Library of Congress's Blog, page 101

Trending: Celebrating the World Series with Song

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“The Red Sox Speed Boys” commemorates the victory of the Red Sox over the New York Giants in the 1912 World Series.

Baseball and music have a basic affinity, as any fan knows. . . . [E]very pitch ends either with the satisfying pop of the catcher’s mitt or the tension-creating crack of the bat. . . . It should surprise no one that a game with such inherently strong elements of musicality should have attracted scores of people who wanted to set it to music.

—David Broder, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and loyal Cubs fan

The Library holds more than 400 published songs about baseball in its Music Division, many of them from the heyday of American sheet music, 1895 to 1920, when baseball’s popularity was also growing. The first modern World Series was played during these years, in 1903, matching the victorious Boston Americans against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

In honor of the 2017 World Series, we’d like to call your attention to a selection of baseball sheet music on display at the Library of Congress through December 30. If you can’t make it to Washington, D.C., by then, you can view the exhibition, Baseball’s Greatest Hits: The Music of Our National Game, online.

Here are a few baseball songs (and a movie!) to get you started.

“The White Sox March” commemorates one of the greatest upsets in World Series history. In 1906, the Chicago White Sox—known as the “hitless wonders” after finishing the season with the worst team batting average (.230) in the American League—defeated a powerful Chicago Cubs in six games.
“The Red Sox Speed Boys” celebrated in song the triumph of the Red Sox over the New York Giants in the 1912 World Series. That year, which marked the inaugural season of Boston’s Fenway Park, was an exceptional one for the Red Sox. The team won 105 regular season games, including the first major-league game played at the park, in which they beat the New York Highlanders 7–6 in 11 innings.
“That Baseball Rag,” by lyricist Dave Wolff and composer Clarence M. Jones, was published in 1913. That year, the New York Giants became the first National League team since the Chicago Cubs to win three consecutive pennants. The Giants then lost the World Series to the Philadelphia Athletics. A recording of “The Baseball Rag” is available on the Library’s National Jukebox. Listen to it here:


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“Our Old Home Team” was composed in 1924 to celebrate the World Series victory that year of the Washington, D.C., Senators over the New York Giants. The song is dedicated to Senators pitching ace Walter “Big Train” Johnson (1887–1946), whose sizzling fast ball may have topped 100 mph. Johnson was one of the first five players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Coincidentally, rare film footage of Senators’ 1924 win, including shots of Walter Johnson pitching, was discovered a few years ago among items included in an estate. The footage was sent to the Library’s Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, where technicians digitized and preserved it. Watch it here:

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And from the same World Series, here is a photograph from our collections of Elsie Tydings, who in October 1924 had the honor of purchasing the first ticket for a World Series in the nation’s capital!

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Elsie Tydings

For more information, see the Library’s Bibliography of Published Baseball Music and Songs.

A Ghostly Image: Spirit Photographs

This is a guest post by Kristi Finefield, a reference librarian in the Prints and Photographs Division. An earlier version was published on “ Picture This ,” the division’s blog.

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“The Haunted Lane,” a stereograph showing a ghost frightening a boy and a man. Created in 1889 by Melander and Bro. 

Can you take a photograph of a ghost? Will a spirit pose for your camera? Looking at “spirit photographs” from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, you might be tempted to answer, “Yes”!

Claims of capturing a spirit with the camera lens were made as early as the 1850s, when photography was relatively new to the world.  At that time, the process of photography was mysterious enough to most people that the idea of a photograph capturing the latent image of a spirit seemed quite possible.

By the time spirit photographs were being publicized in the 1860s, professional photographers had developed several techniques to portray ghost-like apparitions through composite images, double exposures and the like.

In fact, Sir David Brewster, in his 1856 book on the stereoscope, “The Stereoscope: Its History, Theory, and Construction,” gave step-by-step instructions for creating a spirit photo, beginning with:

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“Spirit,” a 1901 photograph allegedly documenting a séance. F. W. Fallis, photographer.

For the purpose of amusement, the photographer might carry us even into the regions of the supernatural. His art, as I have elsewhere shewn, enables him to give a spiritual appearance to one or more of his figures, and to exhibit them as “thin air” amid the solid realities of the stereoscopic picture.

He went on to explain how this was easily done. Simply pose your main subjects. Then, when the exposure time is nearly up, have the “spirit” figure enter the scene, holding still for only seconds before moving out of the picture. The “spirit” then appeared as a semi-transparent figure, as seen in “The Haunted Lane.”

One of the more famous—and infamous—spirit photographers was William H. Mumler of Boston. He turned his ability to make photographs with visible spirits into a lucrative business venture, starting in the 1860s. Doubts grew about his work, but even when a spiritualist named Doctor Gardner recognized some of the so-called spirits as living Bostonians, people continued to pay as much as $10 a sitting. Mumler was charged with fraud in 1869, though not convicted, due to lack of evidence.  However, his career as a photographer of the spirit world was essentially over.

Celebrities took sides in the debate in the 1920s. Famed author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an outspoken spiritualist who believed that the supernatural could appear in photographs, while illusionist Harry Houdini denounced mediums as fakes and spirit photography as a hoax. Doyle and Houdini publicly feuded in the newspapers.

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Harry Houdini with a ghostly image of Abraham Lincoln.

To demonstrate how easy it was to fake a photograph, Houdini had an image made in the 1920s, showing himself talking with Abraham Lincoln. He even based entire shows around debunking the claims of mediums and the entire idea of spiritualism.

That said, since Halloween will soon be upon us, a day for the spooky and the unexplained, you might want to keep your digital camera handy, just in case!

Learn More

Try a search in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog for spirit photographs or Halloween.
Find out more about Halloween in the collections of the Library of Congress on our updated Halloween page!

New Online: Ulysses S. Grant Papers

This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division.

Ulysses S. Grant

On May 17, 1877, former president Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia departed from Philadelphia on an extended trip. Other former presidents traveled after retiring from public office, but none journeyed as far as Grant did. He and Julia spent the next two years traveling around the world meeting members of high society and the general public, while Grant engaged in unofficial diplomacy for the United States and acquired more first-hand knowledge of foreign lands and people than any American of his time.

Materials documenting Grant’s post-presidential travels are represented in the Ulysses S. Grant Papers at the Library of Congress, which are now available online. Other highlights of the collection include the handwritten manuscript draft of Grant’s celebrated memoirs, Civil War headquarters record books, and personal letters he wrote to Julia throughout their life together. While many people know Grant as a Civil War general, 18th president of the United States, and memoirist, few are familiar with Grant’s global adventures.

Traveling with special passports, General and Mrs. Grant arrived in the United Kingdom on May 28, 1877. Grant’s prominence, and the novelty of a former American president traveling abroad, prompted a flood of invitations for his attendance at dinners, receptions and other events in all the countries he visited before returning to the United States in September 1879. The council in Sheffield, England, sent a special resolution inviting Grant to visit when he was touring the area near the start of his travels, and Chulalongkorn, the King of Siam, sought to make Grant’s acquaintance on the final leg of his journey. The Shanghai Bowling Club in Shanghai, China, invited Grant to use its facilities, promising that “the alleys are open at all times.” The Grants maintained an active social and touring schedule during their two years abroad.

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October 23, 1878, letter to Grant from Navy secretary Richard W. Thompson.

While General Grant technically traveled as a private citizen, as a former president he clearly was considered an unofficial representative of the American government. That impression was sustained by his periodic travel on ships of the United States Navy, and made explicit in an October 23, 1878, letter from Secretary of the Navy Richard W. Thompson encouraging Grant to return to the United States via Asia as the relationships he formed in the East “would lead to more extended and intimate commercial relations between them and the United States.” Grant thus had to exercise greater diplomacy than the average American tourist in accepting (or not) invitations from parties involved in international disputes or making statements that might cause offense to his hosts. In one instance, Grant engaged in actual diplomatic activity in trying to negotiate peace between China and Japan over the Loo Choo (Ryukyu) Islands.

Grant’s contemporaries could read about his experiences in the newspapers, and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings in the Grant Papers allows modern readers to do the same. The New York Herald offered the most thorough coverage of Grant’s odyssey because Herald journalist (and future Librarian of Congress) John Russell Young accompanied the Grants for much of their time abroad and submitted stories for publication in the Herald. In 1879, Young published a narrative of his time with Grant in his book, “Around the World with General Grant.”

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January 25, 1878, letter from Grant to his son Frederick from Egypt.

Grant shared more personal observations in letters written to family and friends. To son Buck, he confided that the reality of the Levant region in the Middle East did not match his imagination. “All the romance given to Oriental splendor in novels and guide books is disipated [sic] by witnessing the real thing,” he lamented. Egypt greatly interested Grant, who wrote to his son Fred in 1878 that “I have seen more in Egypt to interest me than in all my other travels.” Grant then poked a little fun at his wife, noting that “your Ma balances on a donkey very well when she has an Arab on each side to hold her, and one to lead the donkey.”

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The Grants at Karnak, Egypt, in 1878,

Intrepid traveler Julia Grant accompanied her husband to nearly every location on his itinerary. She devoted five of the twelve chapters of her memoirs (chapters 7–11) to the trip, recalling pleasant memories of the sights enjoyed and the social receptions attended. Like many tourists, she relished shopping opportunities, including those in Turkey, the Netherlands, Russia and India.

In addition to her own purchases, she and her husband received numerous gifts along the way, such as silks, flower vases, lacquered boxes and a bird cage made of tortoise shell in Japan. But after a disappointing purchase of ostrich feathers in Egypt, Julia offered the would-be traveler a bit of advice: “Only buy what you need. You can get everything in New York better and cheaper than you can import it yourself.”

The memories, international good will and friendships the Grants made during their two years abroad, however, were priceless.

New Online: A Digital Treasure Trove of Rare Books

This is a guest post by digital library specialist Elizabeth Gettins.

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An image from “Map and Views Illustrating Sir Francis Drake’s West Indian Voyage,” 1585–6.

There is a mystique surrounding libraries with old, rare books, and the Library of Congress is no exception. Just think of all the dark and vast vaults of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division that are closed to the public and imagine what undiscovered treasures they hold. Now, thanks to the digital age, the stacks are open and searchable—everyone can access these untold treasures through our newly released web portal.

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Pages from the Gutenberg Bible, ca. 1454–5.

The Rare Book and Special Collections Division traces its beginnings to Thomas Jefferson, who sold his book collection to Congress in 1815. Today, the division’s holdings amount to nearly 800,000 books, encompassing nearly all eras and subjects maintained in well over 100 separate collections. Read About this Collection and the Articles and Essays for a fuller description of these rich collections.

The new portal will continue to grow and improve as we add more content and supporting documentation. Currently, there are nearly 1,000 digital resources to discover. Featured content, highlighted in the banner at the top of the portal’s home page, includes “Maps and Views Illustrating Sir Francis Drake West Indian Voyage,” Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the “Federalist,” the Declaration of Independence, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and no less than the Gutenberg Bible. Continue to scroll along the top banner to sample a few of our other top treasures.

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Cover for “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” by L. Frank Baum, 1900.

There are so many more to discover! Just click Collection Items and search on a term of your choice. You can filter your search by clicking on the various categories on the left.

We are excited to share our treasures with you and welcome all! Our collections hold fascinating, important and just plain awe-inspiring items waiting to be found, and we invite you to mine them to make new connections and new discoveries.

Free to Use and Reuse: Historical Travel Pictures

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Le Monastère de St. Honorat in France, a print created circa 1890–1906.

A love of travel inspires so many photos. A stunning group of images we’re featuring now in our “free to use and reuse” feature on the Library’s home page will take you on a century-old “grand tour” of the world. Our Photochrom Print Collection shows, in color, Europe, the Middle East, Canada, Asia and the South Pacific as they appeared in the 1890s and early 1900s. These pictures have no known copyright restrictions—meaning you can use them as you wish.

What’s a photochrom? The Photoglob Company in Zürich, Switzerland, invented this special color printing method in the 1890s. The Detroit Publishing Company in Michigan quickly licensed the process to be able to publish its views of North America in color. The richly colored images look like photographs but are actually ink-based photolithographs, usually 6.5 x 9 inches. More details about the photochrom process are available on our website.

Like postcards, the photochroms feature subjects that appeal to travelers, including landscapes, architecture, street scenes and daily life and culture. The prints were sold as souvenirs and often collected in albums or framed for display.

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A Bedouin rests in front of the Grand Pyramid in Cairo, circa 1890–1900.

The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division has significantly expanded the Photochrom Prints Collection over the last 30 years by acquiring mint-condition prints from different sources. Most recently, Marc Walter, the author of several books about photochroms, allowed us to select prints from his personal collection to strengthen our representation of countries such as India, China, Australia, New Zealand and Greece. In 2004, Howard L. Gottlieb generously donated North American views. In 1985, prints of Europe and the Middle East were purchased from the Galerie Muriset in Switzerland. We also received photochrom prints as part of the Detroit Publishing Company Collection in the 1940s and earlier as part of acquiring international views of individual architectural landmarks.

Scroll down for more examples and write a note in the comments section of this post if you find an interesting way to use a digitized image!

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Russian Church in Karlsbad, Czech Republic, ca. 1890–1906.

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Falls on the Tugela River in South Africa, ca. 1890–1910.

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Abbot Reginald’s Gateway and Old Vicarage, Evesham, England, ca. 1890–1900.

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Stolzenfels Castle on the Rhine River in Germany, ca. 1890–1900.

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Singapore Museum, ca. 1890–1910.

Inquiring Minds: Papers of Famous Sculptor Confirm Identity of Mount Rushmore’s Chief Carver

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Luigi Del Bianco works on one of the famous faces of Mount Rushmore. Photograph used with permission.

Last month, relatives of Luigi Del Bianco gathered in Keystone, South Dakota, for a very special ceremony: the National Park Service unveiled a plaque on September 16 at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial recognizing the late Del Bianco as the chief carver of Mount Rushmore—76 years after its completion.

For more than 30 years previously, the Del Bianco family had collected evidence documenting Luigi’s role in rendering Mount Rushmore one of the most beloved landmarks in America. The effort began in the mid-1980s when Caesar, Luigi’s son, was taken aback to find that a major book about Mount Rushmore’s carving made no mention of Luigi. He enlisted his nephew, Lou, on a mission to help rectify the oversight.

Research at the Library of Congress, where Caesar spent days in the Manuscript Division sorting through the Gutzon Borglum Papers, turned out to be a deciding factor. Borglum, a noted sculptor, designed Mount Rushmore, and his family donated his papers to the Library in the 1950s and 1960s.

Here Lou answers questions about his grandfather, the family’s quest to have his contribution honored and the letters and memoranda that helped.

Tell us a little about your grandfather.

My grandfather was born in 1892 on a ship off the port of Le Havre, France. His family was returning home to the village of Meduno, located in Italy in the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. At age 11, he studied stone carving in Austria and then Venice before coming to America in 1908, where he worked as a memorial stone carver in Barre, Vermont. He went back to Italy in 1914 to fight in World War I with the Italian army but returned to Barre in 1920. Later, he married and settled in Port Chester, New York, with his family and established a successful memorial stone carving business there.

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Del Bianco with a model of Mount Rushmore in Borglum’s studio, circa 1935. Photograph used with permission.

How did your grandfather meet Gutzon Borglum?

In 1920, after Luigi returned to Barre, he met a fellow stone carver named Alfonso Scafa, who told Luigi, “You have great talent. I work for the sculptor Gutzon Borglum on his estate on Stamford, Connecticut. You must meet him.” Alfonso brought Luigi to Stamford, and Borglum hired Luigi on the spot.

Luigi worked for Borglum throughout the 1920s on various projects. In 1933, Borglum hired Luigi to be the chief carver on Mount Rushmore.

What was your grandfather’s role as chief carver at Mount Rushmore?

Luigi was charged with carving the refinement of expression in the faces. Borglum did not allow any of the other carvers to refine any parts of the faces. When Luigi quit the work temporarily in 1935, all refining on the faces had to stop until he returned.

What did your family’s research at the Library of Congress involve?

Most of the work was done by my uncle Caesar Del Bianco. He insisted on doing it himself, and I helped whenever I was needed. Caesar and I made four separate trips to Washington in 1989, 1990, 1991 and 2006. Caesar made two separate trips on his own in 1992 and 1994.  All I can say is that my uncle loved every minute of his time at the Library. He went through the Borglum Papers like a monk. He developed relationships with the staff, who were always ready and willing to help him. My uncle had a great respect for the Library and its ability to store so many valuable primary source documents. He felt so privileged to have access to “history.” Caesar always said that doing all those hours of research in the Library and discovering those documents was the “greatest moment of my life.” The documents, without a doubt, were crucial to the Park Service historians who read them and as a result recommended further recognition.

What evidence do the documents contain attesting to Luigi’s role?

Where do I begin? In Borglum’s many exchanges with the Mount Rushmore Commission, he defends and praises his chief carver. Here are some highlights: In a June 3, 1933, letter Borglum states, “[W]e could double our progress if we could have two like Bianco.” In a July 1935 letter, Borglum writes of Luigi, “He is worth any three men I could find in America, for this particular type of work.” In 1936, Borglum writes, “He is the only intelligent, efficient stone carver on the work who understands the language of the sculptor.” A 1936 report on progress at Mount Rushmore reads, “The plans for the remaining approximate two months of good weather are to finish completely the face of Washington with all refinements of expression; this work being in the hands of Mr. Borglum and the one stone carver on the work, Bianco.”

What happened after you presented your research findings?

In 1991, we sent our overwhelming evidence to Mount Rushmore and received the response, “Your grandfather was part of the team that carved Mount Rushmore. All the workers on the mountain will be credited equally.” That reflected the narrative maintained for many years: that 400 unemployed miners with no previous carving ability collectively carved the faces on Mount Rushmore. My uncle and I were shocked that the gentleman who operated the tram lift would get the same credit as my grandfather, who put the soul in the presidents’ eyes. In 2015, Cam Sholly, the new director of the National Park Services’ Midwest Region, did something no one before him was willing to do: Cam sent two of his top historians to review the documents from the Library of Congress. The historians were so impressed that they recommended a plaque for Luigi that very day.

What does the plaque recognizing your grandfather mean to your family?

It means so much. We are so proud of his accomplishment and only wanted him to get the credit he was due: no more, no less. To our family, justice has finally been served, and history is now telling a much more accurate story. My grandfather is a great representative of the immigrant who comes to America to live his dream. The American dream.

Hispanic Heritage Month: Indigenous Law Portal

This is a guest post by Carla Davis-Castro, a research librarian for the Congressional Research Service. She worked on the Indigenous Law Portal from 2015 to 2017.

[image error]The Library of Congress launched the Indigenous Law Portal in June 2014 to provide an open-access platform for legal materials on how indigenous peoples govern themselves. Mexico and Central America are home to many of the peoples covered, so we thought National Hispanic Heritage Month would be a good time to call attention to the portal and encourage its use.

The portal features resources from the Law Library of Congress and links to tribal websites and digital primary sources. The resources are organized based on the evolving Library of Congress classification for the Law of Indigenous Peoples, Class KIA-KIX, spanning jurisdictions of the Western Hemisphere. Jolande Goldberg, a law classification specialist in the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, leads development of the classification and provides content along with Law Library staff, volunteers and interns.

The portal launched with North America (Canada, the United States and Mexico). In 2016, Mexico was updated to include national and regional indigenous advocacy organizations. Central America was added just this summer. General resources are available for the region as well as links to the Central American countries El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. Links to Belize and Costa Rica remain in progress. Each nation has or will have digital resources organized by category: organizations, councils or governments and tribes or communities.

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Bio-protocolo de Consulta y Consentimiento Libre, Previo e Informado del pueblo Mayangna Sauni Arungka, territorio Matumbak.

One example of a modern digital resource from Costa Rica is the 2014 publication Bio-protocolo de Consulta y Consentimiento Libre, Previo e Informado del pueblo Mayangna Sauni Arungka, territorio Matumbak (Bio-protocols for the Consultation and Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the Mayangna Sauni Arungka Community, Matumbak Territory). This is an example of a collaborative endeavor between a global organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the tribal territorial government of Sauni Arungka Matumbak.

In the future, South America will be added, so check back with the Indigenous Law Portal as the work continues!

For more details about the portal’s development, read this blog post about its launch and the 2017 International Federation of Library Associations papers Legal Pluralism and Highlighting Indigenous Continuity.

New Online: Federal Courts Web Archive

This is a guest post by Andrew Winston, senior legal reference librarian, and Brian Kaviar, a Law Library intern. It was first published on “ In Custodia Legis ,” the blog of the Law Library. 

[image error]The Federal Courts Web Archive, recently launched by the Library’s web archiving team and the Law Library, provides retrospective archival coverage of the websites of the federal judiciary. The websites in this archive include those of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as federal appellate courts, trial courts and other tribunals. Coverage generally begins in April 2014, although records from individual courts were captured at different times, and some earlier records are included. The archive is the only comprehensive coverage done court-by-court for the U.S. federal court system.

The federal courts were created under the U.S. Constitution. Article III, Section 1,  provides for the U.S. Supreme Court and such lower courts that Congress may establish. These lower courts include the U.S. courts of appeals, the U.S. district courts and the U.S. Court of International Trade. In addition, other federal courts have been established under Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, including the U.S. bankruptcy courts, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the U.S. Tax Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Here are the types of cases heard by these federal courts.

Supreme Court of the United States . The highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court hears cases on appeal regarding matters of constitutional or federal law. The Court also has original jurisdiction over certain matters, meaning that cases between states or cases involving ambassadors are tried before the Supreme Court rather a lower court.
U.S. Courts of Appeals . Twelve U.S. courts of appeals hear appeals from the decisions of U.S. district courts within their respective circuits, which are groupings of U.S. district courts by region. Another, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, hears appeals nationwide concerning specialized subjects, such as international trade, patents, trademarks and veterans’ benefits, among others.
U.S. District Courts . The U.S. district courts are the general trial courts for the federal government. There are 94 district courts, with at least one district court for each state and the District of Columbia.
U.S. Bankruptcy Courts . U.S. bankruptcy courts, located in the districts of the district courts, hear cases on personal, business and farm bankruptcies.
U.S. Court of International Trade . The U.S. Court of International Trade hears cases involving international trade and customs law.
U.S. Court of Federal Claims . The U.S. Court of Federal Claims hears claims for money against the United States, including contract claims, bid protests, military and civilian pay claims, tax claims, Indian claims and other claims.
U.S. Tax Court . The U.S. Tax Court hears cases about federal income taxation between taxpayers and the Internal Revenue Service.
U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims . The U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims reviews decisions of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals that have been appealed by claimants.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces . The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces hears cases appealed from the courts of criminal appeals for the armed services.

To learn more about federal courts, the cases they hear and how the work of the federal judiciary is performed, we recommend visiting USCourts.gov.

Court websites support the activities of a number of participants in the judicial system, including attorneys and their clients, pro se litigants seeking to represent themselves, jurors, visitors to the court, and community outreach programs. In meeting the needs of these different groups, court websites generate a number of resources, including (among many others) the following.

Slip opinions. Slip opinions are unbound decisions distributed ahead of more formal publication. While Supreme Court slip opinions are the most commonly seen, many federal courts have come to post slip opinions in PDF format on their websites as well.
Transcripts. Transcripts are written records of testimony and court proceedings. Some courts may also make audio recordings of oral arguments in cases available on their websites.
Dockets. Court dockets provide information about the proceedings in a court case, from the initial complaint or charges, to motions on issues, to the final decision. Dockets are presented online in a variety of formats, with differing levels of detail, and are often indispensable for understanding the chronology and development of a particular case. To learn more about how to research and read dockets, consult “Docket Research,” a research guide prepared by the Yale Law Library.
Court rules. Court rules govern the procedures for the conduct of business before the courts. They can concern formal matters, such as the format of a document filed with a court, to more substantial issues, such as the grounds for making an appeal. The Duke Law Library has prepared a helpful research guide on court rules.
Calendars and announcements. Calendars and announcements can provide valuable information about the amount of work that the court is undertaking in a given period, as well as notices of important developments that affect litigants and their attorneys, such as amendments to court rules, reassignment of cases to other judges and fee increases.
Judicial biographies. Court websites typically provide biographies of their judges. While not every biography is especially detailed, some include not only information about the judge, but also about his or her staff, courtroom, and preferences for litigants appearing before the judge.
Statistics. Court websites can include statistics on the number of cases heard by the court each year, the types of cases heard, pending caseloads, the time it takes for cases to be decided and other matters.
Educational resources. As part of community outreach efforts, a number of federal courts provide educational resources for area youth, teachers and people with a general interest in learning more about courts and the law.
Reference materials. Some federal courts provide reference materials, especially for pro se litigants seeking to represent themselves, such as glossaries of legal terms and model jury instructions.

The Federal Courts Web Archive provides a fascinating look at the business and operations of the nation’s federal courts and how their websites have developed to respond to technological changes and the use of online resources in the practice of law. We invite you to review the archive, as well as other Library of Congress web archives that include legal and legislative materials, like the International Tribunals Web Archive, the Legislative Branch Web Archive, and the Legal Blawg Archive.

The Library has been archiving select websites since 2000 and has now preserved more than a petabyte of web content, including collections of federal executive, legislative and judicial websites; sites of international governments; and national institutions such as the U.S. Olympic Committee and the American Red Cross.  

Pic of the Week: Rick Riordan Wows Young Readers

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Author Rick Riordan in the Coolidge Auditorium. Photo by Shawn Miller.

Best-selling children’s author Rick Riordan launched the third and final book in his Norse mythology series at the Library of Congress on October 3. Hundreds of elementary and middle-school students from Washington, D.C., and Maryland joined him in the Coolidge Auditorium, while groups from Colorado, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio and elsewhere watched on Livestream as he announced the release of “The Ship of the Dead,” book three in the series “Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard.” Here Riordan takes a question from the audience.

You can watch Riordan’s presentation online here.

La Biblioteca Podcast Series Launches

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Catalina Gómez (left) and Talía Guzmán-González (right) interview former Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera for an upcoming episode of the new “La Biblioteca” podcast series.

Today we launched our newest podcast series, “La Biblioteca” (The Library), in celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month. Every Thursday for the next eight weeks, Library specialists will explore the Library’s rich collections that focus on the cultures of Spain, Portugal, Latin America and the Hispanic community in the United States.

Catalina Gómez and Talía Guzmán-González, reference librarians in our Hispanic Division, have planned a fascinating series. In the first installment, titled “Listening to the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape,” they speak with Georgette Dorn, the longtime curator of this historic archive, housed here at the Library. It has captured the voices of some of the most prominent poets and prose writers of the Luso-Hispanic world. Dorn shares anecdotes about interviewing Julio Cortázar in the 1970s and about meeting Pablo Neruda and Jorge Luis Borges.

In subsequent podcasts, Gómez and Guzmán-González will chat with contemporary authors, scholars and other experts on our collections and initiatives that pertain to the Luso-Hispanic world. The line-up of invited guests include literary critic and translator Anna Deeny; writer and journalist Marie Arana; Vivaldo Andrade dos Santos, professor of Portuguese at Georgetown University; Wellesley College literature professor and poet Marjorie Agosín; and former U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera.

Although some podcasts contain Spanish-language audio excerpts, all of the conversations and interviews in the series are in English and meant for a global audience.

To listen and subscribe to the podcast series, visit our podcast site or find it on iTunes.