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 the Library and Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company.

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Out of an abundance of caution, all Library of Congress buildings and facilities will be closed to the public, including researchers and others with reader identification cards, until further notice to reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19 coronavirus. The Library has reduced the number of people in Library buildings to a very small number of necessary individuals.

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The gentle sounds of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Russ Hodges’ thrilling play-by-play of the National League tiebreaker between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951, the Village People’s international dance anthem, “Y.M.C.A.,” “Cheap Trick at Budokan” and the original 1964 Broadway cast recording of “Fiddler on the Roof” are among the newest recordings inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden today named these and 20 other recordings as aural treasures worthy of preservation because of their cultural, historical and aesthetic importance to the nation’s recorded sound heritage.

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The Library of Congress announced today that all public events at the Library are canceled until May 11 to reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19 coronavirus. Whenever possible, the Library will reschedule the public programs that have been canceled. We will also provide regular public updates on the operating status of Library facilities. Library of Congress buildings and facilities remain closed to the public until Wednesday, April 1, 2020 at 8 a.m.

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Out of an abundance of caution, the Library of Congress announced today that all Library of Congress buildings and facilities will be closed to the public starting at 5 p.m. today until Thursday, April 1, 2020 at 8 a.m. to reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19 coronavirus.

Library employees, contractors, authorized visitors and other credentialed Capitol Hill staff will continue to have access to the buildings. During the closure, all Library-sponsored public programs are postponed or cancelled through the end of March.

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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 personal histories of Spain and its colonies to greater discovery by researchers, historians, genealogists and lifelong learners.

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TONIGHT, Monday, March 2 beginning at 7pm ET

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden will host a conversation with Grammy Award-winning country music singer and songwriter Garth Brooks. Brooks and Hayden will be joined by country music artist, actress, author, celebrity chef and wife of Brooks, Trisha Yearwood. They will discuss their success as a country music power couple, their careers as music industry changemakers and the humanitarian projects they devote their efforts to each year.

Brooks will receive the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song later that week on Wednesday, March 4. The country music titan and multiple hall of famer is the youngest recipient of the prestigious prize.

You can follow and join in on the #GershwinPrize conversation via Twitter.

Watch here on the Library's YouTube page.

Watch here on the Library's Facebook page.
Tune in to Facebook at 6:30 pm ET for a special edition of Garth Brooks' "Inside Studio G" Facebook program LIVE from the Library of Congress!

The public will have the opportunity to provide input to the Library of Congress on expertise needed by the next Register of Copyrights, the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, announced today.

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The Library of Congress is extending its public hours on Thursday evenings and will feature regular live programming for visitors as part of a new initiative, Live! At the Library, beginning April 2 to showcase the broad range of literature, poetry, art, music, digital collections and other holdings at the national library.

The Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building and all exhibitions at the Library – currently featuring the long fight for women’s voting rights and Rosa Parks’ groundbreaking role in civil rights – will be open for extended hours on Thursday evenings from 5 to 8 p.m. every week. Exhibitions and programs will remain free and open to everyone. The Main Reading Room will be open for research during this time, and visitors and researchers will have the opportunity to register for reader cards. Other selected reading rooms may also be open on Thursday nights as a part of evening programming.

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Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress has acquired the archive of photographer Shawn Walker and his collection of photos, ephemera and audio recordings representing the influential Kamoinge Workshop based in Harlem, the Library announced today.

Founded in New York City in 1963, the Kamoinge Workshop is a collective of leading African American photographers, such as Anthony Barboza, Louis Draper, Adger Cowans, Albert Fenner, Ray Francis, Toni Parks, Herb Randall, Herb Robinson, Beuford Smith and Ming Smith. Walker is a founding member and also served as an archivist, helping to preserve the group’s history.

The Shawn Walker archive contains nearly 100,000 photographs, negatives and transparencies depicting life in Harlem — a pivotal crossroad of African diaspora culture — between 1963 and the present. The Kamoinge collection — generously donated by Walker — consists of nearly 2,500 items, including prints by Kamoinge members such as Barboza, Draper, Smith and others. The Library of Congress worked with the Photography Collections Preservation Project to acquire both the Walker archive and the Kamoinge collection with an electronic finding aid. These materials will join the Library’s other important collections of photography by African Americans such as Gordon Parks, Robert McNeill, Roland Freeman, Dawoud Bey and Walker’s mentor, Roy DeCarava.

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A major gift by philanthropist David Rubenstein will help fund a project to reimagine and enhance the visitor experience for the nearly 2 million people who visit the Library of Congress' Thomas Jefferson Building each year. The goal is to better connect visitors with history and provide better access to the unparalleled collections held by the national library.

Rubenstein, the chairman of the Library’s James Madison Council and co-executive chairman of The Carlyle Group, will make a lead gift of $10 million to support the visitor experience project.

Rubenstein’s gift will build on the significant public investment Congress has made in the Library’s infrastructure. It will support the strategic plan set by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden to make the Library more user centered for Congress, creators and learners of all ages.

“Literacy is critical to learning and achieving one’s full potential. The Library of Congress plays a unique role in advancing literacy and fostering a love of country and community. I am honored to be a part of this important project to enhance the visitor experience and present the Library’s countless treasures in new and creative ways,” Rubenstein said. “I commend Dr. Hayden for her vision and leadership in modernizing the Library’s spectacular Jefferson Building in ways that respect its beauty and grandeur.”

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The Library of Congress is seeking applications from current teachers of journalism or economics for a Teacher-in-Residence position within its Learning and Innovation Office during the 2020-21 school year.

The program description and application details for the position can be found at this website. Applications are due on Friday, March 27, 2020.

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Vibrant springtime traditions of cherry blossom viewing in Japan and Washington, D.C., are explored in the new book “Cherry Blossoms: Sakura Collections from the Library of Congress,” published today by Smithsonian Books, in association with the Library of Congress. Events at the Library in April will feature the book and celebrate the annual return of the cherry blossoms to the nation's capital.

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The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress is pleased to announce several new scholars who have arrived or will arrive in residence in 2020.

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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 107^th anniversary of her birth.

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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 York, and New National Era in Washington, D.C. The collection is online at: loc.gov/collections/frederick-douglass-newspapers/about-this-collection.

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Applications are being accepted for the 2020 Library of Congress Literacy Awards from Jan. 13 to March 6.

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Jason Reynolds has been appointed as the seventh National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature for 2020-2021. The Newbery Honor recipient succeeds Jacqueline Woodson, who served as National Ambassador in 2018-2019.

Reynolds is the author of 13 books for young people including his most recent, “Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks,” a National Book Award finalist, which was named a Best Book of 2019 by NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post and TIME. 

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Thank You!

Thank you for all you do to support the nation’s Library. With new books, films, and music arriving every day, the Library of Congress is your place to discover new ideas. Whether you support us with a gift or simply by spreading the word about what we do, you help us in our mission to connect millions of people around the world with the stories of the world’s past, present, and future.

Spread the word and encourage your friends and family to visit us online or in person and make a gift to the nation’s library today!

Make Your Gift Before We Close the Books on 2019

The Library of Congress is your place to discover new ideas. Visit our new exhibitions, join us for our events and educational programs and participate in our activities that connect you with millions of people around the world.

Join the community of people that helps ignite the power of ideas and make your tax-deductible donation today!

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today that she has appointed Maria Strong as Acting Register of Copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office, effective January 5, 2020.

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The Library of Congress today announced a major endowment in support of the work of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS). Established by Susan D. Diskin in honor of her late mother, the Tiby Diskin Memorial Fund will provide resources for the Library to expand its services to individuals with visual impairments and other print disabilities.

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To honor the innovative ways in which federal libraries, librarians and library technicians fulfill the information demands of government, businesses, researchers, scholarly communities and the American public, the Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK) in the Library of Congress has opened nominations for its national awards for federal librarianship in fiscal year 2019.

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For the third year, the Library of Congress is announcing a Librarians-in-Residence program to offer early career librarians the opportunity to develop their expertise and contribute to building, stewarding and sharing the institution’s national collections.  

Applications will be accepted from December 12, 2019 to January 17, 2020.

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A new book from the Library of Congress reveals the civil rights icon, Rosa Parks, for the first time in print through her private manuscripts and handwritten notes. The publication with University of Georgia Press is a companion to the new exhibition of the same title, “Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words.”

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