News from the Library of Congress

Friends of the Library of Congress,A Materials from the Musical aHadestowna and More

Be A Friend + Vote for the 2024 Friends Choice Awards!

What does a preservation makeover really look like?A How does supporting librarians serving the blind and print disabled worldwide build accessible collections?A Where do you begin celebrating Africana food and foodways?A Help us find out!A Be a friend and Vote for your choice in the 2024 Friendsa Choice Awards.A A A A

The Friends' Choice Award recognizes the project donors most want to fund.A You get to decide!A If you're already a Friend of the Library - check your email for the voting link. If you are not a Friend - join today! Memberships begin at $50 annually. Learn more about the proposals and vote for the one you want to see come to life.

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Materials from the Musical aHadestowna Added to Library of Congress Collections

The Library of Congress has added rare materials from the development of the Tony Award-winning musical aHadestowna to its collections, thanks to a donation from the showas Tony Award-winning creator, singer-songwriter AnaA-s Mitchell.

Library Announces 2023 Music Commissions from Koussevitzky Foundation

The Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress has awarded commissions for new musical works to six composers. The commissions are granted jointly by the foundation and the performing organizations that will present the world premiere of each work.

The Wright Brothers History Takes Wing at the Library

At 10:35 on the morning of Dec. 17, 1903, on a remote sand dune in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, mankind flew for the first time. Orville Wright piloted a homemade airplane powered by a homemade engine for a few wobbly seconds while his brother and co-creator Wilbur ran alongside the right wingtip. aSuccess four flights thursday morninga Orville telegraphed their father back home in Dayton, Ohio. The world would never be the same. Humans flew to the moon 65 years later.

News from the Library of Congress

National Book Festival, Live! at the Library, Ken Burns Prize for Film and More

Join us in the nationas capital at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Saturday, August 12, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. (doors open at 8:30 a.m.). If you can't join us in Washington, D.C. for a day of free talks and activities, several programs will be livestreamed, and video of all talks can be viewed online after the Festival concludes.

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Enjoy summer movies and music on the lawn this August during Live at the Library. On Aug. 3, take a bachata class from Julissa Cruz of the Latin Vintage Dance Company before a screening of aMary Poppins.a Plus, join the Library of Congress for screenings in the historic Coolidge Auditorium later in the month, and enjoy cafA(c) concerts in the Great Hall starting Aug. 17.

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Among the great joys of our work in the Music Division of the Library of Congress are the occasions when distinguished creators from the world of the performing arts visit us and have the opportunity to examine first-hand the original manuscripts that document the creativity of previous generations. Such was the case in June 2018 when Tony Bennett visited the Library.

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Doodles, Puzzles, Peek-A-Boo, and a Dutch Book of Hours Many of us have a distinctive doodle. We can recognize our former school notebooks from the familiar designs that repeat in various combinations on the corners of pages. Some of these drawn figures may still inadvertently appear on a memo pad when we find ourselves on a lengthy telephone call. The connotation of the word adoodlea implies that the penwork lacks intentionality, and therefore fifteenth-century scribes in the Northern Netherlands cannot be said to have adoodleda in the borders of their manuscripts. Nevertheless, the effect of their labors on paper and parchment is remarkably similar to some of our finer memo pad masterpieces. Learn more.

One of the Libraryas most prestigious awards, the annual Prize for American Fiction honors an American literary writer whose body of work is distinguished not only for its mastery of the art but also for its originality of thought and imagination. The award seeks to commend strong, unique, enduring voices that a throughout consistently accomplished careers a have told us something essential about the American experience.

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The Better Angels Society, the Library of Congress, and the Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation announced the six finalists for the fifth annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film. The award, which was established in 2019, recognizes late-stage documentaries that use original research and compelling narrative to tell stories that bring American history to life through archival materials.

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Library of Congress Launches Video Game Challenge for Civic Engagement

The Library is calling on video game developers to create fun and lightweight video games related to civics that incorporate Library resources. This challenge is part of an effort to improve public knowledge of the rights and responsibilities of American citizens. Winning video game entries, to be announced early next year, will receive $35,000 in cash prizes.

Learn more.

News from the Library of Congress

Book Festival Author Lineup, Papers of Composer John Adams, Poet Laureateas Poem for NASAas Europa Clipper and More

The 2023 Library of Congress National Book Festival returns to the Washington Convention Center on Saturday, Aug. 12. The festivalas theme, aEveryone Has a Story,a celebrates the storyteller in us all.

Attendees will hear conversations that reflect their lived experiences and stories, with presentations for every type of reader. Memoirs will be featured on several stages, including actor Elliot Pageas aPageboya and R.K. Russellas aThe Yards Between Us: A Memoir of Life, Love and Football.a NPR journalists Mary Louise Kelly and Ari Shapiro tell the stories of their lives and careers in their new books. Uyghur poet Tahir Hamut Izgil discusses his homeland and the persecution of Muslim minorities in western China.

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The Library of Congress has acquired the music manuscripts and papers of contemporary American composer, conductor and writer John Adams. Adams is known for works including the opera aNixon in Chinaa and concert pieces such as aShaker Loops,a aHarmonielehre,a aRoad Movies,a aChamber Symphonya and aShort Ride in a Fast Machine.a

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U.S. Poet Laureate Ada LimA3n revealed a new poem that will fly into space aboard NASAas Europa Clipper mission on a yearslong journey to explore Jupiteras icy moon Europa. The poem, first shared publicly during a special reading at the Library of Congress, will be engraved on the spacecraft set to launch in October 2024.

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Annual Summer Movies on the Lawn to Present National Film Registry Selections

The Library will host its annual aSummer Movies on the Lawna series starting July 6. The series featuring films from the Libraryas National Film Registry will be presented Thursday evenings at sundown on the southeast lawn of the Libraryas Thomas Jefferson Building. Music will be presented prior to each film, with live performances on July 6, July 20 and Aug. 3.

Paid Research Fellowships at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress

Applications are now open with a deadline of September 15, 2023, for multiple fellowship positions at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

The Kluge Center exists to further the study of humanity through the use of the large and varied collections of the Library of Congress. All fields and disciplines within the social sciences and the humanities, including interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research, are welcome. Fellows hold book borrowing privileges and are in residence with desk space in the historic Thomas Jefferson Building with access to specialized librarians throughout the Library. Applicants may be US citizens or foreign nationals, and foreign nationals will be assisted in obtaining necessary visas.

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Library of Congress Launches Video Game Challenge for Civic Engagement

The Library is calling on video game developers to create fun and lightweight video games related to civics that incorporate Library resources. This challenge is part of an effort to improve public knowledge of the rights and responsibilities of American citizens. Winning video game entries, to be announced early next year, will receive $35,000 in cash prizes.

Learn more.

News from the Library of Congress

Ada LimA3n to Reveal Poem for NASA Europa, Film Festival Lineup of of Rare Cinema and Special Guests Released,A Library Awards More than $200,000 to Five Projects Highlighting Uses of Digital CollectionsA and More

During Live at the Library in June, U.S. Poet Laureate Ada LimA3n a recently reappointed for a historic two-year term a will unveil her original poem written for the NASA Europa Clipper mission. Plus, celebrations for the Juneteenth holiday will honor African American folk music and photography. Celebrate Pride with a concert saluting Billy Strayhorn on June 8, and view a display of LGBTQ+ collection items in the Great Hall.

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Individuals and educational and cultural institutions who seek to imaginatively remix and reuse the Library of Congressa digital collections and create projects centering one or more of the following groups, Black, Indigenous, Hispanic or Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander and/or other communities of color a are invited to apply to award opportunities through the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative.

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The Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center is announcing the full lineup of rare cinema and special guests to be featured at the inaugural Library of Congress Festival of Film and Sound.A The new four-day film festival will be held June 15-18 in association with the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center at the American Film Instituteas beautifully restored 1938 art deco theater in Silver Spring, Maryland.

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The Library of Congress announced that five awards, totaling more than $200,000, have been awarded from the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative through a program available to Libraries, Archives, Museums and Higher Education institutions. The 2023 awardees will use these funds to create projects that offer creative approaches to the Libraryas digital collections and center Black, Indigenous, and Latino or Hispanic studies.

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Library Completes Digitization of Yongle Encyclopedia, Largest Reference Work of Pre-Modern Era

The Library of Congress has completed a yearslong effort to digitize the Yongle Encyclopedia (Yongle dadian aedeg,ae"a$?SSa,), the largest reference work created in pre-modern China, and possibly the world. Digital publication of the 41 volumes held in the Libraryas collections provides open access to one of the most extensive attempts in world history to capture the entirety of human knowledge in book form.

News from the Library of Congress

2023 National Recording Registry,A U.S. Poet Laureate Ada LimA3n Appointed for a Historic Two-Year Second Term, Main ReadingA Room OpeningA and More

Madonnaas cultural ascent with aLike a Virgin,a Mariah Careyas perennial No. 1 Christmas hit, Queen Latifahas groundbreaking aAll Hail the Queena and Daddy Yankeeas reggaeton explosion with aGasolinaa are some of the defining sounds of the nationas history and culture that will now join the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. The 2023 class also includes the first sounds of a video game to join the registry with the Super Mario Bros. theme, powerful voices of women, important inductions of Latin music, and classic sounds of rock and pop from the 1960s to the a80s.

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U.S. Poet Laureate Ada LimA3n Appointed for a Historic Two-Year Second Term

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has appointed Ada LimA3n to serve a two-year second term as the nationas 24^th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.

The act of Congress establishing the poet laureate position states that the Librarian may appoint a laureate afor one- or two-year terms.a This is the first time a laureate will serve the longer option. LimA3nas second term will begin in September 2023 and conclude in April 2025.

Honor Vietnam War veterans during Live at the Library in celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam War Memorial on May 11. Cultural events in May also will celebrate Yiddish history in the United States and the history of recipes and cookbooks in America.

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The Library welcomes visitors to experience its grand Main Reading Room in the Thomas Jefferson Building. The floor of the Main Reading Room is now open for visitors to view from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. and 2 to 3 p.m. on Tuesdays through Fridays. Usually reserved for researchers, this access will offer visitors a chance to walk inside and see one of Washingtonas most beautiful spaces. This opportunity is limited by capacity and available on a first come, first served basis for visitors.

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Webinar to Present Advances in Microbiome Research

The Health Services Division and Science, Technology and Business Division will host a webinar on Thursday, April 27, to discuss advances in microbiome research and the potential and promise of microbiome-based medicine in the era of precision management. Eugene B. Chang, an award-winning professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, will discuss the challenges, limitations and promises of microbiome research, at a time of important discoveries about how microbiomes can affect human diseases and treatments.