Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress’s 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?
Warp and Weft of Yap’s Outer Islands: Backstrap Weaving in Micronesia
The Habele Outer Island Education Fund in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) was one of 10 projects chosen to receive a 2022 Community Collections Grant (CCG) from the American Folklife Center to document traditional lavalava cloth weaving on the Ulithi Atoll. Undertaken through the Library’s “Of the People: Widening the Path” initiative, the resulting collection consists of 23 oral histories documenting the knowledge and artistry of women from the Outer Islands of Yap, who weave the beautiful and highly valued lavalava cloth, which remains an essential element in maintaining cultural traditions and community relationships among contemporary Remathau (People of the Sea).
The audio interviews are conducted in Ulithian, the Micronesian language spoken on Ulithi and neighboring Fais Island, with English logs provided for each. Obtaining substantial fieldwork in this previously under-represented language enables the American Folklife Center to expand its holdings of the roughly 500 languages currently represented in its archives.
A few collections updates
Over 20,000 images have been added to the Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789 collection. “Letters of Delegates” includes all the documents written by delegates that bear directly upon their work during their years of actual service in the First and Second Continental Congresses, 1774-1789, as well as some diaries, public papers, essays, and other documents. These new scans of the 26-volume set are presented with full text and downloadable PDFs, and provide the means for a comprehensive, in-depth examination of the operations of the Continental Congress during the critical years of the founding of the United States.
Additionally, 633 new Foreign Legal Gazettes are now available from the Czech Republic, ranging from 2019-2022. And also newly available is a program for a 1954 baseball game between the Kansas City Monarchs and the Indianapolis Clowns from the Branch Rickey papers. See below!
Special feature: Check out these new LibGuides!
Our colleagues across the Library publish thematic library research guides (called ‘LibGuides’) that we want to highlight this issue. Dozens were published over the summer and here a just a few – we hope you’ll visit guides.loc.gov to view more!
Jewish Composers: Resources in the Library of Congress Music Division
Cold War Resources in the Manuscript Division
Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: A Guide to Resources at the Library of Congress
More than a dozen new datasets are now available
Three new dataset items relating to music and dance were added to the Selected Datasets collection recently: Dataset of the Tap dance in America database, Dataset of the U.S. ISMN public archive database, and Dataset of It’s showtime!, sheet music from stage and screen database. “Tap Dance in America” showcases performances and biographies of performers for what is an uniquely American dance genre. The International Standard Music Number (ISMN) is a unique identifier for notated music, and the U.S. ISMN Public Archive documents the use of ISMN in music publishing in the U.S. “It’s Showtime” is a database of the M1508 class of sheet music in the Music Division’s collections, which is designated for show music from the 19th and 20th centuries.
A new geospatial dataset has been added to the collection OpenStreetMap 2020 global data layers. The data is structured into eight geographic regions and is available in two format options: both shapefile and geopackage. Additionally, new versions have been added for Creepypasta: [collected datasets], National Enquirer Index and Database Files, and Rodney Fort’s Sports Business Data Pages.
And the By the People crowdsourced transcription program published four new datasets this summer. They are the full-text transcription datasets for the following transcription campaigns (below) and you can find all 23 By the People datasets cataloged and available in the Selected Datasets collection on loc.gov.
- James A. Garfield Diary: “His Confidential Friend”
- “Such Eventful Times”: Women and the American Civil War
- The Blackwells: An Extraordinary Family
- Anna E. Dickinson Papers
New African American and foreign language newspapers
in Chronicling America through NDNP
The Library of Congress regularly receives digitized newspaper content from award recipients (contributors) in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Content is delivered in the form of batches, where each batch can contain one or more issues, from one or more newspapers. Recently loaded batches can be discovered on the Chronicling America Research Guide. More details about the batch can be discovered by clicking on the batch name link!
Of note are newly-added African American newspaper titles such as Washington Grit (1884), The Gary Colored American (1927-1928), Twin City Observer (1943-1963), and The Saint Paul Sun (1941-1963). And check out our new foreign language newspapers: Amerikanski Srbobran (Serbian, 1906-1963), Le Messager (French by way of Lewiston, ME, 1880-1945), and El Tucsonense (Spanish, 1915-1957).
You may also like to browse through newly-available issues of The Virginia Gazette (ranging from 1766-1774), which was published in Williamsburg, VA by Clementina Rind, the first female newspaper printer in Virginia. View an excerpt below!
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 new St. Marks poetry readings from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, a newly digitized microfilm newspaper title Dnevni avaz, state government reports from California and the California Energy Commission, a new Croatian legal gazette, Narodne Novine, and Japanese maps from the Geography and Map Division.
Some selected new titles include The story of ice cream, Women’s muscle & strength: get lean, strong, and confident, Triceratops, Teen guide to the supernatural, and Social media and the news. And some seasonal additions to Stacks include The summer Olympics: world’s best athletic competition, Katie Ledecky, Simone Biles: dominant gymnast, August, Sofia’s first day of school, Betty the yeti and the first day of school, Good dogs only.
Please reach out to a librarian at ask.loc.gov with questions about accessing these materials using Stacks.
Updates from the Web Archives
Two web archive collections have been described and made more discoverable to users on loc.gov. The Gender Issues in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan Web Archive documents the status of women, transgender communities, and other sexual minority groups in the four targeted countries. Due to the shortage of financial resources available for print publications, most gender-related information from these countries is available only as digital content and is in urgent need of being acquired and preserved for present and future researchers.
And the American Folklife Center Web Archive aims to capture digital content related to the Center’s collectors and collections. It includes websites of many artistic, historical, and cultural institutions that have been creating or gathering ethnographic content.