The expression “like a kid in a candy store” has been on my mind quite a bit since I began directing educational outreach at the Library of Congress earlier this month! Not only have I been feeling this way, but it has been gratifying (but not surprising!) to find that my colleagues and the audiences we serve feel this way too—about both the Library’s collections and the Library’s programs.
It’s with great sadness that we report the passing of our longtime friend and colleague Danna Bell. Danna served the Library of Congress for more than 25 years and was a core member of our K-12 education team, where she played a crucial role in virtually every program area, including this blog. Trained as an …
But writing poetry—writing a stream of words, with letters of various sizes, with exclamation points and question marks—allows me to capture my emotions better than neatly composed prose does.
This post is from Lee Ann Potter of the Library of Congress. The National Book Festival is almost here! This year’s event will be entirely online and will feature a combination of prerecorded and live programs featuring more than 120 authors, poets and illustrators. The online platform will also allow for special engagement opportunities. One …
To kick off our celebration of Children’s Book Week (April 29-May 3), we invite you to tune into our live stream on Monday, April 29th, beginning at 10 am EDT.
We will be livestreaming a special program from the Young Readers Center in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. Local authors who are members of the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, DC, will be reading twenty special children’s books from the Library’s collections.
As our fourth and final blog post this fall related to the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, it seems appropriate that its theme focus on the concept of legacy. What a singer-songwriter leaves behind, from recordings, to manuscripts, to lyrics, can be thought of as their tangible legacies. The impact of his or her work, the connections listeners and concert goers make to the music, and the emotions the music inspires--these are some of the intangible legacies.
In July 2014, when Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced that Billy Joel would receive the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, he described Joel as being, "a storyteller of the highest order."
Talented songwriters can be great storytellers! Not only do their songs often include elements of a short story, but they do so in ways that listeners can easily imagine and relate to.
