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National Book Festival Redux

(The following article, written by Mark Hartsell, was featured in the Library of Congress staff newsletter, The Gazette.)

“I cannot live without books,” Thomas Jefferson famously once said. The 15th National Book Festival last week provided evidence that plenty of others can’t, either.

Thousands of book lovers descended on the Washington Convention Center on Saturday to see a record 170-plus authors and illustrators, pay tribute to America’s fighting men and women, explore the Jefferson legacy, meet a new poet laureate and indulge their literary passions via the first-ever festival session devoted to romance fiction.

Library Chief of Staff Robert R. Newlen opened the 12-hour literary love fest at 10 a.m. with the presentation of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction to Louise Erdrich, author of critically acclaimed novels such as “Love Medicine” and “Plague of Doves.”

“She is, above all, an American original, a writer whose work rings with authenticity,” Newlen said.

Erdrich joins a line of literary heavyweights who’ve received a Library prize for fiction: Isabel Allende, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Don DeLillo and E.L. Doctorow, among others.

“I have to say, I am very surprised and moved that you came to this event because there is so much going on here,” Erdrich told a full house in the Fiction pavilion. “Thank you.”

Across the convention center, the Library’s Letters About Literature program gave one young reader face time with a favorite author.

The national reading and writing program asks students around the country to write to an author about how his or her book affected their lives. At the festival, Gabriel Ferris read his award-winning letter to Walter Isaacson, author of the best-selling “Steve Jobs,” as Isaacson listened.

“I didn’t really understand how some- one could be too determined, too driven and too rigid,” said Ferris, reading from his letter. “It was not until many chapters later that I started to realize that the same factors that played into [Jobs’] extreme success were the very factors that contributed to his personal human failure in almost all relationships. …

“Is excess a requirement for extreme success? Your story leaves me wondering if this is the case.”

Isaacson put his arm around Ferris and offered appreciation for the analysis.

“Thank you for writing the most insightful review not only of my book but of Steve Jobs’ life,” Isaacson said.

Books, Fun and Games

On the lower level of the convention center, visitors purchased books, queued up in book-signing lines that stretched across the massive exhibit-hall spaces, got a bite to eat, attended presentations at the Library of Congress Pavilion, competed at games in a virtual maze, posed their children for photos in astronaut uniforms, played impromptu volleyball with balloons and just enjoyed the company of thousands of like-minded folks.

“I am among my people #natbook- fest15,” one festivalgoer tweeted.

Among the many special programs at this year’s festival, the Library offered a five-part series exploring the impact of war on the men and women who fight.

“The Human Side of War” opened with an interview, conducted by festival co-chairman David M. Rubenstein, of journalist and “The Greatest Generation” author Tom Brokaw.

Brokaw described his experiences growing up under the World War II generation and, as a journalist six decades later, covering the men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He recalled meeting a husband and wife serving together in the National Guard in Iraq, while the grandparents cared for their children back home in the States.

This country probably won’t have a draft again, Brokaw said, but he wondered about the effect on society of such a lack of shared sacrifice.

“We have less than 1 percent of our population in uniform,” Brokaw said. “We’re asking them to take all the risks, to come home missing limbs, to be psychologically damaged, to come home in body bags. … It seems to me that’s immoral for a democratic society.”

A Laureate Launches

The festival also offered a poetry premiere: The public debut of Juan Felipe Herrera as U.S. poet laureate. Herrera appeared in the Children’s pavilion to discuss his recent book, “Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes,” served as a judge at the evening poetry-slam competition and announced the official project of his laureateship.

That project is La Casa de Colores, an invitation to Americans to contribute verse to an “epic poem” about the American experience. The poem, “La Familia,” will unfold monthly, with a new theme each month about an aspect of American life, values or culture.

“La Casa de Colores will be the voices of everybody,” Herrera said at an after- noon press conference. “Our voices are going to dance and sing.”

Taking Flight

That evening in the Biography pavilion, history buffs filled the floor and balcony of a cavernous ballroom to hear Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough discuss his most recent book, “The Wright Brothers.”

“The older I get, the more I think about our story as a country,” McCullough said. “History isn’t just about politics and war. It’s about art and music and finance and medicine and invention. It’s about everything. It’s about the human mind, human achievement, human aspirations.”

McCullough assessed the brothers’ individual talents (“Wilbur was a genius; Orville was very clever and innovative”), passed on Wilbur’s secret to success (“pick out a good mother and father and grow up in Ohio”) and the brothers’ sense of their achievement (“they knew what they had done could change the world”), and offered advice to a history teacher in the audience.

Why, the teacher asked McCullough, should we study history?

“History is human,” he said. “It’s not boring, it’s not statistics, it’s not dates you have to memorize. It’s about human beings. ‘When in the course of human events’ our great document begins – and the operative word there is ‘human.’ “

As his session neared the close, McCullough stopped and turned to his interviewer with another thought: “Oh, I wish this could be longer.”

The thousands of visitors at the 15th National Book Festival surely would agree.

(In addition, the following is an excerpt from a post originally appearing on the National Book Festival blog.)

Folks couldn’t seem to get enough of the new book festival app introduced this year. We received positive feedback about how it helped people plan their day and schedule which of the author presentations to attend.

The festival presentations were taped and the videos will start to become available on the National Book Festival website in the next month or so. (There will be a blog post to let you know when.) In the meantime, if you couldn’t make the festival or would like to join me in reflecting, today’s post contains a collection of photos from Saturday’s festivities. Enjoy!

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Junior League of Washington volunteers hold a final training session prior to the National Book Festival, September 4, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.



National Book Festival visitors peruse hundreds of titles in the book sales area, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.



National Book Festival visitors flow into the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.

 

Ned the Newshound from the Washington Post greets a young fan at the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.



Aziz and Naseem Jan, festival regulars from Pakistan, enjoy a Scholastic craft table with their daughters during the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.



A young festivalgoer tries her hand at a ring toss at the Wells Fargo booth during the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.

 

Volunteers make balloon animals for children at the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.



Visitors inscribe a wall with what they would miss most due to illiteracy during the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.



Festival Co-Chairman David M. Rubenstein meets with blog author Lola Pyne and children from the A Book That Shaped Me and Letters About Literature contests, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.

 

Juan Felipe Herrera makes his official debut as U.S. Poet Laureate during a press conference at the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.



Tom Brokaw speaks as part of a presentation on “The Human Side of War” during the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.



Author Evan Osnos speaks during the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.

 

Bryan Stevenson speaks at the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller



A family makes their way through the National Book Festival at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.



Kamaria Hatcher, a first-time festival volunteer from Washington, D.C., finds a quiet reading spot following her shift at the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.

 

Kosi Dunn emcees the Poetry Slam at teh National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.



Mila Cuda, a teen poet from Get Lit Los Angeles, competes at the Poetry Slam during the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Shawn Miller.



Buzz Aldrin speaks at the National Book Festival, September 5, 2015. Photo by Kimberly Powell.

 

Reintroducing Poetry 180 – A Poem a Day for High School Students

The following post, written by Peter Armenti, was originally published on the blog From the Catbird Seat: Poetry & Literature at the Library of Congress.

In 2001, the then U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins launched the online poetry project Poetry 180 as a way to introduce American high school students to contemporary poetry. Poetry 180 quickly became the most popular poetry-related resource on the Library of Congress’s website, and consistently ranks among the most visited sections of the Library’s entire site. We are quite pleased, then, to announce that Poetry 180 has received the first major redesign in its history–just in time for the start of the new school year!

Poetry 180, for those of you new to the resource, presents students with a new poem for each of the 180 days of the typical high school year. Participating schools often have the daily poem recited through the school’s public announcement system, read aloud by a teacher or student in the classroom, or printed and posted on a class’s bulletin board. The poems—all of which have been handpicked by Billy Collins–are highly accessible, and are not intended for classroom analysis. Widespread attempts by students to “torture a confession out of” a poem, as Collins writes in his own contribution to Poetry 180, “Introduction to Poetry,” are a surefire way to encourage students to dislike poetry. Poetry 180 provides examples of poems that students can enjoy, and even fall in love with, on a single reading.

In addition to a more modern look and feel, the new Poetry 180 website includes brief biographies of contributing poets, along with a “Rights & Access” tab that will take you quickly to permissions information for the selected poem.

Biographies for poets, as well as a “Rights & Access” tab, are now included on Poetry 180 poem pages. Screen capture of Poem 001, “Introduction to Poetry,” by Billy Collins

As in the past, readers can use the Subscribe button near the top of each page to receive through email a new Poetry 180 poem each weekday during the course of the school year. The first Poetry 180 poem of the school year will be sent out later this morning.

Several months ago the Library asked Billy Collins if he could comment on how he came up with the idea for Poetry 180, which was his major project as Poet Laureate, and its impact. Here is his response:

Thinking of a “project” connected with poetry did not come naturally to me. The poet part of me is happiest in his cell, writing away in private. But the energetic projects of some previous laureates set a precedent that was hard to ignore. Plus, as Poet Laureate, one has the material and human resources of the Library of Congress more or less at one’s disposal, which is a rather heady position to be in. Poetry 180 was a response to the general lack of contemporary poetry in the curriculum of American high schools. I thought that gathering together 180 good, clear poems—one for every day of the school year—and having one read each day would result in showing students that poetry was more than a subject to be studied, like psychology and physics; poetry could be an enjoyable, even stimulating part of every day life. Much to my surprise, I was right. I have gotten hundreds of responses from high school teachers all over the country telling me that Poetry 180 actually works in the classroom. It seems that just one poem can melt a student’s resistance to Poetry—if it’s the right poem. Happily, what began as a Library Congress website has turned into two poetry anthologies from Random House designed for any reader, not just students, especially those who have ignored poetry ever since they abandoned it at graduation.

We’d love to hear from those of you who are currently using, or have used, Poetry 180 in your school or classroom. How are you presenting the poems, and what has been students’ reaction? Leave a comment below!

Pinterest This: For Hire

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, monthly job gains averaged 235,000 over the last three months. Many of these jobs and industries didn’t even exist 10, 20, even 30 years ago – coder, software engineer, social media strategist, Zumba instructor, to name a few. But, just as new jobs are created, others become completely obsolete. Out with the old, as it were.

As we mark Labor Day on Monday and pay tribute to hard work and the American dream, here is a look at trades from a bygone era. You can check out the complete selection by following the Library’s new Pinterest board on jobs of the past.

While some of these professions eventually evolved into other vocations thanks to industrialization and technological advances, quite a few were dangerous and often involved child labor.

Rat catcher starting a ferret after rats. Bain News Service. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Yesterday’s rat catcher could definitely be considered today’s exterminator, who removes all manner of pests from your home, including rats. However, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, catching rats wasn’t as simple as baiting traps and using poison. Animals were often employed, including ferrets, as seen in this picture (left) from the Library’s George Grantham Bain (Bain News Service) collection.

In his book, “Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-Catcher” (1898), English rat catcher Ike Matthews wrote an account of his career catching vermin.

“When working ferrets for rat-catching, always work them unmuzzled. Make as little noise as possible, as Rats are very bad to bolt sometimes. Never grab at the ferret as it leaves the hole, nor tempt it out of the hole with a dead Rat. The best way is to let the ferret come out of its own choice, and then pick it up very quietly, for if you grab at it, it is likely to become what we call a ‘stopper'; and never on any account force a ferret to go into a hole.”

Employee entertainment is a perk in many companies today, including amenities like pool tables and foosball to happy hour and office pets. In cigar factories during the 19th and 20th centuries, lectors entertained employees by reading books or newspapers aloud. They were often paid by the workers or workers’ unions.

Child labor has existed throughout most of human history. They were exploited because of their size and manageability, getting paid less than adults and put in harm’s way. For example, young boys employed as powder monkeys were in charge of transporting and then loading gunpowder into giant guns and canons on warships.

If you’ve ever watched “Downton Abbey,” you’re probably familiar with the position of valet. This “gentleman’s gentleman” served as a personal attendant to the master of the manor, dressing him, running his bath, shaving him and, as seen in this picture, even ironing his clothes. I suppose a modern equivalent could be a personal assistant, although domestic duties usually aren’t part of the job.

Woman working at switchboard. Photo by Harris & Ewing, 1935. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

As it turns out, milkmen still exist. But, they’ve become less of a necessity and more of a convenience in today’s society, much like grocery deliveries, according to this article in the New York Times.

Other historical jobs featured on the Pinterest board include switchboard operator, typist, lamplighter and bowling pin boy.

Make sure to check out the Library’s other Pinterest boards (46 total), with topics ranging from architecture to sports and activities to other holidays and celebrations.

With Largest Cast Ever, Festival is One For the Books

(The following is an article written by Mark Hartsell, editor of the Library of Congress staff newsletter, The Gazette.)

2015 National Book Festival Poster. Peter de Sève, artist.

The Library of Congress National Book Festival next weekend opens its latest chapter with a few new plots and the largest cast of characters in festival history.

The 15th annual festival will offer its biggest-ever roster of speakers, take a first fling with literary love, go back to the movies, pay tribute to America’s warriors and honor the Founding Father whose own library served as the basis for today’s Library of Congress collections.

The festival, themed “I Cannot Live Without Books,” takes place Sept. 5 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in the District. The event opens at 10 a.m. Saturday with the presentation, to author Louise Erdrich, of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. Twelve hours and more than 170 speakers later, it closes with Books to Movies – the sequel to last year’s enormously popular program exploring the adaptation of literary works to the big screen.

In between, the festival presents Pulitzer Prize-winning historians (David McCullough, Rick Atkinson), poets (new U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera), best-selling mystery writers (David Baldacci, Lisa Scottoline), chefs (Patrick O’Connell of the Inn at Little Washington), weathermen (Al Roker), cartoonists (“Pearls Before Swine” creator Stephan Pastis) and one moon-walking astronaut: Buzz Aldrin, author of a new children’s book.

Special programs highlight the day and evening sessions:

In honor of the 200th anniversary of the purchase of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library by the Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division chief Mark Dimunation will host presentations by “American Sphinx” author Joseph Ellis, Annette Gordon-Reed (“The Hemingses of Monticello”), Jon Meacham (“Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power”) and Henry Wiencek (“Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves”).
“Greatest Generation” author Tom Brokaw and Pulitzer Prize-winner Atkinson are among eight authors who will explore “The Human Side of War,” a tribute to American warriors of the past 75 years. Veterans History Project Director Robert Patrick hosts the program.
Erdrich, author of critically acclaimed novels “Love Medicine” and “The Plague of Doves,” will receive the third Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction in recognition of lifetime achievement in writing fiction that explores the American experience.

A complete list of special programs is available at www.loc.gov/bookfest/information/specialprogramming.

For the second straight year, the festival will extend into the late hours – this year with poetry, movies and romance.

The festival again will stage a youth poetry slam – a competition that drew a raucous standing-room-only crowd for its 2014 festival debut. The event this year features teen poets from the District of Columbia, Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago – and a celebrity judge who knows a thing or two about poetry: Herrera, the new U.S. poet laureate.

At Books to Movies, author A. Scott Berg (“Genius”) will present a multimedia overview of the film industry, then join a panel discussion about film adaptations with Lawrence Wright (“Going Clear,” his book on Scientology) and Anne-Marie O’Connor (“The Woman in Gold”). Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday will moderate.

The festival has an evening fling with literary love: the first program devoted to romance fiction, the second-best-selling category in the publishing business. The program features three of the genre’s best-loved writers – Sarah MacLean (“Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover”), Beverly Jenkins (“Destiny’s Captive”) and Paige Tyler (“Wolf Trouble”).

The festival again provides a showcase for its host – the Library. The Library of Congress Pavilion features exhibitions by 13 offices and 10 presentations that highlight services, collections and publications.

Those presentations explore, for example, World War I sheet music, mapping the West with Lewis and Clark, Congress.gov, the World Digital Library and Chronicling America. The complete schedule for the pavilion can be found at www.loc.gov/bookfest/lcpavilion.

The complete schedule of events, and other information about the festival, is available at www.loc.gov/bookfest/.

Inspired By a Soldier’s Story

The following was written by Matthew Camarda, one of 26 college students participating in the Knowledge Navigators program at the Library of Congress. The 10-week internship program is offered to students at the University of Virginia, Catholic University of America and the College of William & Mary. Camarda is currently a senior at the College of William and Mary, majoring in government with a minor in history. His job creating Initial Bibliographic Control records for the Library’s History and Military Section related to his own interests in American politics and history.

Welton Taylor at the EAA Air Venture Show, 2006. Welton Taylor Collection, Veterans History Project.

As a Knowledge Navigators intern, I was tasked with creating initial bibliographic control records for the History and Military Science section. This brought me into contact with hundreds of history and military books, mostly obscure, but also fascinating. What I encountered most were veterans’ autobiographies detailing their time in the armed forces.

One book in particular stuck with me: “Two Steps from Glory: A World War II Liaison Pilot Confronts Jim Crow and the Enemy in the South Pacific,” by Army Major Welton I. Taylor and his daughter, Karyn. What grabbed me were Taylor’s effective, powerful voice, his moral fortitude and an incredible life story.

Taylor’s personal narratives are also part of the Library’s Veterans History Project’s collections.

Born in 1919, Taylor spent the first five years of his life in Birmingham, Alabama. He and his family were forced to leave when his mother saw a klansman unhooded at a Ku Klux Klan rally and promptly yelled at him.

He grew up in Chicago, where he developed an interest in making and selling model airplanes. In his VHP interview, Taylor remembered his father telling him that no black men had ever been allowed to be a pilot in the Armed Forces, but that he should try anyway, saying, “Times change, things change, people change.”

Taylor attended the University of Illinois through scholarships from the black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi, majoring in bacteriology and serving for two years in the ROTC’s Field Artillery, eventually becoming a second lieutenant (one of the first black officers at that time) just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Serving with the Second Battalion of the 184th Field Artillery Regiment, he witnessed how even successful black units faced discrimination by the Army, who shipped away freshly trained recruits and skilled officers to labor outfits.

Beating the odds, Taylor was sent to flight school where he averaged a 98 percent in all his tests and fought to prevent the school from segregating his living quarters. In 1943, he was sent to the Pacific Theater, first to Guadalcanal and later to New Guinea and Mortai, earning seven Air Medals.

Even abroad, discrimination was rampant. In one instance, every white and black officer’s pay was docked $25 every month to pay for a new, whites-only officers’ club. Refusing to accept this, Taylor found a captain who helped him send his complaint to judge advocate general, which forced the white officers to either refund the black officers the money or allow them inside the club.

Returning home to Illinois from the war, Taylor continued to fight segregation. Recruited by the wife of Champaign’s district attorney, Taylor fought alongside black and white veterans to integrate restaurants and movie theaters.

Taylor and his wife, Jayne, later moved to the all-white neighborhood of Chatham on the South Side of Chicago. There, Taylor served in several community organizations and was even appointed to Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Commission on Human Relations. Despite the Taylors’ and other community leaders’ best efforts, white flight quickly flipped the town’s racial composition.

Welton Taylor at Guadalcanal, 1944. Welton Taylor Collection, Veterans History Project.

Taylor would go on to lead a distinguished career as a microbiologist. As an instructor at the University of Illinois’ College of Medicine, he wrote papers on the diseases that had killed soldiers during wartime – including diphtheria, tetanus and gas gangrene – proving that each could be cured by penicillin. Working as a microbiologist at Swift & Company and later at Children’s Memorial Hospital, he helped develop a new method for salmonella detection that is still used today.

Taylor also spent two decades consulting for hospitals, corporations and the Center for Disease Control, helping them address food-borne illness, Legionnaires’ Disease and AIDS. In 1985, the CDC named a newly discovered bacterium, Enterobacter taylorae, partially in his honor.

I had never heard of Taylor, yet the breadth and magnitude of his accomplishments are staggering. His skill as a pilot and a leader made a mockery of the Army’s segregation policies. Men like Taylor enabled President Truman to desegregate the Armed Forces, which was recommended by the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, currently on display in the Library’s Civil Rights exhibit.

Taylor’s life proves that you don’t have to achieve fame to make a difference; day-to-day hard work and perseverance can bring about gradual but monumental change. Further, it affirms the essential work of the Library of Congress (and the Veterans History Project), which not only compiles stories but also encourages people to tell theirs.

In recognition of the 70th anniversary of VJ-Day, the Veterans History Project has launched a major campaign to preserve the stories of World War II veterans residing in and around the nation’s capital. Select appointments are available through Sept. 2 to conduct interviews on site at the Library. In addition, training sessions for interviewers are being offered Sept. 25 and Sept. 26.

Other Resources:

“Experiencing War: African American Veterans Fighting Two Battles”

African American Odyssey: The Depression, the New Deal and World War II

Sources: “Two Steps from Glory,” by Maj. Welton I. Taylor, with Karyn J. Taylor; Welton I. Taylor Collection (Interviewer: Thomas Murray) 

The Ghost Writer of the “Seaman’s Ghost”

The following post has been written by Sierriana Terry, one of 36 college students who participated in the 10-week Library of Congress Junior Fellow Summer Intern Program. A senior at North Carolina Central University studying music performance with a licensure in K-12 education, Terry worked in the Library’s Music Division. Her plan after the program is to attend graduate school and study musicology (music history).

“The Shipwrek’d Shipman’s Ghost,” credited to Stephen Storace manuscript. Music Division.

As part of the Junior Fellows program, I have had the opportunity to catalog and research different sheet music collections. The David Lewin Papers, the Early American Sheet Music Collection and the Koussevitzky Commissions are major projects I worked on, just to name a few. The physical copies of these collections are housed in the Library’s Music Division, each containing sheet music original to the topic (i.e. Early American Sheet Music contains sheet music written pre-1820 by American composers and publishers).

I encountered quite an interesting item while working on the Early American Sheet Music collection: a manuscript of a song “The Shipwrecked Seaman’s Ghost” from “The Pirates” (an opera), credited to English composer Stephen Storace. Closely examining the manuscript, I noticed notes on the back (originally I assumed them to be initial sketches of the song) that appeared to be from a basic music theory lesson. The writing had several labels on each staff such as “principal chords” and solfège symbols for each note, which led me to assume that someone copied the song to practice for a singing lesson.

I cataloged the hand as “unknown,” for the hand on the manuscript and Storace’s hand were not a match according to the Library’s resources. I could not help but wonder, “Why would this be in this collection if it’s from an English opera?” After completing a few more items in the collection I decided to conduct more research on the manuscript.

Notes on page two appear to be a music theory lesson.

Using the Library’s staff and resources, I was able to find that “The Pirates” was composed by Stephen Storace – a composer whose comic operas were popular during their time – and premiered in 1792. It was well received by audiences and is considered to be Storace’s best composition. Opera at this time in England and early America could often resemble a musical potpourri, or a set or series of thematically connected songs. By looking at the score, there are no characteristics of a “proper” opera, including characters, plot and separate libretto.

Through the Library’s website I found a 1790 print edition of the opera and consulted it as a possible lead. Immediately, I noticed that none of the songs in the opera contained proper titles; each one had listed the performer(s) at the top as a title. As I skimmed through the score, I had to find the manuscript by the notation and words. After finding the song, I encountered two differences between the manuscript version of the song and the printed score – the first being that the manuscript is actually incomplete and the second, a modified bass clef in the piano accompaniment. Slightly frustrated coming to another “dead end,” I put the manuscript aside, hoping I could find something later.

The original version of the song in the opera “The Pirates.”

I moved back to the other items in the box and saw a published song, also from “The Pirates,” credited to Stephen Storace and published by B. Carr in Philadelphia. I referred back to the opera using the sheet music in front of me as a reference to find the same difference I found with the manuscript – a modified bass clef part in the piano accompaniment. I conducted some research on B. Carr and came across the name Benjamin Carr. Carr was an American composer, publisher, singer and teacher also known as the “Father of Philadelphia Music.” Born in London, he traveled to Philadelphia in 1793 with a stage company and remained there for a short period of time publishing and selling music. In the 1790s, Carr became the most important and prolific music publisher in America. Also, he was one of the founding members of the Musical Fund Society (one of the oldest musical societies in America) of Philadelphia.

My theory is that Carr received a copy of the score and published the songs, while giving them titles and revamping the bass clef. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find anything in Carr’s hand to match to the hand of the manuscript, but it is plausible that it is indeed his hand.

The Library’s collections and resources have many fascinating stories to tell, which several of the Junior Fellow interns have discovered. You can read about them here. 

DICE-y Digitization

The following post is by Elizabeth Pieri, one of 36 college students who participated in the Library’s Junior Fellow Summer Intern Program. She’s in her fourth year at Rochester Institute of Technology, as a motion picture science major. Because her program focuses on the fundamental imaging technologies used in the motion picture industry, she was able to apply her knowledge of imaging analysis and programming to her Library project. Pieri was also able to attend meetings and tours that pertained to the film and motion picture industry, which she found beneficial because of her interests within her field of study.

What do you think this map really looks like? Pick one! (answer below)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only one of these is accurate to the original, but any one of these could be. How do we know which one is right?

The Library of Congress has pioneered the effort to develop a system to measure the quality of digital imaging, including the analysis of color quality. Starting in 2008, the Library began development of the Digital Image Conformance Evaluation Program (DICE). This program has become the reference tool used by cultural heritage digitization centers worldwide and has helped to improve the quality of digitization of our cultural treasures.

My project involves helping Lei He, a digital imaging specialist in the Library, develop an open source version of this system that can be freely distributed to cultural heritage institutions worldwide. Specifically, I am writing the code and building the interface using MatLab, a scientific programming environment that I learned at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Correct image of the map. The Geography and Map Division scans every object with an object level target.

Color accuracy in digitization is critically important but really difficult to achieve. So which map is right? We measure the color values in the DICE target that is imaged with the map and evaluate the data in DICE. You can see the target under the map in the correct image here on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

DICE reports the accuracy of the reproduction, displaying measurements of both luminance (brightness) and the color references on the target.

Luminance

Color difference

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To ensure quality images, DICE is used very frequently across the Library. It has been used in the process of digitizing the Americana Vault collection, the Rosa Parks collection, the safety negatives of the Farm Security Administration and the field projects of the American Folklife Center, just to name a few.

The Library’s goal is to release this tool in January of 2016 with the next Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Inititiave (FADGI) still image digitization guidelines update. (See the guidelines here.) Combined with the new imaging guidelines, the tool will help improve digitization worldwide. Who would have guessed that the Library of Congress is on the forefront of digital imaging? Many people don’t realize the huge scope of projects the Library has taken on and what a service they provide to the public.

Expert’s Corner: Collection Development Officer Joseph Puccio

(The following story is featured in the July/August 2015 issue of the LCM, which you can read in it’s entirety here.)

Collection Development Officer Joseph Puccio discusses the Library’s collection-building today and tomorrow.

Photo by Shawn Miller

When I began my career at the Library of Congress in 1983 as a freshly minted library school graduate, I was astounded by the depth and breadth of the collections, comprising more than 79 million items. Those collections were all physical (analog) items, and they have continued to grow. The Library’s analog collection today totals more than 160 million items. In recent years, a huge amount of digitized collection material and born-digital items has been amassed, too–now consuming more than five petabytes of storage space.

The Library’s acquisitions programs for physical materials, with their supporting policies and technical infrastructure, are long-established and extremely effective. A set of over 70 Collections Policy Statements and Supplementary Guidelines documents guide the institution’s acquisitions and selection operations. These policies were developed over decades and continue to be updated. They provide the policy framework to support the Library’s responsibilities to serve the Congress as well as the United States government as a whole, the scholarly community and the general public. The policies provide a plan for developing the collections and maintaining their existing strengths. They set forth the scope, level of collecting intensity and goals sought by the Library to fulfill its service mission.

Our digital collecting programs, for the most part, are still in the process of being fully developed, with several successfully implemented. These efforts fall under the same framework of our analog collecting policies. However, a range of challenges–both technical and intellectual–must be met.

On the technical side is the challenge of the multiplicity of formats in which digital materials are produced, and the fact that the technology is constantly advancing. Thus, building and maintaining a system to ingest, preserve and provide access to digital content requires continuing modification.

A major consideration is the long-term sustainability of the digital materials. We are concerned about access to the content today and in the future. Another major factor in working with digital content is respecting use limitations imposed by the rights holders (usually creators or publishers).

But the biggest challenge is to decide what to collect and in what format. We do not have the resources to collect all available digital content–not even close. So, the questions we ask include what does the Congress need to support its work now? What will researchers need in 100 years or 500 years? What content best reflects America’s history and should be preserved and made accessible in perpetuity?

Those are questions we asked–and still ask– regarding analog materials. Such questions are even more critical in the realm of digital collecting. Although the policies provide guidance, the reality is that selection decisions–whether for analog or digital material–often require the expert judgment of Library staff members.

As the Library’s digital collecting program expands and matures, policies will continue to evolve. For example, our policy for U.S. newspapers states that we collect those that meet certain criteria, including those that are national in scope or coverage. For decades, we have met that mandate by acquiring paper issues for current use and microfilm for the permanent collection. How will that policy be applied in an environment where the newspapers themselves are available in multiple digital formats and a publication’s content is available separately, via one or more websites and through aggregated databases? Choices will need to be made, and the policies will need to be reviewed and updated on a continuing basis to meet the current and future needs of our users.

A Founder and a Firebrand

The nation and the world are mourning the passing of civil-rights activist Julian Bond, who died on Saturday in Florida at age 75. Brought up in an intellectual family, he was a skinny, witty, articulate young man when he helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, in 1960, traveling around the south to organize civil-rights and voter-registration drives.

Julian Bond, in youth

He interrupted his education at Morehouse College to participate in the crucial years of the civil-rights movement, then returned to school in 1971. With Morris Dees, he co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama. He later served as chairman of the NAACP and taught at American University and at the University of Virginia.

In 1965, Bond – who had been vocal in his opposition to the Vietnam War – was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act. The chamber tried to bar his entry as a lawmaker on grounds he had opposed the war. Although a U.S. District Court supported the Georgia House in the dispute, ultimately in 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the House to seat Bond, saying its grounds for barring him violated his free-speech rights. He went on to serve four terms in the Georgia House and six terms in the Georgia Senate.

He was also nominated in 1968 for vice president of the United States – becoming the first African American to be so nominated – at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He was, however, too young to serve under the limits set by the U.S. Constitution. Bond later ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress.

Julian Bond appears in many of the Library’s major civil-rights collections, including the NAACP Papers, the SNCC Collection and the American Folklife Center’s Civil Rights History Project Collection. A poet and author, he also narrated the prize-winning public television documentary “Eyes on the Prize.” He supported same-sex marriage rights.

Here, he narrates the introduction to the current Library of Congress exhibition, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom.”

 

 

Rare Book of the Month: Francis Bacon, A Thinker’s Thinker

(The following is a guest blog post written by Elizabeth Gettins, Library of Congress digital library specialist. Every month, the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division will highlight a unique book from its collections, and the Library of Congress blog will take an in-depth look at the historical volume. Make sure to check back again next month!)

Front matter portrait of Francis Bacon. ” Sylva Sylvarum,” 1683. Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

The Rare Book and Special Collections Division’s Book of the Month for August 2015 is  This seminal work is comprised of multiple texts written by Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Bacon was an English humanist known as the father of empiricism or the scientific method. Empiricism was a revolutionary idea for its time, which postulated that observing the world through an organized process and without preconceived notion was the way to arrive at truth. This fundamental tenet established the scientific practice of methodology that is still in practice today.

Bacon was an exceedingly well-rounded thinker and a true Renaissance man, making contributions to philosophy, rhetoric, science, politics, law and literature. “Sylva Sylvarum” contains many of his ideas on philosophy and science and was published posthumously in 1683 by William Rawley, who was Bacon’s literary executor.

The first work in “Sylva Sylvarum” is titled “Natural History” and is divided into 10 centuries of thought. In glancing at the listings, one struggles a bit with its font and Old English, although with a little effort the entries can be deciphered. Below is a listing of the line of scientific observation along with a sampling of the types of topics that are explored within these fields.

Frontispiece Illustration from “Sylva Sylvarum”

The listings have been tweaked a bit to make them easier for the modern English reader to understand, but one will likely notice that the works appear somewhat random, oddly organized and perhaps fanciful to the modern mind. Bacon himself commented that they are an “indigestible heap of particulars.”

Century I: “Straining and percolation,” including topics of artificial springs, the secret nature of flame and the power of heat.

Century II: “Music,” including topics on the loudness and softness of sound, equality and inequality of sound and articulation of sounds.

Century III: “Lines of which sounds move,” including topics on reflection of sounds, imitation of sounds, hindering and helping of hearing.

Century IV: “Clarification of liquids as well as the accelerating and maturation of fruits,” including making gold, acceleration of birth and the lasting of flame.

Century V: “Acceleration of germination,” including meliorating or making better fruits, sympathy and antipathy of plants and making herbs and plants medicinal.

Century VI: “Curiosities about fruits and plants,” including producing perfect plants without seed, the seasons of several plants and the lasting of plants.

Century VII: “Similarities and differences between plants and animals,” including the healing of wounds, clearness of the sea and north wind blowing, and of yawning.

Century VIII: “Medicine from nature,” including the glow-worm, sleep and the use of bathing and anointing.

Century IX: “Perceptions in bodies tending to natural divination,” including the causes of appetites in the stomach, flesh edible and inedible and of blows and bruises.

Century X: “Transmission and influx of virtues,” including the emission of spirits in vapor, secret virtues and properties and general sympathy of men’s spirits.

The topics are a curious and interesting look into early scientific thought. They depart quite a bit from today’s ideas and organization. Regardless, Bacon makes important movements toward the critical use of methodology in science and offers this information to others to make further advancements.

An example – his experimental process of observation of a bubble from Chapter I – may strike the reader as quite interesting:

“Bubbles are in the form of a hemisphere; air within, and a little skin of water without: And it seemeth somewhat strange, that the air should rise so swiftly, while it is in the water; and when it cometh to the top, should be staid by so weak a cover, as that of the bubble is.”

However, one may not be able to agree with, or understand, why one would do the following from Chapter VII:

“It hath been noted by the ancients, that it is dangerous to pick one’s ear while he yawneth. The cause is, for that in yawning, the inner parchment of the ear is extended by the drawing in of the spirit and breath; for in yawning and sighing both, the spirit is first strongly drawn in, and then strongly expelled.”

“Natural History” is filled with scientific observation of this sort, and if one has the patience to wade through this dense text, it makes for interesting insight into the mind of Bacon and those who lived in his time.

Title page of “New Atlantis, A Work Unfinished”

The next text within “Sylva Sylvarum” is a utopian novel set in the New World. Bacon advances his thoughts about how discovery and knowledge can lead to all of the finer qualities of mankind’s nature, which, according to Bacon, included generosity, enlightenment, dignity, splendor, piety and public spirit.

Following is a work that involves Bacon’s thoughts on the nature and length of life in regard to all of the variations that he observes, including everything from mankind, animals, plants and minerals. He posits ideas on what can heal or prolong life, such as elements, minerals, food, drink, practices and behaviors, and emotions. He then speculates on the nature of aging, death and of the spirit.

The final text in “Sylva Sylvarum” addresses properties of metals and minerals, including how they react to one another and their various behaviors when introduced to an element.

This particular copy of “Sylva Sylvarum” is from the George Fabyan Collection within the Rare Book and Special Collection Division. The Fabyan Collection includes many early editions of works of 17th-century English literature, as well as seminal works in science. The majority of the items in the collection focus on publications relating to cryptography, which is the science of creating a code within a document that only those with the key can interpret. It should not be surprising to learn that Bacon also made contributions in 1605 towards cryptography with his cipher based on steganography. To learn more on this topic, the Library of Congress offers a number of books in digital format on Baconian ciphers.

Just when one thinks Bacon’s influence couldn’t have been more far-reaching, we can also look to how Thomas Jefferson organized his library, which eventually became an early Library of Congress. Jefferson, a man of the Enlightenment, had adopted Bacon’s categorical system known as the “Advancement of Learning,” with major divisional topics that included memory, reason and imagination.

The Library of Congress offers a permanent exhibit of Thomas Jefferson’s books organized by Bacon’s system.

In addition, the Rare Book and Special Collection Division offers more information on the Jefferson Collection with a bibliography that includes commentary regarding the Bacon method of organization.

Portrait statue of Francis Bacon along the balustrade in Library of Congress Main Reading Room. Photo by Carol Highsmith, 2007. Prints and Photographs Division.

Bacon lived to the age of 65, nearly 400 years ago. This relatively short life by today’s standards still has an important and lasting impact on how life is lived in modern society today. He serves as an inspiration to us all to live a life of industry, aiming at enlightenment and advancement for mankind.

Resources at the Library of Congress via the Science, Technology and Business Division

Science Tracer Bullets Online: Cryptology
All things science
History of Science

From the Law Library

A blog post on Bacon and the Law

Exhibitions

Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture