Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress’ digital collections? The Signal shares updates on new additions to our digital collections and we love showing off all the hard work of our colleagues from across the Library. Read on for a sample of what’s been added recently and some of our favorite highlights. Click here for all previous updates.
What’s new on loc.gov?
A few collections updates
The Occupational Folklife Project now includes Tillamook – Cheesemakers in Coastal Oregon (below) and African American Nurses: The Chi Eta Phi Sorority, both recipients of a 2021 Archie Green Fellowship from the American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress. AFC established the Archie Green fellowship program in 2010 to support the documentation of occupational folklife in contemporary America. Thousands of oral histories, photographs, and fieldnotes generated through original fieldwork are now on loc.gov thanks to this program – read more about the fellowship program here.
To learn even more about these projects, check out the New Occupational Folklife Project Documents African American Nurses and the Chi Eta Phi Sorority interview on the AFC blog and explore more Tillamook images and audio recordings on loc.gov. And congratulations to the American Folklife Center: the “African American Nurses: The Chi Eta Phi Sorority” collection was the 50th Occupational Folklife Project to be posted online!
New Foreign Legal Gazettes are now available for Panama (4,800 issues of the Gaceta oficial, from 1977-2005) and Rwanda (175 issues of Igazeti ya leta ya Repubulika y’u Rwanda, from 2017-2020).
Also newly available is the initial release of 220 papers from the National Bureau of Economic Research. More papers will be made available on loc.gov in the future.
New crowdsourced transcriptions
Since our last edition, the By the People crowdsourced transcription program has returned the transcriptions for the By Design: Frederick Law Olmsted & Associates campaign to their original digital collection on loc.gov. You can now search the Frederick Law Olmsted Papers using volunteer-created transcriptions and view images side-by-side with their transcribed text – see below!
![the opening of the park drives in New York the number of persons keeping private carriages is estimated [supposed] to have increased nearly tenfold; the number and value of public carriages adapted to [park use] pleasure driving [has also increased amazingly. In Brooklyn and far beyond the rate of increase] having also in the same period increased at a rate far beyond that of population and wealth. In Brooklyn the number of private carriages was though to have doubled in two years. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.](https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/files/2024/06/olmsted-eg-1024x516.png)
What’s new onsite via Stacks?
New items are added every week into stacks.loc.gov – the Library’s primary onsite platform for accessing restricted digital content. To learn more about Stacks, check out this video from our team: Access the Digital Stacks On-Site at the Library of Congress!
Recent highlights from Stacks include St. Marks poetry recordings and readings, two new map collections (the Ethel Fair Collection and the Muriel Parry Map Collection), and state government reports from New York and South Carolina. And some seasonal additions to Stacks include Pride month, LGBTQ rights and activism, Women in the Olympics, The official commemorative map collection: Atlanta 1996, and Let’s celebrate Emancipation Day & Juneteenth.
Please reach out to a librarian at ask.loc.gov with questions about accessing these materials using Stacks.
Updates from the Web Archives
Since our last newsletter, the Web Archiving Section released 536 new records on loc.gov, while continuing to work on infrastructure upgrades that will improve access to all of our collections.
In addition, two web archive collections have been described and made more discoverable to users. The Kosovo Political and Social Issues Web Archive (below) and the Montenegrin Political and Social Issues Web Archive both preserve content that address political and social issues and inform public policy in their respective countries.
Content includes websites of political parties, nongovernmental organizations, voluntary associations, and think tanks. The selection of websites represents a diversity of organizations from a vast array of political stances and viewpoints on topics such as the development of civil society, liberal democracy, peace-building, corruption, economic inequality, human and minority rights, marginalization of certain groups, and freedom of the press.
Additional captures will be added to these web archives as more content exits the one-year embargo.
*featured image citation: Baumgartner, D. F. & Occupational Folklife Project, S., Schmidt, J. L., photographer. (2022) Dale Baumgartner second interview conducted by Jared L. Schmidt. Image: “In foreground – baby loaf of Tillamook cheddar top form, hoop behind slightly out of focus.“