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What Being a Writer Feels Like : "Every day I see people shrugging with a derisiving look when I say being a writer is what I carve myself out to be." Read more... ...

(The following is a guest post from Audrey Fischer, editor of the Library of Congress Magazine.) Fifty years ago, the Library installed its first computer and began charting a course to bibliographic control and global shared access. On Jan. 15, 1964, the first components of a small-scale computer system were delivered to the Library of […]...

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(The following is a guest post by James Sweany, head of Local History and Genealogy in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division.) The best way to preserve your family history is to write it down. By publishing your family history, you are able to capture and preserve the stories, pictures and genealogical data, making it […]...

(The following is an article written by Mark Hartsell, editor of the Library of Congress staff newsletter, The Gazette. Author Kate DiCamillo was sworn in today as the newest Library of Congress National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.) The inner voice of Kate DiCamillo belongs to a 10-year-old girl from a small Florida town who […]...

Every year, the Library of Congress announces the addition of 25 films to the National Film Registry, and every year, media outlets far and wide run stories on the initiative.  According to a Google search on the story, more than 230 news articles highlighted the selections for 2013. “To me, this honor goes on the same […]...

Blogs around the Library of Congress decked the halls with a variety of posts in December. Here are a few selections to unwrap. In the Muse: Performing Arts Blog Podcast: Song Travels | Michael Feinstein Interviews Rosanne Cash Singer and musician Michael Feinstein interviews Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal about Cash’s new album “The River and […]...

Aliens. Spacealiens. No such thing. How theyd fought it out, cosmic mysteries reduced to raw shouting in the uncaring morning. Her leaving in wrath and now returning, straight into the bedroom without him. Rustling and thumps. Read more... ...

The Library of Congress has one of the world’s premier collections of U.S. and foreign genealogical and local historical publications. The Local History and Genealogy Reading Room, located in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, is the hub for such research. More than 50,000 genealogies and 100,000 local histories comprise its collections. The Library’s royalty, nobility […]...

Santa Claus is one of the most popular and recognizable figures surrounding the Christmas season. He brings us gifts and inspires imagination, so what’s not to love? While he may bring joy to young and old alike, he can also be a bit frightful. We all know the scene in the mall of upset children […]...

On Dec. 22, 1864, William T. Sherman sent President Abraham Lincoln a telegram that included a pretty monumental “gift,” according to the Civil War general. “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah with 150 heavy guns & plenty of ammunition & also about 25.000 bales of cotton. W. T. […]...

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, and in the early 20th century, the Kodak Company wanted to make sure you were fully equipped to capture those moments, particularly for the holidays. In this ad from the Eastman Kodak Co., (1907), consumers were encouraged to buy a Kodak camera to capture their own Christmas […]...

Twinkling lights, multicolored ornaments, sparkly tinsel, hanging candy canes – trimming the Christmas tree is a tradition of the holiday season, for those that celebrate. At 7 Hawthorn Street in Dayton, Ohio, the Wright Brothers decorated their tree with popcorn garland, candles, paper angles angels, sparkly ornaments and a star topper. In this picture, ca. 1900, […]...

Happy holidays from the Library of Congress! With more than 155 million items in its collections, it’s no surprise that the institution could really celebrate the season all year, highlighting a variety of holiday-related items. We’ll deck the halls for the next several days featuring historical holdings from the nation’s library. While this card,ca. 1935, […]...

Quick: what do the movies “Mary Poppins” and “Pulp Fiction” have in common? Well, yes, they’re both motion pictures.  But now, both are listed on the Library of Congress National Film Registry, a collection of films – 25 are added each year – deemed worthy of preservation due to their cultural, historic or aesthetic significance. […]...

On Dec. 16, 1773, a group of Bostonians dressed as Mohawk Indians boarded ships docked in Boston Harbor and dumped some 340 chests of tea into the water. Today marks the 240th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. “A number of brave & resolute men, determined to do all in their power to save their […]...

(The following is an article written by Mark Hartsell, editor of the Library of Congress staff newsletter, The Gazette.) The file boxes of Charles and Ray Eames yielded all sorts of eclectic items to archivists processing the collection at the Library of Congress – a letter from Georgia O’Keefe in this one, a receipt for […]...

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas … in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, that is. Every year, the Library decks its hall with a tall tree, replete with lights and ornaments for the enjoyment of the institution’s patrons. Here, you can see workers are putting on the finishing touches. How […]...

The festival was the brainchild of Lola Shoneyin, who (as described by Olakunle Kasumu) dreamt it, said it, and did it. There are many other festivals in Nigeria, of course, Lagos and Port Harcourt being among the biggest. But none has attracted the international line-up of Ake. Most of us would agree that we were there because of Lola: Binyavanga Wainaina, Eghosa Imasuen, Toni Kan, A Igoni Barrett,...

s novel, Ghana Must God . It does appear to me, though, that Tveit has engaged in a reductive, uberfurious, Binyanwangan reading of Selasi's richly nuanced essay. Selasi herself is not brown. She is a mutt - being Yoruba and Ghanaian (excuse my ignorance of her father's ethnicity). There is also a cultural element of Selasi...