Archive for July 2016 (13 posts)

Pic of the Week: Final Projects

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Akari Goda-Maurerzzutt, a Mills College student from San Francisco, and Kalila Morsink of Columbia University from Bethesda, discuss their project on the Preservation and Research Testing Division ASTM 100 Year Paper Aging study. Photo by Shawn Miller.

Akari Goda-Maurerzzutt, a Mills College student from San Francisco, and Kalila Morsink, a Columbia University from Bethesda, discuss their project on the Preservation and Research Testing Division ASTM 100 Year Paper Aging Study. Photo by Shawn Miller.

On Wednesday, the Library of Congress Junior Fellows Summer Interns presented more than 100 rare and unique items from 17 Library divisions. The display provided the opportunity for fellows to discuss the historic significance of the collection items they have researched and processed during their 10-week internships.

Some highlights included:

  • an Olmec ceramic figurine (900-1200 BCE), the oldest item in the Jay I. Kislak Collection
  • An 1886 journal written by William T. Hornaday, a conservationist and founder of the Bronx Zoo
  • A watercolor paintings of costume designs for the 1938 New Orleans production of “One Third of a Nation”
  • A guest book used from 1955-1986 by the Woman’s National Democratic Club, which includes signatures from former U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan, Lady Bird Johnson, Carol Channing, W. Averell and Pamela C. Harriman, Liz Carpenter, Lynda Robb, Alistair Cooke, Dean Rusk and Jack Anderson
  • Audio clips from interviews conducted in 1957 and 1981 with American composer Leonard Bernstein

You can read more about the program and their work here.

Saving the Sounds of Radio

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The Library of Congress is working to preserve the nation’s historical broadcasts When Wilt Chamberlain smashed an NBA record in 1962 by scoring 100 points in a single game, a radio broadcast provided the only real-time account of the Stilt’s incredible feat. When Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic, Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the nation in […]

World War I: A Wartime Clipping Service

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(The following is a post by Arlene Balkansky, reference specialist in the Serial and Government Publications Division, and Will Elsbury, military history specialist in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division.) The Library of Congress’ historical newspaper collections are extensive in their coverage of World War I. From the beginning of the war to America’s involvement to […]

Pic of the Week: Teacher Institutes

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(The following was written by Stephen Wesson, Educational Resource Specialist at the Library of Congress.) This June and July, teachers and school librarians from more than 40 states have gathered in Washington for the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institutes. These intensive, week-long professional development sessions, which are organized by the Library’s Educational Outreach division, […]

World War I: Time to Recall What This War Was About

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Next April begins the centennial of America’s involvement in World War I, from April 6, 1917, when the U.S. Congress formally declared war on the German Empire. It concluded November 11, 1918, with the armistice agreement. I am going to risk embarrassment by confessing that I have retained very little of what I learned about […]

Library Fends Off DDoS Attack

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This is a guest post by Bernard A. Barton Jr., chief information officer of the Library of Congress. On Sunday morning, July 17, the Library became the target of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) network attack that resulted in the disruption of Library services and websites, including Congress.gov, the U.S. Copyright Office, the BARD […]

New Online: Website Updates, Presidential Papers, Federal Resources

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(The following is a guest post by William Kellum, manager in the Library’s Web Services Division.)  Website Resources New in July is a new, responsive design for the Library’s Online Catalog, one of the most heavily used features of our website. Like other websites, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of users accessing […]