a paper doll set she found in the collections: “Any time I go to a used book store I always grab children’s books with paper doll cut-outs. The outfits are fun, especially when they include historical figures.”
Karen Chittenden, a Cataloging Specialist and frequent traveler to destinations near and far, appreciates how some images from the collections allow her to live vicariously when she’s not on the road herself: “I always feel happy when travel posters come my way. The posters are usually visually striking and make me feel like I’ve taken a quick trip to another place.”
Our Technical Services staff do so much to make researchers (and their co-workers!) happy by enabling access to our varied collections; we’re glad that their daily close contact with the pictures regularly fosters their own good cheer.
Learn More:
- Read the previous “Pictures that Makes Us Happy” blog post.
- View more travel posters from the Work Projects Administration (WPA) Poster Collection.
- Learn about the thousands of travel posters in the Prints and Photographs Division through the collection overview: Around the World with the Library of Congress Poster Collection: An Overview of Travel Posters.
- Browse some images from the CQ Roll Call Collection where Arden Alexander found her kitten-draped member of Congress.
- Peruse the abundance of pie-related images from the Carol M. Highsmith Collection.
Comments (5)
How to help me
If you have specific questions about images in the collections of the Library of Congress, I recommend that you write to us through our Ask a Librarian service: http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-print.html. We look forward to hearing from you!
Does the Smithsonian have a complete collection of cameras? If so, I would really like them to publish a book cataloging the cameras with information on them. I collect cameras but can no longer find anything to compare what I have with what has been out there.
Good question! For information about the Smithsonian’s collections you will need to get in touch with their staff. For questions about Library of Congress materials we are happy to answer any questions you might submit through our Ask a Librarian service: http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-print.html.
🙂