Posts Tagged: Library of Congress

Libraries Are the Real Punk Rock

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Maybe I was only in the eighth grade, but I was ready to stand up to anyone who tried to threaten the ideal of intellectual freedom.

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Swinging Modern Sounds #81: On Cultural Preservation

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The Lost Boys had their moment in the media, but these people, these survivors, not boys at all and not lost now either, are still here, living lives, growing and changing and thinking and reflecting.

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Our New Librarian-in-Chief’s Favorite Children’s Book

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Last week, Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress, making her the first woman and the first African-American in the position. Hayden talked with Jeffrey Brown of PBS Newshour about the challenges of her new position, and her favorite children’s book, Bright April by Marguerite de Angeli, a story about a […]

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The Popular Vote

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The Library of Congress recently polled American citizens to find out what books had the most profound effect on them. Among the 17,000-plus survey respondents, popular answers were books like Frank Herbert’s Dune, Stephen King’s The Stand, and The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. While some literary greats like Toni Morrison did not appear on […]

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New Ambassador for Young People’s Lit

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The Library of Congress is, for the first time, naming a graphic novelist as the Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. The honor goes to Gene Luen Yang, author of the graphic novels American Born Chinese and Boxers & Saints, among others. The post was created in 2008 to help promote children’s and young adult literature, and […]

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Playboy to Focus on Writing

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Ray Bradbury, Joseph Heller, Margaret Atwood, Jack Kerouac, and Kurt Vonnegut all found homes for their stories in Playboy. Now the publication better known for the highly photoshopped pictures of naked women plans to focus on its articles—by March 2016, the magazine will do away with nude pictures. Playboy’s articles have always been a source of […]

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Fugazi Meets the Library of Congress

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Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye gave a talk at the Washington D.C. Library of Congress about digital archiving and the need to educate creators. The landscape of archiving one’s work has dramatically changed in recent decades as everything can be instantly loaded (and saved for eternity) to the web: I think that people are constantly thinking […]

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United Books of America

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The Library of Congress has put together a provocative list of 88 Books That Shaped America. (Happy belated 4th!) The LOC is also ready for nominations on what to add and why. The list is officially unfinished and meant to inspire conversation on what American literature has done to influence the lives of the country’s […]

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Notes on E-books and Readers

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The big news this week was the iPad announcement, including the tech-world’s dismissal of it. (Fraser Speirs addresses that nicely.) But there’s a lot more happening in the world of e-books. For example, NASA just opened an e-book section and its first offering is a history of the X-15 hypersonic test aircraft. And the Library […]

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