Library Stuff

LOC – “The Library of Congress, at the initiative of House Leadership and under the guidance of the Committee on House Administration, today announced it has made the Congressional Record available as an app to users of iPad tablet devices. The Congressional Record delivered through the app is a PDF document that can be shared via email and be able to be browsed by date and searchable by keyword within an individual document or section; documents can also be saved to the iPad. Content includes Congressional Record issues dating from January 4, 1995 through the present.”

LOC – “My momma always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’” That line was immortalized by Tom Hanks in the award-winning movie “Forest Gump” in 1994. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today selected that film and 24 others to be preserved as cultural, artistic and historical treasures in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.”

Federal News Radio – “The Library of Congress and Twitter have signed an agreement that will see an archive of every public Tweet ever sent handed over to the library’s repository of historical documents. “We have an agreement with Twitter where they have a bunch of servers with their historic archive of tweets, everything that was sent out and declared to be public,” said Bill Lefurgy, the digital initiatives program manager at the library’s national digital information infrastructure and preservation program. The archives don’t contain tweets that users have protected, but everything else — billions and billions of tweets — are there. Lefurgy joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Amy Morris Tuesday morning to talk about the library’s digital mission.”

LOC – “Profiles of U.S. federal libraries from around the world are now available online. Presented dynamically with an interactive mapping tool, the Federal Library Directory displays geographic and collections data from more than 1,000 libraries. This publicly available dataset identifies members of the federal library and information center community and offers current information on their locations, collections, services and specialties. Sponsored by the Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC), with research assistance from the Federal Research Division (FRD), this virtual directory provides a comprehensive view of agency library efforts both in the United States and throughout the world. The compiled data includes details on collections, staff size, leadership, circulation and reference services.”

AP – “The world’s largest library is the subject of a new feature-length documentary set to premiere on C-SPAN. The production about the Library of Congress debuts Monday night. It follow’s C-SPAN’s similar documentaries about the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court.”

Washington Post – “Fenella France could see the faint trace of a cursive ‘t’ — a clue to the word deliberately smudged out and replaced by “citizens” in Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps Jefferson had written“patriots,” or even “residents,” France thought.

AP – “An Oregon man has given the Library of Congress a rare and unusual gift: a 120-year-old map supporting the theory that the Earth is flat. Don Homuth, of Salem, Ore., says the map was given to him by his eighth-grade teacher. It was created by Orlando Ferguson of Hot Springs, S.D.”

Washington Post – “The first ever jazz release. Yodeling. George Gershwin compositions. A reading of “Casey at the Bat.”

Metro reporter Justin Jouvenal reports that 10,000 pre-1925 recorded gems like these are now available for streaming at the just-launched National Jukebox, thanks to the Library of Congress and Sony.

“Call it America’s iTunes,” Jouvenal writes.”

LA Times – “The sounds of everybody from Duke Ellington to Jelly Roll Morton to obscure surfer dudes are preserved at a Library of Congress facility in Virginia. Access is limited, but that is about to change.”

From the LOC – “Of all your personal memories, photographs may have the most value to individuals and families. Photographs can provide irreplaceable information and chances are high that at least some of your photo albums, boxes of photos and now digital photos will remain of interest for a long time. Saving traditional and digital photographs for future access – including passing on to future generations – require different types of care.

Pass it On: Personal Archiving Day at the Library of Congress is a free public event taking place on Saturday, April 30, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event will provide information about preserving personal and family photographs in both digital and non-digital form.”