Library of Congress Magazine July/August 2015
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS MAGAZINE JULY/AUGUST 2015 The Path a Book Takes Gifts to the Nation’s Library THE ART OF Summer in Washington The Civil War in 3-D ACQUISITION Jefferson’s Library Within WWW.LOC.GOV In This Issue JULY/AUGUST 2015 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS MAGAZINE FEATURES Library of Congress Magazine Vol. 4 No. 4: July/August 2015 Mission of the Library of Congress Gifts to the Nation’s Library 8 The Library’s trove of multi-format treasure grows daily, thanks in The mission of the Library is to support the Congress in fulfilling its constitutional duties large part to collections donated by generous individuals. and to further the progress of knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people. The Art of Acquisition 10 The Library of Congress seeks, finds and collects the creative output of Library of Congress Magazine is issued the entire world in every medium imaginable. bimonthly by the Office of Communications of the Library of Congress and distributed free of charge to publicly supported libraries and The Path a Book Takes research institutions, donors, academic libraries, 16 Follow the journey taken by each of the thousands of books added to learned societies and allied organizations in the Library¹s collection daily. 6 the United States. Research institutions and Stereograph collector Robin Stanford educational organizations in other countries may arrange to receive Library of Congress Magazine on an exchange basis by applying in writing to the Library’s Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington DC 20540-4100. LCM is also available on the web at www.loc.gov/lcm DEPARTMENTS All other correspondence should be addressed to the Office of Communications, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., 02 21 Washington DC 20540-1610. How Do I ? Curator’s Picks 20 02 22 The Bay Psalm Book e-mail [email protected] For You The Library in History www.loc.gov/lcm 03 23 ISSN 2169-0855 (print) Numbers at a Glance Favorite Places ISSN 2169-0863 (online) 04 Trending 24 Around the Library James H. Billington 05 Technology 25 News Briefs Librarian of Congress 06 26 Online Offerings Shop the Library Gayle Osterberg Executive Editor 15 Expert’s Corner 27 Support the Library 20 28 Audrey Fischer My Job Last Word Editor John H. Sayers 24 Managing Editor ON THE COVER: The Library of Congress collections include (clockwise from top) video Singer-songwriter Pam Tillis Ashley Jones games, instruments, campaign buttons, a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, Designer stereographs and baseball cards. Shawn Miller Photo Editor Contributing Writers CONNECT ON Attributed to Sir Francis Bacon and quoted by Thomas Jefferson and Beth Davis-Brown Jennifer Gavin others, the phrase “Knowledge is Power” adorns the first floor east Twitter: Pinterest: corridor in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building. Carol Highsmith Abigail Grotke @librarycongress pinterest.com/LibraryCongress/ Mark Hartsell Youtube: youtube.com/libraryofcongress Library of Congress blogs: blogs.loc.gov Jay I. Kislak Facebook: facebook.com/libraryofcongress LCM online: loc.gov/lcm Susan Morris Flickr: flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/ Joseph Puccio Peter Stark July/August 2015 | loc.gov/lcm 1 how DO I? numbersAT A GLANCE DONATE BOOKS AND OTHER UNPARALLELED MATERIALS TO THE LIBRARY Moving Images (films, COLLECTIONS videos, television THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CURRENTLY CONTAINS MORE broadcasts and DVDs) THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS welcomes inquiries THAN 160 MILLION ITEMS. about donations of library materials but reserves the right not to accept unsolicited items. Donated material will be reviewed for potential selection for Other (posters, the Library’s collections. Items may not be selected prints, drawings, for a variety of reasons. For example, the Library broadsides, etc.) More than 15,000 acquires many U.S. book titles through copyright 15,000 Visual deposit. Thus, books offered to the Library for items come to the Library each Materials in donation may already be part of the collection. working day. the Library’s TO DONATE: Collection Donor Tom Liljenquist holds an 1. Do NOT send or drop off unsolicited material. original American Civil War tintype, also pictured left, part of a larger collection he donated to the Library. 2. Send gift offers to the Library via email to [email protected]. More than 50 Shealah Craighead million master 50 million 3. Include the following information in the gift offer: digital files Photographs converted from • Description of the item(s) to be donated, including author, collection items title, place and date of publication, publisher and edition statement; • An estimate of the quantity of items to be donated; The Library’s collection contain • An assessment of the physical condition of the item(s). MORE INFORMATION 470 materials in some Note: To make monetary gifts, please contact the Library’s loc.gov/acq/donatex.html 470 languages. 1,771,595 202.707.0792 Development Office at loc.gov/donate.html Moving images 3,567,336 Audio materials 3,370,782 Other 5,539,890 AT THE LIBRARY Maps & globes 7,113,157 Sheet music SURPLUS BOOKS 14,908,337 THE SURPLUS BOOKS PROGRAM Photographs, prints strengthens the 16,912,491 and drawings nation’s educational resources by providing eligible Microforms organizations with surplus books and material no longer needed by the Library of Congress. The guiding principle behind the program is to build library collections. 37,965,039 Books and WHAT: Surplus Books Program To qualify for the program, organizations must be other print WHERE: James Madison Memorial located in the United States and fall into one of the material Building, Room B03 following categories: a tax-supported or nonprofit (volumes) WHEN: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., educational institution (school, school system, Monday through Friday, except college, university, museum or public library); federal holidays an agency of local, state or federal government; COST: FREE a nonprofit organization with tax-exempt status 69,626,842 under section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code of Manuscripts 1954 that operates a library and/or research center (sheets) open to the public. CURRENT HOLDINGS total 160,775,469 Surplus Books loc.gov/acq/surplus.html phone 202.707.9524 email [email protected] 2 LCM | Library of Congress Magazine July/August 2015 | loc.gov/lcm 3 #trending AT THE LIBRARY technology AT THE LIBRARY HARVESTING THE SUMMER IN EVER-CHANGING WEB WASHINGTON THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT A SELECT GROUP OF STUDENTS FROM ACROSS OF DETERMINING HOW BEST TO COLLECT AND STORE THE COUNTRY IS SPENDING SUMMER IN THE WEBSITE CONTENT. NATION’S LIBRARY. Since the earliest days of the Internet, websites have appeared, changed dramatically, even How did you vanished without a trace. From the start, spend your summer librarians, archivists and other information vacation? The professionals knew that this born-digital content proverbial question is needed to be preserved for future generations. the subject of many back-to-school essays. Early on, the Internet Archive (www.archive.org) and a few national libraries and archives around For the tens of the world began collecting web content through thousands of students a process known as web archiving—the gathering who flock to the Junior Fellow Isamar Abreu-Gomez processes the (harvesting) of Internet data, storing it and nation’s capital each Library’s miniature collections. Shawn Miller ensuring that it is preserved and accessible. summer, the answer is that they held a projects,” said Beatriz Haspo, collections officer The Library of Congress launched its web coveted internship in in the Library’s Collections Access, Loan and archiving program in 2000. Since then, subject a federal, private or Management Division and the Junior specialists have archived websites on a variety nonprofit institution. Technological considerations. The Library’s Fellows coordinator. of topics as part of a continuing effort to Shawn Miller Among the most evaluate, select, collect, catalog, provide access goal is to create an archival copy of how a site sought after is the “I have to pinch myself to believe I’m here at to, and preserve digital materials for researchers appeared at a particular point in time, including Library of Congress Junior Fellows the place where Library of Congress cataloging today. To date, the Library has created more HTML, images, PDFs, and audio and video files, Summer Internship. records are created,” said Isamar Abreu-Gomez, than 70 thematic and event-based web archive to provide context for future researchers. Special a graduate student in library science at the collections—comprising approximately 582 software helps make this possible. However, there This summer, 36 undergraduate and University of Puerto Rico. With an interest in terabytes of data—which are publicly accessible are limits to what can be archived. For instance, graduate students from 21 states, the preservation, Abreu-Gomez has been given the on its website. These range from the White House the web-crawler tools that exist have difficulty District of Columbia and Puerto Rico opportunity to process and rehouse items from website to those of various Members of Congress, archiving streaming media or database content were selected from more than 800 the miniature collections in the Collections the National Urban League, the League of requiring user input. applicants nationwide to work at the Access, Loan and Management Division. Women Voters and the government of Darfur. Library of Congress. During the 10-week Copyright considerations. While some countries Many of the archived websites pertain to the paid internship, June 1 through Aug. 7, fellows have a legal mandate allowing libraries to “You will learn from the best people in their events of Sept. 11, 2001. are exposed to a broad spectrum of library field,” said Deputy Librarian David Mao upon make preservation copies of websites without work: copyright deposits, collections processing, greeting the 2015 class of Junior Fellows, pictured As one of the founding members of the permission, the U.S.