Connect with The Signal at the 2020 National Book Festival

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By the People at the National Book Festival Tomorrow, Friday 9/25, marks the beginning of the 20th Library of Congress National Book Festival! Representatives from across the Library will be hosting festival-goers via virtual booths, where visitors can connect with their favorite Library programs and collections. A member of the By the People team will be […]

Newspaper Navigator Search Application Now Live!

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On September 15, 2020, the Library of Congress announced the release of Newspaper Navigator, an experimental web application which makes 1.5 million photographs from the dataset from Chronicling America available to the public to explore for the first time. Read more about the design and features of the project below or jump straight to the newly launched application at //news-navigator.labs.loc.gov/search !

Citizen DJ at the virtual National Book Festival

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This post was originally featured on the Minerva’s Kaleidoscope blog for kids and families. We’re excited and grateful to be able to re-share about this opportunity to experience Citizen DJ at the virtual National Book Festival next week!

How to Write a FDD in 149 Easy Steps: Learning to Evaluate Digital File Formats

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Today’s guest post is from Marcus Nappier, who is a Digital Collections Specialist in the Digital Content Management Section at the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress maintains over 470 format description documents (FDDs) on the Sustainability of Digital Formats website that provide information about file-formats, bit stream structures and encodings, and their usage in […]

Metaphors for Understanding Born Digital Collection Access: Part III

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Kathleen O’Neill is currently serving as one of two Staff Innovators at the Library of Congress. Their 2020 project, Born Digital Access Now!, explores existing pathways for accessing born digital materials in the Manuscript Division. In this series of blog posts, Kathleen describes the complexities of gaining access to born digital materials through the lens of three different metaphors. Up first was “Media Format, or, Have Fun Storming the Castle!” The second blog post discussed “Legacy File Formats and Operating Systems or Lost in Translation.” This is the third and final post in the series and Kathleen carefully explains the process of emulation and makes it feel less like “strange magic.”

Metaphors for Understanding Born Digital Collection Access: Part II

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Kathleen O’Neill is currently serving as one of two Staff Innovators at the Library of Congress. Their 2020 project, Born Digital Access Now!, explores existing pathways for accessing born digital materials in the Manuscript Division. In this series of blog posts, Kathleen describes the complexities of gaining access to born digital materials even before they reach researchers. This is the second post in the series and focuses on legacy file formats through the metaphor of being “lost in translation.”

Web Archiving Virtually In Residence: An Interview with Meghan Lyon

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Meghan Lyon recently joined the Web Archiving Team in the Digital Content Management section as a Librarian in Residence. In support of developing the next generation of librarians and information professionals, the Librarians-in-Residence program (LIR) gives early-career librarians the opportunity to gain meaningful work experience at the Library of Congress. In light of the COVID-19 […]