Library of Congress's Blog, page 118

Literacy Award Winner First Book CEO Discusses Marketplace Innovation

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David Rubenstein, benefactor of the 2016 Library of Congress Literacy Awards, interviews Rubenstein Prize winner Kyle Zimmer, President and CEO of First Books, February 17, 2016. Photo by Shawn Miller.

(The following is a guest post by Guy Lamolinara, communications officer in the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.)

Demonstrating a pioneering approach to increasing literacy levels is a key component in a successful application for a Library of Congress Literacy Award, and First Book fulfills that criterion through its marketplace innovation.

The 2015 Rubenstein Prize winner of $150,000, First Book, based in Washington, D.C., and established in 1992, has given away more than 140 million books to young people, many of whom have never had a book to call their own. First Book also distributes books at a very low cost to purchasers.

“It’s two jet engines,” said First Book CEO Kyle Zimmer in an interview with the philanthropist David M. Rubenstein, who provides funding for the awards program, which is administered by the Library of Congress Center for the Book.

“One is called the First Book National Book Bank,” Zimmer continued. “We designed that on our understanding of the book industry. … There’s a tremendous backflow of inventory. And so we went to the publishers and we said, ‘Do you give those books away?’ And they did what they could. But it’s a very expensive thing to manage. So we stepped into that space and built the first system of its kind that now manages the lion’s share of contributed books from the publishing industry. That’s the Book Bank.

“And then there’s the Marketplace [for free books]. …The marketplace is when we buy the inventory from the publishers. What we said to the publishers in that instance is, ‘The market for books is constrained to the top veneer of socioeconomic strata. And what we will do is we’ll go out and aggregate the base of the pyramid. So we will pay for aggregation. We will buy on a non-consignment, a non-returnable basis.’ And that was music to their ears of course.”

You can see the full interview with Zimmer and learn more about the other award winners by viewing our webcast.

If you are an organization doing innovative work, or know of another worthy organization, that has a proven record of decreasing illiteracy, then an application to the Library of Congress Literacy Awards should be on your to-do list. The application process is easy and the payoff could be an award of $150,000 or $50,000. For more information, go to read.gov/literacyawards/.

Love in the Ex-Slave Narratives

(The following is a guest post by Sabrina Thomas, a research specialist with the Library of Congress’s Digital Reference Team.)

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Bill and Ellen Thomas, Ages 88 and 81. Between 1936 and 1938. Manuscript Division.

Finding stories of love within the narratives of ex-slaves shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, for the millions of men, women and children who endured atrocities and injustices under the institution of slavery, the only bond that offered any hope of liberation – if not of the body, then of the soul – was the bond of love.

Examples of love in its many manifestations – spiritual, brotherly, paternal and, yes, romantic – can be found in the Library’s digital collection Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938. A digital collaboration between the Library’s Manuscript Division and Prints and Photographs Division, “Born in Slavery” contains more than 2,300 first person accounts of slavery and 500 photographs of former slaves.

The “Born in Slavery” collection offers a variety of ways to search for content. From its list of collection items, researchers can search the full-text of narratives by name of narrator, informant or keyword through the top search box (when conducting the search, be sure “This Collection” is the selected search option).

In addition, users can use the “Refine your results” options at the left of a results page to browse for results by a number of criteria, including location and subject. A list of narratives by state is also available, as well as the option from the About page to search the collection by volume.

I began my own search for love stories with the collection by typing “love story” into the search box and clicking the search button. Thirty-four records were returned, sorted by relevance. Most of the 33 records returned for manuscripts included a link to the volume of the collection that includes matching pages, as well as a link under “Resource” to view individual pages within the volume that include full-text matches on the keywords “love story.” I decided to click on the “View 8 Results” link in the first group of records on the list, Federal Writers’ Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 11, North Carolina, Part 1, Adams-Hunter.

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Click on “View XX Results” to view pages within a slave narratives’ volume that include full-text (OCR) matches on your search terms.

Two stories are listed first: “Aunt Lucy’s Love Story” and “Aunt Barbara’s Love Story.” While all of the matching items contain a story shared with the interviewer about love, I found that the stories told by Aunt Lucy and Aunt Barbara contain the most details, especially Aunt Lucy’s.

With a translation of the vernacular, here is an excerpt from a 1937 interview with former slave Lucy Ann Dunn that is a timeless celebration of romance, love and commitment.

An interview with Lucy Ann Dunn, 90 years old, 220 Cannon Street, Raleigh, NC  (Ex-Slave Narratives, North Carolina, Volume 16, Part 1)

It was in the little Baptist church at Neuse where I first saw Jim Dunn and I fell in love with him then, I guess.  He said that he loved me then too.  But it was three Sundays before he asked to see me home.

We walked a mile home in front of my mother.  I was so happy, it felt like one half (½) mile to my home.  We ate cornbread and turnips for dinner and night came before he went home.  My mother would not let me walk him to the gate.  I knew.  So, I just sat on the porch and said good night.

He came every Sunday for a year and finally proposed.  I told my mother that I thought I should be allowed to walk to the gate with Jim.  She said alright, only if she sat on the porch to watch.  That Sunday night, I did walk with Jim to the gate and stood under honeysuckle that smelled so sweet.  I heard the big ole bullfrogs a-croakin’ by the river and the whipper-willis a –hollerin’ in the woods.  There was a big yellow moon, and I guess Jim did love me.  Anyhow, he said so and asked me to marry him and he squeezed my hand.

I told him that I’d think it over; and I did and the next Sunday, I told him that I would have him.  He had not kissed me yet.  But the next Sunday he asked my mother for me.  She said that she would have to have a talk with me and let him know.  Well, all that week she talked to me telling me how serious getting married is and that it lasts a powerful long time.  I told her that I knew that.  But, that I was ready to try it and that I intended to make a go of it anyhow.

On Sunday night, my mother told Jim that he could have my hand in marriage. You should have seen that black boy grin!  He came to me without a word and picked me up out of the chair and right there in the moon light, he kissed me right before my mother who was crying.

The next Sunday we were married in the Baptist church at Neuse.  I had a new white dress, though times were hard.

We lived together for fifty-five years and we always loved each other.

The old lady with her long white hair bowed her head and sobbed for a moment, and then she began again unsteadily.

We had eight children, but only four of them are living now.  Those living are James, Sidney, Helen and Florence, who was named for Florence Nightingale.

I can’t be here so much longer now because I am getting too old and feeble and I want to go to Jim anyhow.

The old woman wiped her eyes, I think of him all of the time.  It seems like we’re young again when I smell honeysuckle and see a yellow moon.

What treasures do you stumble upon while searching the “Born in Slavery” collection? Let us know in the comments below.

Beyoncé, Paul Bowles and More: Current GRAMMY Nominees with Library Connections

(The following is a guest post by Stephen Winick, writer-editor in the American Folklife Center.)

 This year the GRAMMY awards promise to be exciting for music fans everywhere, but especially fans of the Library of Congress. At least four of the nominees have connections to the Library’s American Folklife Center (AFC). They present archival recordings, new performances of songs learned from the AFC’s archive and new songs using samples from the archive.

The most famous name among the nominees inspired by AFC’s collections is undoubtedly Beyoncé, who sampled two songs from AFC’s Alan Lomax Collection for her song “Freedom,” which appeared on the album “Lemonade.” “Freedom” has been nominated for “Best Rap/Sung Performance,” while “Lemonade” is in the running for “Album of the Year” and “Best Urban Contemporary Album.” In addition, the long-form video for “Lemonade” is nominated for “Best Music Film.” Beyoncé is the most nominated woman in GRAMMY history and has already won 20 GRAMMY awards.

According to Alan Lomax’s daughter, Anna Lomax Wood, “The ‘Freedom’ samples represent vernacular traditions the Lomaxes were devoted to documenting: folk spirituals and sacred songs of Southern black churches; and the work songs and field hollers of black prisoners. Both, in Alan Lomax’s words, ‘testified to the love of truth and beauty which is a universal human trait.’ They are taken from two Alan Lomax field recordings: A segment of a 1959 worship service led by Reverend R. C. Crenshaw at Memphis’ Great Harvest Missionary Baptist Church, and “Stewball,” a 1948 work song led by Benny Will Richardson (known as “22” at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, the notorious Parchman Farm).”

“Music of Morocco,” by Paul Bowles.

Both items can be heard on the website of the Association for Cultural Equity, the organization founded by Alan Lomax, which administers many of his collections. Find them here and here.

Another name Library aficionados might recognize is Paul Bowles (1910-1999), who is probably best known as the author of “The Sheltering Sky,” “Let it Come Down” and other novels. A box set featuring music recorded by Bowles for the Library of Congress in Morocco is nominated for a GRAMMY in the “Best Historical Album” category. In addition to writing fiction, Bowles was known as a composer, musician, travel writer and translator. From July to December 1959, he traveled around Morocco making recordings of traditional music under the auspices of the Library of Congress, and his entire collection is part of the AFC archive. “Music of Morocco from the Library of Congress,” a box set from Dust-to-Digital, presents four CDs of the music, accompanied by extensive notes and enclosed in sumptuous packaging.

In discussing the place of Morocco in North African music, Bowles wrote, “The pieces with the greatest, and those with the smallest amount, of Arabic influence, are both to be found, strangely enough, in the same country: Morocco. This region’s contact with Europe has been that of conqueror: in its decline it has been comparatively unmolested by industrial Europe. By virtue of this, also because it once had colonies in Mauritania and Senegal, and thus has a fair amount of admixture of Negro culture, it is richer in musical variety and interest than Algeria and Tunisia. In the latter countries there is plenty of music, but in Morocco music is inescapable.”

The box set can be purchased from the Library of Congress shop.

Another historical box set with Library of Congress connections, “Waxing the Gospel,” is nominated for Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes. A collection of more than 100 cylinder recordings of sacred songs from Protestant camp meetings and revivals of the 1890s, it contains two ultra-rare cylinders of Professor John R. Sweney from the AFC archive. Sweney was a famous choral leader and composer, whose most famous song is the hymn “Beulah Land.” He was also the great-grandfather of Joe Hickerson, a former Library of Congress staff member who retired as head of the AFC archive. The recordings reissued on the box set are Sweney’s renditions of the hymns “Beulah Land” and “Only Remembered.” They were originally recorded by Columbia Records on the occasion of Sweney’s visit to Washington, DC in April 1892. They were intended only as promotional souvenirs of the event and were never released commercially, so only a few of them were made. The box set uses transfers of Hickerson’s personal copies, which he donated to AFC in 2006. Hickerson also wrote the prologue to the album’s booklet of notes. Read more about “Waxing the Gospel” at the Archeophone blog.

Joshua Caffery, presenting his Alan Lomax Fellow Lecture for the Library’s John W. Kluge Center on April 23, 2014. Photo by Stephen Winick for AFC.

Finally, the compilation “I Wanna Sing Right: Rediscovering Lomax in the Evangeline Country,” presents contemporary Louisiana artists performing their own versions of songs they learned from John and Alan Lomax’s 1934 field recordings in coastal Louisiana. The set, which is nominated for Best Regional Roots Music Album, was released as a boxed set of four EPs of six songs each by the Louisiana record label Valcour Records. The CDs, which are produced by Joshua Clegg Caffery and Joel Savoy, present a wide variety of songs and styles, from Cajun music and bluegrass to blues and light opera. As an initiative to return archival recordings to circulation as popular songs, it fits in well with Alan Lomax’s own aims for the collection all those years ago. Caffery is a former Alan Lomax Fellow at the Library’s John W. Kluge Center and has published a book about the Lomaxes’ Louisiana recordings, as well as placing them online.

As Caffery told me a few months ago, “My ultimate aim is getting the music back into circulation. The Lomax recordings are such a vital resource, and it’s important to understand the lineage and the cultural context of the songs, but the real end game for me is always a creative one – how do you facilitate the emergence of this incredible music into contemporary culture? What’s the best way to get people to sing these songs and think about the past?”

You can read more about this box set at the AFC blog, Folklife Today.

At the beginning of this post, I said that at least four nominees have connections the AFC archive. That’s because we don’t automatically get notified every time someone is inspired by our collections and gets nominated for an award. It’s entirely possible that other connections exist, which we don’t know about yet. If you’re aware of a connection between a current GRAMMY-nominated song or album and the Library of Congress, please leave us a comment about it.

Kurt R. Eissler and the Sigmund Freud Archives

(The following post is by Anton O. Kris, M.D., 2014 Executive Director of the Sigmund Freud Archives and a professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. It is the first in a series of three weekly guest blogs by current and former executive directors of the Sigmund Freud Archives (SFA), an independent organization founded in 1951 to collect and preserve for scholarly use Sigmund Freud’s personal papers. The collection assembled by SFA and others has resided at the Library of Congress since 1952 and is now available online. In this blog, Dr. Kris recounts the roles of Kurt R. Eissler, SFA’s founding secretary, and Freud’s daughter Anna Freud in launching the effort to collect and preserve Freud’s correspondence and writings.) [image error]

The plan to preserve Sigmund Freud’s letters began with his daughter Anna Freud, who consulted Ernst Kris and Edward Bibring, and then enlisted the help of Max Eitingon to retrieve Freud’s letters to Eitingon and those to be found among colleagues in Palestine.

The plan to develop the Sigmund Freud Archives, however, was Dr. Kurt R. Eissler’s, and it cannot be overstated that he, almost single-handedly, obtained the enormous collection that is now in the Library of Congress, including his many interviews of people who knew Freud. A great scholar and an extraordinarily hard worker, who made many significant contributions to the psychoanalytic literature, Eissler pursued his quest for completeness out of his belief in Freud’s personal as well as scientific virtues.

Eissler shared the prevailing admiration for Anna Freud and acceptance of her word as the final authority on matters concerning publication of Freud’s letters. She was mostly against release. And so was joined a dispute between Eissler and the biographical researchers. More than anything, Eissler feared that any material made public would become a vehicle for distortion and attacks on Freud.  And certainly, there was—and continues to be—much evidence for that point of view.  Eissler wished to find responsible editors, who could be relied upon to protect the rights of patients and others who might be harmed by revelation. These editors, and only these editors, would, for example, have access to the letters.

Here is an abbreviated account of a contrary position expressed in a 1973 letter to Eissler from Professors Peter Gay, Peter Loewenberg, and Carl E. Schorske:

As historians professionally concerned with European cultural history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we wish to urge you to change the restrictive policies of the Sigmund Freud archives. We understand the problem you face: much of the archival material that has come to you may contain details—about analysands (people who undergo analysis-ed.)—that their children, or even grandchildren, might consider delicate or embarrassing.  As you told one of us, it is hard to separate out the various items in the archive without more secretarial or archivarial help than you have available now.  Despite these very real obstacles we persist in hoping for a change of policy.

Dr. Eissler based his opposition to this appeal on the grounds that the letters were donated only with guarantees that they would not be opened prematurely. He also felt that the trusted editors he sought could protect privacy.

Eissler resigned his position in October 1984, in a dispute with the board of the Sigmund Freud Archives. Subsequently, the board, with leadership from Professor Joseph Goldstein of the Yale Law School, a psychoanalyst and co-author of books with Anna Freud and Albert Solnit, moved in the direction of full disclosure.  The restrictive dates for public access were questioned and re-evaluated.  In June 1985, Harold Blum, former editor of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, was chosen as secretary, and ultimately as Executive Director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, and was charged to accomplish this difficult task.   Many letters were redacted to remove patients’ names. This process took many years, and Freud’s letters, redacted when necessary, were open to the public at the Library of Congress.

Thirty years after he departed the Sigmund Freud Archives, the board of the Archives, with the agreement of his literary executor, named Kurt R. Eissler its principal founding director, in honor of his great achievements.

Literacy Awards: Thomas Jefferson Would Have Approved

[image error](The following is a guest post by Guy Lamolinara, communications officer in the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.)

Thomas Jefferson, the Library of Congress’s spiritual founder, wrote about the pursuit of happiness.

“I like to think that literacy is fundamental to that pursuit. So many doors are closed to those who cannot read. Everyone in this world has a right to happiness and with that comes the right to read.” So said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden during a ceremony last fall honoring the 2016 Library of Congress Literacy Awards winners and best practices honorees.

Many of us take for granted being able to read instructions on filling out a job application, on reading a website or even something as simple as reading a street sign. Imagine how terrifying it is for those who cannot read to even think about applying for a job.

It’s no surprise that those who cannot read earn significantly less than those who can and that many of these people are living in poverty.

During the Library of Congress National Book Festival gala program in September, the Library shared a short film highlighting some alarming statistics about literacy:

757 million adults cannot read or write a simple sentence, and two-thirds of them are women
In the United States one in six adults reads at a basic or below-basic , meaning they cannot read anything more complex than a TV Guide
Worldwide, 61 million elementary-age children are not in school, and in the United States, 34 percent of children entering kindergarten lack the basic language skills needed to learn to read
Low literacy levels cost the united states $225 billion each year and cost the global economy $1.19 trillion annually

David M. Rubenstein, the philanthropist who sponsors the awards, is himself a voracious reader, and he has stated many times publicly that reading has been key to his success in life.

If you work for a literacy organization or know someone who does, you are encouraged to apply yourself or on behalf of another literacy group. A quarter-million dollars will be awarded this fall to three worthy organizations. For more information, visit to read.gov/literacyawards/.

World War I: From Red Glare to Debonair

(The following post is by Jennifer Gavin, senior public affairs specialist at the Library of Congress.)

The stars and stripes, February 7, 1919. Serial and Government Publications Division.

With its more than 90-year history, most Americans are aware of the military-based newspaper “The Stars and Stripes.” But many don’t know that it came into existence as a morale-builder after Americans surged into France during World War I – and even fewer probably know of its links to another august publication, “The New Yorker.”

As thousands of Americans braved mud, bullets, shells, mustard gas and the flu in the killing fields of France, a decision was taken to start up a newspaper that could bring news of the war and of home to the men of the Allied Expeditionary Force. By most reports, it was a Second Lt. Guy T. Viskniskki, a longtime newsman, who took the idea to the brass and talked them into it; he was among the first writers and editors of the publication that launched Feb. 8, 1919.

The handful of enlisted men who began cranking it out insisted that it be written with flair and cover the things the average guy in a foxhole would want to know about. As its editors stated in the initial number:

“With this issue, The Stars and Stripes reports for active service with the A.E.F. It is your paper, and has but one axe to grind—the axe which our Uncle Sam is whetting on the grindstone for use upon the august necks of the Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns … we want to hear from that artist in your outfit, that ex-newspaper reporter, that short-story writer, that company ‘funny man,” and that fellow who writes the verses. We want to hear from all of you—for The Stars and Stripes is your paper, first, last, and all the time; for you and for those of your friends and relatives for whom you will care to send it.”

As the paper took hold – it was printed in borrowed facilities from French newspapers and distributed via military logistics, with some copies reaching the U.S. as well – its staff got bigger and it moved from one French office to another to accommodate the larger operations. The doughboys ate it up, as it contained news, editorials, letters, cartoons and an assortment of humorous items. It was relatively free of censorship, for a military publication. In his book “A Brief History of The Stars and Stripes, Official Newspaper of the American Expeditionary Forces in France,” author Harry Katz noted that the enlisted men who wrote its copy and editorials “condemned what they thought was wrong and commended what they believed to be right in unmistakable terms,” all in “a snappy style.”

Among writers for that early version of “The Stars and Stripes” was Harold W. Ross, a former newsman who, the story goes, went AWOL from his military railroad engineering company to appear at the military paper’s offices to join that team. Ross, after the war, founded The New Yorker and was its editor for more than 26 years, and also became a member of the famously witty Algonquin Hotel “Round Table.” Ross gave magazine work to another luminary writer of the era who had worked at Stars and Stripes, Alexander Woollcott, and to the artist Cyrus Leroy Baldridge, another former military journo.

The Library of Congress holds The Stars and Stripes in its collections, and has digitized that early WWI run of the publication, which was started up again in WWII and continues to provide the U.S. military with news to this day. You can also find The New Yorker in our Serials collections.

World War I Centennial, 2017-2018: With the most comprehensive collection of multi-format World War I holdings in the nation, the Library of Congress is a unique resource for primary source materials, education plans, public programs and on-site visitor experiences about The Great War including exhibits, symposia and book talks.

Smokey Robinson at Gershwin’s Piano

(The following is a guest post by Director of Communications Gayle Osterberg.)

This Friday (Feb. 10) PBS stations nationwide (9 pm Eastern – check your local listings) will share with America the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song tribute concert honoring Motown legend Smokey Robinson.

It was a great pleasure to host Smokey, Berry Gordy, family and friends at the Library the day before the concert was taped back in November. Library of Congress staff shared treasures from Motown and African-American music history, like maps from Detroit in the late fifties with handwritten notes by Alan Lomax, historic recordings of Jelly Roll Morton and the original copyright deposit of “I Cry”, a song he co-wrote with Gordy and his first copyright submission.

The highlight of the visit, for me, was to watch Smokey sit down at George Gershwin’s favorite piano – on permanent display in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building – and talk with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.

To say Dr. Hayden is a Smokey fan is an understatement, and she had a series of questions for the honoree, who tells her about Gershwin’s influence on his childhood, when he decided singing was his passion and what music he’s listening to now. He also opens up in an emotional moment about his relationship with Barry Gordy and Gordy’s impact on his life.

We’ve been looking forward to sharing this touching conversation with you ahead of Friday’s broadcast.

I hope you enjoy it!

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Experts’ Corner: Presidential Podcasts

(The following article is from the January/February 2017 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM. You can read the issue in its entirety here.)

From left: Historians Barbara Bair, Julie Miller and Michelle Krowl. Photo by Shawn Miller.

Library of Congress historians Julie Miller, Barbara Bair and Michelle Krowl contribute their knowledge of the presidents to a new podcast series.

In 2016, The Washington Post presented a podcast series called “Presidential” that featured 44 episodes examining the American presidents during the months leading up to the November election. Hosted by Lillian Cunningham, editor of The Washington Post’s “On Leadership” section, and archived online, the series features interviews with journalists, biographers, historians and other experts on the American presidency. Among them are Julie Miller, Barbara Bair and Michelle Krowl, three historians from the Library’s Manuscript Division who together discussed 17 presidents from George Washington to William H. Taft. Their remarks were informed by primary sources, including presidential papers, housed in the Library of Congress.

As curator of the papers of the earliest presidents, Miller was the first of her colleagues to be interviewed. Cunningham asked a question that she would pose in reference to each of the presidents: What would it be like to go on a blind date with George Washington? Miller observed that Washington, as a model 18th-century gentleman, knew how to dress, how to dance and how to behave in public. He would have been a charming date, as the widowed Martha Custis discovered. Miller also noted that institutions such as the Library of Congress care for primary sources such as the letters in George Washington’s papers because each generation will want to bring its own questions to them, such as the one Cunningham posed.

Bair joined NPR reporter Steve Inskeep and biographer Jon Meacham in analyzing the limitations of Jacksonian democracy. She spoke of Jackson as a “man of the people.” But which people? In solidifying white land ownership in the South and fostering the expansion of slavery and the repression of Indians, Jackson primarily represented “white wage workers and [those] who wanted to settle on farms,” as well as the “southern slave-owning gentry.” Bair and historian Mark Cheathem looked at the “Little Magician” Martin Van Buren as a political master-mind and commented on the rise of the two-party system. William Henry Harrison died soon after taking office, likely from the contaminated water supply in Washington. Bair read a letter documenting the trepidation Vice President John Tyler expressed upon finding himself unexpectedly the leader of the land. Tyler set the precedent for vice presidents taking on the full power of office in event of a presidential death – even ones that violated the political platform of their own party.

Krowl suggested that presidents sometimes make surprising moves. Chester A. Arthur supported civil service reform, though his history made him the least likely person to support political change. Adding to observations by Stateline executive editor Scott Greenberger, Krowl demonstrated how the Arthur papers at the Library of Congress help fill in the details of Arthur’s story. Documenting Arthur’s life is challenging because he ordered the destruction of most of his personal papers just before his death. Elements of his life and character must be gleaned from the limited sources that were saved. These include a love letter to his fiancée, a few letters to a bosom friend in early adulthood, an abundance of bills and receipts and a particularly interesting set of letters written by a woman named Julia Sand, who encouraged Arthur to make a positive contribution as president. “Julia Sand saw something noble in Arthur,” Krowl said. “She urged him to create a presidential legacy that was ‘pure and bright.’ Significantly, her letters were among the few that were saved.”

Pic of the Week: Saturdays at the Young Readers Center

The Young Readers Center in the Library of Congress hosted a series of events Jan. 28 to celebrate its new Saturday hours of operation, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The center, which opened in October 2009, will offer more young people and their families the opportunity to experience the wonders and resources of the nation’s library.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden joins young book lovers to cut the ribbon marking the grand opening of Saturday hours at the Young Readers Center. Photo by Shawn Miller.

“It is so important, as the nation’s Library, to grow new scholars and to make the Library and its resources more accessible to Americans of all ages,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said. “I am pleased we can now open the doors of the Young Readers Center on Saturdays to scholars age16 and younger and their parents. This will provide opportunity for many more area and visiting families to experience the Library of Congress together.”

Hayden joined several young visitors in a ribbon-cutting ceremony, as well as a Q & A session with author Meg Medina. Author Erica S. Perl also talked with the young readers, who also participated in arts and crafts, book accessibility demonstrations and a parade.

In addition to the new Saturday hours, the center will add new features including demonstrations of video chat with a shared reader display courtesy of Story Bug from Cricket Media, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped BARD, Dual Vision books (with bilingual capabilities) and other literary media tools.

Literacy Awards Opens for Fifth Round of Applications

(The following is a guest post by Guy Lamolinara, communications officer in the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.)

Three awards totaling $250,000 are being offered for the fifth year in a row by the Library of Congress Literacy Awards program. Applications are due no later than March 31 at midnight EST.

If you are part of an organization doing exemplary work in literacy or know of an organization that deserves recognition, you can nominate your organization or another organization through a simple application process.

Superstar author Stephen King, who participated in the Library of Congress National Book Festival on Sept. 24, received a Literacy Champion citation from the Library for his work in promoting reading. He also recorded a special public service announcement for us. The international best-selling author of more than 50 books and almost 200 short stories, many of which have been adapted for film or other media, has sold more than 350 million books worldwide.

“No one person or group is going to move the needle alone,” King said in the video released through the Library’s social media channels. “But together, we can make a difference.  That is why I am joining the Library of Congress in supporting the thousands of organizations around the world that are working to promote literacy.”

The Literacy Awards, supported through the generosity of David M. Rubenstein, have so far given more than $1 million to outstanding literacy groups in both the United States and worldwide. You can read more about the awards and the prior winners at www.read.gov/literacyawards/.

Library of Congress Literacy Awards program furthers the Library’s mission by honoring organizations that have made outstanding contributions to increasing literacy in the United States or abroad. The awards also encourage the continuing development of innovative methods for promoting literacy and the wide dissemination of the most effective practices. They are intended to draw public attention to the importance of literacy, and the need to promote literacy and encourage reading.