News from the Library of Congress

October 2021

September 2021

  • September 28, 2021  (21-057)
    Law Library of Congress and Government Publishing Office Digitize Records of Congress, Release First Selected Volumes Online The Law Library of Congress, in collaboration with the U.S. Government Publishing Office, has digitized 287 volumes of the United States Congressional Serial Set and made them available on the Library’s website.The release is part of a decade-long partnership to digitize more than 15,000 volumes of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set — the reports and documents of the House and Senate, including proposed legislation,...
    • Date: 2021-09-28
  • September 1, 2021  (21-047)
    Library of Congress Releases Data for Free Download and Discovery The Library of Congress announced today its third release of records in its online catalog for free bulk download for research and discovery. The release supports the Library’s effort to continuously expand open access to its vast collections.This MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging Records) release surpasses previous releases and adds more than 200,000 new records to the existing 25 million record database.Releases of MARC data...
    • Date: 2021-09-01

July 2021

  • July 29, 2021  (21-040)
    Speculative Annotation Invites Public to Interact with Digitized Collections at the Library of Congress Students, educators and learners of all ages are invited to interact with select items in the Library’s collections with the launch of Speculative Annotation, the latest experiment from LC Labs.Created by artist and 2021 Innovator in Residence Courtney McClellan, Speculative Annotation is an open-source dynamic web application and public art project. The app presents a unique mini collection of free-to-use items from the Library...
    • Date: 2021-07-29
  • July 6, 2021  (21-037)
    Library of Congress Adds 'A Century of Lawmaking' to Congress.gov The Library of Congress announced today that U.S. congressional records dating back to the days of printing presses and the telegraph are now easily accessible on mobile devices. With this latest update of Congress.gov — the official website for U.S. federal legislative information — the Library has transitioned over 33,000 bills and resolutions crafted by Congress between 1799 and 1873 (the 6th to 42nd...
    • Date: 2021-07-06

April 2021

  • April 15, 2021  (21-017)
    New Season of 'America Works' Podcast Celebrates Resiliency of American Workforce The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress is bringing more workers’ voices from around the country to listeners with the second season of “America Works,” a podcast series celebrating the diversity, resilience and creativity of the American workforce during a time of economic challenge and transition.Each 10-minute episode of “America Works” introduces listeners to an individual worker whose first-person narrative adds to...
    • Date: 2021-04-15

March 2021

  • March 23, 2021  (21-011)
    Library Debuts New Video Series for 2021 National Cherry Blossom Festival The Library of Congress celebrates the 2021 National Cherry Blossom Festival by debuting a new video series that highlights both historic and contemporary traditions of springtime flower viewing. “Cherry Blossom Viewing over the Centuries” features three short films that showcase a stunning variety of artifacts from Library collections, including watercolor drawings, colorful woodblock prints, vintage photos and beautifully designed posters from Japanese and American...
    • Date: 2021-03-23
  • March 11, 2021  (21-014)
    Veterans History Project Highlights Farming as Viable Career Path with Two Panels in March The Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP) will host two panels to highlight farming as a viable career path for veterans transitioning to civilian life and to introduce programs that support those who pursue farming.The events, focused on the benefits and challenges of farming in urban and rural settings, will premiere on the VHP’s Facebook page. Panelists and moderators will be available to...
    • Date: 2021-03-11
  • March 2, 2021  (21-010)
    Library of Congress Builds New Collections Documenting COVID-19 Pandemic As the world marks the one-year anniversary of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Library of Congress has been collecting materials and documenting this time in history through a variety of initiatives.The Library’s rapid-response collecting since the start of lockdowns and social distancing measures over the past year has included acquiring photographs that document the pandemic’s impact on individuals and communities, capturing artists’ responses to...
    • Date: 2021-03-02

January 2021

  • January 25, 2021  (21-003)
    William Farquhar Correspondence and Other 19th Century Malay Letters Now Online at the Library of Congress The Library of Congress today announced the digitization of 46 Malay letters from the 19th century, mainly from Malay kings and Southeast Asian notables to William Farquhar, a pioneering British colonial administrator in Singapore (1819-1823), providing online access to an important resource on the founding of that country.The digitization comes ahead of the 202nd anniversary of the signing of the Singapore Treaty, which greenlighted...
    • Date: 2021-01-25

December 2020

  • December 17, 2020  (20-085)
    Library of Congress Completes Digitization of 23 Early Presidential Collections The Library of Congress has completed a more than two decade-long initiative to digitize the papers of nearly two dozen early presidents. The Library holds the papers of 23 presidents from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge, all of which have been digitized and are now available online.The Library plans to highlight each presidential collection on social media in the weeks leading up to the...
    • Date: 2020-12-17
  • December 8, 2020  (20-081)
    GPO and Library of Congress Release Ten Years of Legislative Data on Govinfo The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) in partnership with the Library of Congress, U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate has released 10 additional years of bill status XML bulk data on govinfo. Bill status information, created by the Library of Congress and Congress, describes the activities and status steps for each legislative measure. The original project started at the direction of the House...
    • Date: 2020-12-08

November 2020

  • November 19, 2020  (20-075)
    Joy Harjo Appointed to Third Term as U.S. Poet Laureate Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has announced the appointment of U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo to a third term, making Harjo the second laureate to receive this extension since terms for the position were established in 1943.Harjo’s third term, to begin in September 2021, will offer her an opportunity to complete projects and programs whose timelines continue to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic,...
    • Date: 2020-11-19

October 2020

  • October 16, 2020  (20-067)
    New Virtual Student Workshops Offer Opportunity to Engage with Library's Collections at Home The Library of Congress is now offering virtual student workshops to engage young learners during an unprecedented school year. A new set of virtual workshops, available for students in grades three through eight, offer an opportunity to explore the Library’s exhibitions, collections and architecture from home.“The Library has long been an outstanding resource for teachers through its Teaching with Primary Sources Program. Now as...
    • Date: 2020-10-16

September 2020

  • September 22, 2020  (20-063)
    Citizen DJ Music-Mixing App to Launch at National Book Festival The Library’s Citizen DJ project will officially launch at the 2020 National Book Festival with the premiere of original sounds created by youth across America. At the virtual festival, DJ Kid Koala will spin some of these original beats and be joined in discussion with young adults, community educators and Innovator in Residence Brian Foo about hip-hop, history and their creative process. This summer,...
    • Date: 2020-09-22
  • September 15, 2020  (20-060)
    Library of Congress Launches New Tool to Search Historical Newspaper Images The public can now explore more than 1.5 million historical newspaper images online and free of charge. The latest machine learning experience from Library of Congress Labs, Newspaper Navigator allows users to search visual content in American newspapers dating 1789-1963.The user begins by entering a keyword that returns a selection of photos. Then the user can choose photos to search against, allowing the discovery...
    • Date: 2020-09-15

August 2020

  • August 27, 2020  (20-056)
    American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress Launches Podcast 'America Works' The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress is bringing the voices of workers throughout the country to listeners with "America Works," a new podcast series that celebrates the diversity and tenacity of the American workforce during a time of economic crisis and transition.Each 10-minute episode of "America Works" introduces listeners to an individual worker whose first-person narrative adds to the wealth of...
    • Date: 2020-08-27
  • August 3, 2020  (20-050)
    Smithsonian, Library of Congress and National Archives Are Counting Down to the Suffrage Centennial With #19SuffrageStories The Smithsonian, Library of Congress and the National Archives have launched #19SuffrageStories, a 19-day social media campaign that will share stories about the long fight for women’s voting rights in the U.S. Every weekday from Aug. 3 to Aug. 26, the three institutions will share one of 19 stories related to women’s suffrage, counting down to Women’s Equality Day Aug. 26. The institutions have...
    • Date: 2020-08-03

July 2020

  • July 9, 2020  (20-047)
    Historic Public Affairs Series "Black Journal" Now Available Online at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting A collection of episodes from “Black Journal,” the first nationally televised public affairs program produced for, about, and by Black Americans has been released by The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between WGBH and the Library of Congress.Largely unseen since they aired between 1968 and 1977, the 59 episodes have been digitized from archival tape in the Library’s collection and are...
    • Date: 2020-07-09

May 2020

  • May 29, 2020  (20-038)
    Library of Congress Commissions 10 New Works of Music in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic The Library of Congress will premiere a series of 10 commissions of new music from composers across America in The Boccaccio Project, inspired by a similar literary effort in the mid-14th century by Giovanni Boccaccio.The new commissions will premiere on the Library’s website and social media channels on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on weekdays from June 15 to June 26, and the commission manuscripts...
    • Date: 2020-05-29
  • May 21, 2020  (20-037)
    Library of Congress and Portland Ovations to Present the International Contemporary Ensemble with World Premieres Live on YouTube The Library of Congress and Portland Ovations will present the International Contemporary Ensemble in the Library’s first interactive digital concert – “Aural Explorations: Farrin, Fure and Messiaen” – on Thursday, May 28, at 7 p.m. Eastern time.The concert will feature the world premiere of the Library co-commissioned composition by Suzanne Farrin titled “Nacht,” capping a season-long celebration of women composers and performers honoring the...
    • Date: 2020-05-21
  • May 5, 2020  (20-035)
    Veterans History Project Launches New Feature Commemorating 75th Anniversary of the End of World War II The Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP) today launched, “End of World War II: 75th Anniversary,” a new online feature of the “Experiencing War” website that highlights firsthand accounts of the war’s end.Seventy five years ago, on May 8, 1945, Americans on the home front and the front lines celebrated the Allied victory in Europe — known as V-E Day — and began...
    • Date: 2020-05-05

April 2020

  • April 27, 2020  (20-033)
    Papers of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur and William McKinley Now Online The papers of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Chester Alan Arthur and William McKinley have been digitized and are now available online for the first time from the Library of Congress. These papers can be accessed both at the loc.gov website and on the new LOC Collections mobile app.The three presidencies represented in these collections all began or ended with the trauma of a presidential assassination....
    • Date: 2020-04-27
  • April 24, 2020  (20-031)
    Library of Congress Needs a Few Citizen DJs The Library of Congress is celebrating its 220th birthday today with a present for music-makers and music-lovers everywhere: a chance to play with Citizen DJ, a groundbreaking project that inspires hip-hop music-making from home and opens new doors into the Library’s extensive audio collections.Citizen DJ is an open-source web-browser application created by Library of Congress 2020 Innovator in Residence Brian Foo in partnership with...
    • Date: 2020-04-24
  • April 22, 2020  (20-032)
    Celebrate the Library's 220th Birthday with the LOC Collections App To celebrate the 220th anniversary of its founding, the Library of Congress today announced the release of the LOC Collections app, the premiere mobile app that puts the national library’s digital collections in the hands of users everywhere.In addition to providing an easy, accessible way to search and explore the Library’s growing digital collections, LOC Collections allows users to curate personal galleries of items...
    • Date: 2020-04-22
  • April 10, 2020  (20-029)
    Washington Post and Library Spotlight Poets Laureate in New Video Series During National Poetry Month During a time when many Americans are sheltering in place, four U.S. poets laureate will share poems and reflect on the subject of “home” and its meaning during our current moment in a new online video series from The Washington Post and the Library of Congress titled ‘The Poetry of Home.’In conversation via Zoom with Post Book Critic Ron Charles, the series will open...
    • Date: 2020-04-10
  • April 9, 2020  (20-028)
    Jason Reynolds Connects with Young People at Home through New Video Series and Newsletter In his new role as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Jason Reynolds will connect directly with young people online during the coronavirus pandemic, in collaboration with the Library of Congress, the Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader.On April 14, Reynolds will debut his first initiative in support of his platform GRAB THE MIC: Tell Your Story—including a monthly newsletter for parents...
    • Date: 2020-04-09

March 2020

  • March 30, 2020  (20-026)
    Dav Pilkey Collaborates with the Library to Serve Families at Home Dav Pilkey, the children’s author and illustrator behind award-winning and worldwide bestselling book series including Dog Man and Captain Underpants, is collaborating with the Library of Congress to serve children and families online during the coronavirus pandemic.Dav Pilkey at Home will feature new video content created by Pilkey himself on Friday mornings at 8 a.m. ET on social media channels and the websites of...
    • Date: 2020-03-30
  • March 10, 2020  (20-021)
    By the People Launches First Wholly Non-English Crowdsourced Transcription Project The Library’s crowdsourcing initiative By the People has launched its newest campaign to enlist the public’s help to make digital collection items more searchable and accessible online. Herencia: Centuries of Spanish Legal Documents includes thousands of pages of historical documents in Spanish, Latin and Catalan. As the first entirely non-English crowdsourced transcription project by the Library, this campaign will open the legal, religious and...
    • Date: 2020-03-10

February 2020

  • February 4, 2020  (20-008)
    Crowdsourcing Project Launches Campaign to Transcribe Rosa Parks' Papers and Reveal the Woman Behind the Legend By the People, the Library of Congress’ crowdsourced transcription project powered by volunteers across the country is launching a campaign to transcribe Rosa Parks’ personal papers to make them more searchable and accessible online, including many items featured in the exhibition, “Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words,” starting today, the 107th anniversary of her birth.Through By the People, anyone can explore, transcribe and tag...
    • Date: 2020-02-04

January 2020

  • January 29, 2020  (20-007)
    Historical Newspapers Edited by Frederick Douglass Now Online Newspapers edited by Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery in 1838 and became a voice for abolitionists as a journalist, orator, and author, have been digitized and are now available online from the Library of Congress.The collection is comprised of 568 issues of three weekly newspaper titles dating between 1847 and 1874: The North Star in Rochester, New York, Frederick Douglass’ Paper in Rochester, New...
    • Date: 2020-01-29

November 2019

  • November 8, 2019  (19-109)
    Newly Digitized Veterans History Project Collection Showcasing Veteran Artists Researchers, veterans and their families now have access to “Veterans and the Arts,” an online “Experiencing War” website feature highlighting the stories of veterans who pursued the arts during their post-military lives. This new feature includes nine digitized collections from the Veterans History Project (VHP) archive, each of which holds the first-person narrative of a veteran who used artistic endeavors – such as music,...
    • Date: 2019-11-08
  • November 4, 2019  (19-106)
    Newly Digitized Collections Now Online Include History of Women's Suffrage, Civil War, Landscape Architecture and Monetary Policy Researchers and students have gained access to seven newly digitized collections of manuscript materials from the Library of Congress, including records of one of the most important women’s suffrage organizations, the papers of President Abraham Lincoln’s personal secretary and collections on the history of federal monetary policy. The availability of these collections added more than 465,000 images to the Library’s already vast online resources.One...
    • Date: 2019-11-04

September 2019

  • September 16, 2019  (19-090)
    New Website Makes the U.S. Constitution Searchable with Supreme Court Interpretations Throughout History In celebration of Constitution Day, the Library of Congress is launching a new website – constitution.congress.gov – for the Constitution Annotated, the authoritative source for how the Supreme Court has interpreted the nation’s governing document over the years.With advanced search tools and a modern user-friendly interface, the new website makes the 3,000 pages of the Constitution Annotated fully searchable and accessible for the first...
    • Date: 2019-09-16
  • September 5, 2019  (19-085)
    Library of Congress Crowdsourcing Effort Challenges People to Explore Folk and Music Traditions From hot summer days in Mississippi to windy nights in the Caribbean, the Library of Congress’ latest crowdsourcing campaign, launched today, challenges virtual volunteers to explore folk and music traditions through the eyes and writings of one of America’s most famous 20th century folklorists, musicologists and oral historians: Alan Lomax.The new campaign — “The Man who Recorded the World: On the Road with Alan...
    • Date: 2019-09-05

July 2019

  • July 29, 2019  (19-073)
    Rare 2,000-Year-Old Text of Early Buddhism Now Online The Library of Congress has restored and made available online the Gandhara Scroll, a manuscript dating back to around the first century B.C., that offers insight into early Buddhist history. The scroll is one of the world’s oldest Buddhist manuscripts.The scroll originates from Gandhara, an ancient Buddhist region located in what is now the northern border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The scroll tells...
    • Date: 2019-07-29
  • July 24, 2019  (19-075)
    Papers of President James Garfield Now Online The papers of President James A. Garfield, who was assassinated in the first year of his short presidency, have been digitized and are now available online for the first time from the Library of Congress.The Garfield collection includes approximately 80,000 items, mostly dating from 1850 to 1881. The collection is online at: loc.gov/collections/james-a-garfield-papers/about-this-collection.Garfield’s papers include correspondence, diaries, speeches, records of his Civil War military...
    • Date: 2019-07-24

May 2019

  • May 15, 2019  (19-053)
    News Dispatches from The Associated Press from 1915 to 1930 Now Online Historical news reports and breaking news bulletins published by the Washington bureau of The Associated Press from 1915 to 1930, documenting a full chronology of world and national events, have been digitized and are now available online from the Library of Congress.The collection includes news dispatches from key moments in history, from the sinking of the Lusitania ocean liner in 1915, drawing the U.S....
    • Date: 2019-05-15
  • May 10, 2019  (19-052)
    Veterans History Project Connects D-Day Journeys in Interactive Online Experience for 75th Anniversary In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II, the Veterans History Project (VHP) at the Library of Congress today launched an interactive online experience that features unique journeys of veterans who were part of the invasion.The digital efforts include an interactive Story Map, “D-Day Journeys: Personal Geographies of D-Day,” and a new online website feature,...
    • Date: 2019-05-10
  • May 6, 2019  (19-046)
    Centuries of Rare Chinese Books Now Online at the Library of Congress In celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage month, the Library of Congress has digitized and made available online 1,000 Chinese rare books produced before 1796. The Chinese Rare Book Digital Collection includes the most valuable titles and editions housed in the Library’s Asian Division, some of which date as far back as the 10th century and are the only extant copies in the world.This...
    • Date: 2019-05-06

April 2019

  • April 29, 2019  (19-044)
    Classic Works of Children's Books Published More Than 100 Years Ago Now Online at the Library of Congress In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Children’s Book Week (April 29 to May 5), today the Library of Congress launched a unique online collection of 67 historically significant children’s books published more than 100 years ago. Drawn from the Library’s collection, Children’s Book Selections are digital versions both of classic works still read by children today and of lesser-known treasures. Additionally, today, DC-area...
    • Date: 2019-04-29
  • April 1, 2019  (19-036)
    1,000 Years of Literary Tradition in Rare Persian-Language Manuscripts Now Online at Library of Congress In celebration of the Persian New Year, also known as Nowruz, the Library of Congress has digitized and made available online for the first time the Rare Persian-Language Manuscript Collection, which sheds light on scientific, religious, philosophical and literary topics that are highly valued in the Persian speaking lands.This collection, including 150 manuscripts with some dating back to the 13th century, also reflects the...
    • Date: 2019-04-01

March 2019

  • March 18, 2019  (19-030)
    Archival Materials of Suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt Now Online The papers of suffragist and political strategist Carrie Chapman Catt, including her time as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, have been digitized and are now available online for the first time from the Library of Congress.The collection includes about 9,500 items dating primarily from 1890 to 1920 as Catt helped lead the fight for a federal suffrage amendment. The Catt Papers...
    • Date: 2019-03-18

February 2019

  • February 6, 2019  (19-016)
    Veterans History Project Launches New Online Exhibit on the GI Bill The Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP) today launched, “The GI Bill: 75 Years of Opportunity,” an online “Experiencing War” website feature that explores the impact of the GI Bill on 15 veterans interviewed for the VHP collection.The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, signed into law on June 22, 1944, and colloquially known as the GI Bill, was a landmark piece of legislation...
    • Date: 2019-02-06

January 2019

  • January 15, 2019  (19-004)
    Unique Autobiography Written in Arabic by an Enslaved Scholar Goes Online at the Library of Congress The Library of Congress has acquired and made available online the Omar Ibn Said Collection, which includes the only known extant narrative written in Arabic by an enslaved person in the United States. In 1831, Omar Ibn Said, a wealthy and highly educated man who was captured in Senegal, Africa, and brought to Charleston, South Carolina, as a slave, wrote a 15-page autobiography describing...
    • Date: 2019-01-15

November 2018

  • November 13, 2018  (18-135)
    Veterans History Project Launches New Online Exhibit on Vietnam War Photography The Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP) today launched “Personal Snapshots: Picturing the Vietnam War,” an online “Experiencing War” website feature highlighting 12 collections that document veterans’ wartime experiences. In addition to oral histories and written correspondence, the collections include candid, amateur photographs.Taken either for posterity or as keepsakes for loved ones on the home front, the images range from serene to silly...
    • Date: 2018-11-13

October 2018

  • October 24, 2018  (18-134)
    Crowdsourcing Tool Enables Discovery of Unique Treasures at the Library of Congress The Library of Congress today launched crowd.loc.gov, a crowdsourcing program that will connect the Library with virtual volunteers to transcribe text in digitized images from the Library’s historic collections.This project enables anyone with access to a computer to experience first-hand accounts in history while contributing to the Library’s ability to make these treasures more searchable and readable.Volunteers can work on selections from the papers...
    • Date: 2018-10-24
  • October 17, 2018  (18-132)
    Papers of President Theodore Roosevelt Now Online The largest collection of the papers of President Theodore Roosevelt, documenting his extraordinary career in the White House and as vice president, governor of New York, and as a naturalist, writer and reformer, has been digitized and is now available online from the Library of Congress.The digitization of the massive collection comes just before the 160th anniversary of Roosevelt’s birthday. The nation’s 26th president...
    • Date: 2018-10-17

September 2018

  • September 26, 2018  (18-125)
    National Screening Room of Free Motion Pictures Now Online The Library of Congress announced today that it has digitized hundreds of hours of motion pictures that will be freely available on the newly launched National Screening Room website. Most of the content in the National Screening Room is in the public domain. Movies that the Library believes to be in the public domain are fully downloadable. Permissions were granted for the inclusion of...
    • Date: 2018-09-26