Library of Congress's Blog, page 169

One Day, 15 Hours, 53 Minutes and Counting …

Pavilions arise … the Library of Congress National Book Festival opens Saturday

The Library of Congress National Book Festival is just hours away!

It’s free … it’s open to the public on the National Mall … and it’s got fun and fascination for readers of all ages and tastes.

No fewer than 112 stellar authors – historians, novelists, children’s and teens’ authors, poets, biographers, illustrators and graphic novelists – will delight legions of fans at the 13th annual Festival. It takes place on Saturday, Sept. 21 and Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013, between 9th and 14th streets on the Mall.  It will run from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and from noon to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, rain or shine.

Special features of this year’s festival include a Library of Congress Pavilion packed with presentations from the Library’s curators and collections, plus a presentation of top awards Sunday at noon in the Special Programs Pavilion for 5th-and 6th-grade students who wrote essays in the multi-state “A Book That Shaped Me” contest.  During that session, a trio of excellent literacy programs that have won awards in the premiere Library of Congress Literacy Awards will be announced.

In keeping with the festival’s theme, “Books That Shaped the World,” fans are invited to go to the official website and, using a survey form, nominate books that they believe meet that description. Balloting will also take place in-person at the Festival’s Library of Congress Pavilion (you can even nominate on our giant whiteboard).

Poets, authors and artists slated to appear at the festival include Marie Arana, Rick Atkinson, Margaret Atwood, Lynda Barry, Taylor Branch, Christopher Buckley, Fred Chao, Giada De Laurentiis, Don DeLillo, Stuart Eizenstat, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Juan Felipe Herrera, Khaled Hosseini, William P. Jones, Cynthia Kadohata, Thomas Keneally, Hoda Kotb, this year’s poster illustrator Suzy Lee, Rafael López, Terry McMillan, Brad Meltzer, Joyce Carol Oates, Katherine Paterson, Tamora Pierce, Daniel Pink, Linda Ronstadt, Jon Scieszka, Chad “Corntassel” Smith, Manil Suri, U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, George Weigel, William Wegman … well, heck.  Why not just look at the entire list of authors here.

This may be, honestly, as much fun as you’ll ever have under the auspices of the federal government (paid for with funds provided by very generous sponsors).  Don’t miss it! It goes on rain or shine, and every now and then there will be some precip, so pack a little umbrella or a poncho and you’ll be golden.

We’ll see you there! Meanwhile, have fun watching the NBF countdown clock (and other features) at the festival website.

A Pirate’s Life For Me

Morrison’s production of the new romantic melo-drama, “The Privateer,” by Harrison Grey Fiske. 1897. Prints and Photographs Division.

Today, you best get out your peg leg, eye patch and practice your “arrrr’s” … it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day! What started as a joke among a handful of friends in 1995 has become a widely recognized fun-for-the-sake-of-fun celebration, thanks in large part to a column written by Dave Barry in 2002.

A few words of advice from various Internet resources in preparation for the day: growl and scowl often, making sure to slur words and gesticulate frequently while using pirate lingo. Embellish stories at will and, above all else, be loud and confident.

And, fear not, your social media needs are covered as Facebook has “pirate” as an official language.

Pirates were certainly colorful characters and the scourge of the sea. During the centuries of Spanish exploration and colonization, “treasure fleets” made regular trips to the Americas to deliver merchandise and collect treasures and precious metals. As these cargos increased in size and value, so did the risk of capture and theft. Foreign navies, privateers (commissioned agents sent out against the enemies of states), and pirates threatened, attacked and plundered the ships of the treasure fleets. Privateers were licensed by a government to raid the ships of declared enemies and shared their gains with the licensor.  Pirates were not loyal to any country and attacked indiscriminately for their own gain.

One of the most important books documenting pirates was “The Buccaneers of America,” written by Alexandre Exquemelin in 1678. He served as surgeon for nearly 10 years with various buccaneers and gives an eyewitness account of the daring deeds of French, Dutch and English pirates raiding Spanish ships and colonies in the Caribbean.

This item is one of many digitized materials from the Library’s Jay I. Kislak Collection housed in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. You can get an up-close and personal look at this priceless volume here.

And, what would a pirate be without a song? Several types of sea shanties and sailors’ songs are found in the recorded collections of the Archive of Folk Culture in the Library’s American Folklife Center.  In addition, recordings can be found in the Library’s American Memory collections.

 

 

 

Happy Constitution Day!

Reproduction of a painting of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and others signing the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia, Penn., by Hy. Hintermeister. 1925. Prints and Photographs Division.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Today we celebrate the 226th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution in Philadelphia, Penn. The Constitutional Convention convened in response to dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation and the need for a strong centralized government. Although the vote was close in some states, the Constitution was eventually ratified and the new Federal government came into existence in 1789.

And, to mark the historical occasion, the Library of Congress is releasing a web publication and free “app” for smart devices that places a clause-by-clause explanation of the important document in the hands of millions of people.

The new resources, which include analysis of Supreme Court cases through June 26, 2013, will be updated multiple times each year as new court decisions are issued.  Legal professionals, teachers, students and anyone researching the constitutional implications of a particular topic can easily locate constitutional amendments, federal and state laws that were held unconstitutional, and tables of recent cases with corresponding topics and constitutional implications.

Release of the web publication and app also coincide with the 100th anniversary edition of a printed document, “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation,” which was published at the direction of the U.S. Senate for the first time in 1913. Popularly known as the Constitution Annotated, the volume has been published as a bound edition every 10 years, with updates addressing new constitutional law cases issued every two years. The analysis is provided by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) at the Library of Congress. These new resources will now make the nearly 3,000-page Constitution Annotated more accessible to more people and enable updates of new case analysis throughout each year.

While the Constitution serves as a model of compromise and collaborative statesmanship, the road to it was a slow and difficult process – most of which took place during a long revolutionary war. The Library’s online exhibition, “Creating the United States,” takes a look at the path in creating one of our nation’s most fundamental documents. Included is an interactive that let’s viewers connect with particular phrases and ideas, along with edits made when drafting the document.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: Why Sept. 15?

(The following is a guest post by Barbara A. Tenenbaum, specialist in Mexican culture in the Library of Congress Hispanic Division.)      

It seems a bit strange that in contrast to all the other “heritage” celebrations and recognitions, the one for Hispanic Americans starts in the middle of the month – September 15 to be exact. That selection, however, has profound roots in Hispanic history.

The vast majority of Hispanics living in the United States come from Mexico and Central America. Those areas are deeply connected to that date because their independence day is either on September 15 or September 16.

Originally, Mexico (much larger than it is today, including Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona and parts of several other states) and all the nations of Central America except Panama – Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua – were all part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Spanish Crown had ruled the Viceroyalty of New Spain for almost 300 years when its Mexican residents began to think about becoming a co-equal kingdom or independent from the mother country. The Bourbon Reforms (1766-1804) had brought with them new taxes, new restrictions on native-born Spaniards, and the exile of the Jesuit order among other things. Further, many Mexican residents wanted to trade freely and legally with other powers like Britain, France, and the United States.

Commemoration of Father Miguel Hidalgo by José Guadalupe Posada. Prints and Photographs Division.

At midnight on the night of Sept. 15, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla began his campaign for Mexican independence and rang the church bells in the town of Dolores in the present-state of Guanajuato, Mexico, proclaiming, “Viva la independencia y mueran los gachupines!” (Long live independence and death to the Spaniards!”) Hidalgo knew he would soon be arrested along with other co-conspirators who had been discovered by the authorities and decided to advance the process by beginning the movement immediately. At its height, the Hidalgo insurgency had approximately 50,000 members, most of whom were Indians.

Royalist forces eventually defeated and captured Hidalgo and his supporters, but others continued the movement, including José María Morelos, Guadalupe Victoria and Vicente Guerrero. On Feb. 24, 1821, royalist officer Agustín de Iturbide adopted the independence cause and issued the “Plan de Iguala,” calling for independence from Spain, the adoption of Roman Catholicism as the state religion, and the legal equality of whites and mixed races. Ultimately, Mexico and Central America became independent from Spain in 1821.

Iturbide declared himself emperor in December 1821 and Central America agreed to become part of royalist Mexico. However, Iturbide was forced to abdicate the throne in March 1823, and the countries of Central America left Mexico in July, with the significant exception of Chiapas. Those nations declared September 15 as their Independence Day, while Mexico went with September 16, to mark when Hidalgo delivered his famous “Grito de Delores” battle cry of independence.

 

Back to School

(The following is the cover story written by Stephen Wesson, educational resource specialist in the Educational Outreach Division of the Office of Strategic Initiatives, for the September-October 2013 edition of the Library of Congress Magazine. You can download the issue in its entirety here.) 

Teachers and students are discovering new ways of learning with resources from the Library of Congress. 

Fourth-grade students enjoy looking for clues in historic maps. Educational Outreach Division.

Students in the Bronx pore over first-hand accounts of riots in New York City in 1863 and map them to neighborhoods that they know today.

In Oregon, fifth-graders sprawl across a massive world map from 1507, searching for clues about what life would be like for an explorer.

A Nevada middle-schooler finds original paperwork from the construction of the Erie Canal— including a letter from Abraham Lincoln—weaves it into the story of labor and management in the industrial revolution, and wins a national history prize.

These students from different states, in different grades, studying different subjects, have one thing in common: They’re all making discoveries using resources from the Library of Congress.

Over the past two decades, technology has allowed the Library to make many of its collections accessible in classrooms around the world, helping teachers and students to explore a wide variety of subjects. The Library’s robust educational outreach program helps educators maximize this opportunity. At the heart of that program is the unparalleled collection of objects and documents that anyone can explore, save and use for free on the Library’s website, loc.gov.

Bringing the Library into the Classroom

Students from Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C., use the LOC Box to explore different features of the Library’s architecture. Photo by Abby Brack Lewis.

The Library’s outreach to K-12 educators has its roots in the late 1980s, when Librarian of Congress James H. Billington recognized that digital technology could be used to make the contents of the nation’s library more accessible to Congress, the American people and the world. In the 1990s, the Library began digitizing items from its collections and sending them to schools on disc. With the rise of the Internet, the treasures of the Library, and its expertise, could be available to an even wider audience. The possibilities for teachers and students were—and are—tremendous.

However, these technologies bring new challenges as well. Students need the skills that will allow them to navigate a crowded information marketplace, and the skills to prepare them to be effective 21st-century citizens. Meanwhile, teachers need materials and strategies to engage students and provide them with opportunities to learn and practice problem-solving, research and collaboration skills.

In the current educational climate, primary sources are more important than ever. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) require teachers to use primary sources in their classrooms, supporting students as they learn to cite evidence and synthesize ideas, thoughtfully considering each piece of information’s point of origin. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a guide for the teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), also stress the value of primary-source analysis and research skills.

“The Library is playing a unique and vital role in supporting the K-12 community during this period of transformation,” said Lee Ann Potter, the Library’s director of Educational Outreach. “As the world’s largest cultural repository, the Library provides free access to millions of online primary- source items.”

The Power of Primary Sources

Kindergarten students from Manalapan, N.J., interact with primary sources. Photo by Earnestine Sweeting.

The power that these items bring to learning is that they are historical artifacts that were created during the time period under study. Primary sources are the raw materials of history and culture. “As such, they capture students’ attention,” said Potter. “They give students a powerful sense of history and of the complexity of the past in a way that textbooks and other secondary sources don’t. Analyzing primary sources prompts students to ask questions; guides them toward higher-order thinking, better critical-thinking and analysis skills; and encourages additional research.”

No matter the subject or era, there’s something for everyone. From Thomas Edison’s late 19th-century films to 20th-century soda commercials, from poet Walt Whitman’s notebooks to the journals of scientist Carl Sagan, from Revolutionary War letters from Valley Forge to the stories of Iraq War veterans, the collections span the universe of knowledge, and offer a dazzling record of human creativity.

An Online Home for Teachers

The Library’s support for educators isn’t limited to providing access to its collections.

“We are providing the nation’s K-12 educators with a treasure trove of free tools, professional development and subject-area expertise that allows them to bring the world’s history and culture to life in their classrooms,” said Potter.

All this can be found at the Library’s online home for educators—loc.gov/teachers. The Teachers Page provides classroom-ready primary sources, along with tools and training that make it easier to integrate sources effectively into curricula. The site also allows K-12 educators to interact and share ideas and to learn from Library staff members via webinars.

The site offers more than 100 carefully prepared, teacher-tested lesson plans and teaching activities built around the Library’s online collections. The collections are all searchable by Common Core State Standards, state content standards and the standards of national organizations.

To keep up with everything the Library is doing for teachers, more than 25,000 subscribers receive the Teaching with the Library of Congress blog (blogs.loc.gov/teachers). The blog brings ready-to-use teaching ideas and news to its audience via email and RSS feeds.

Educators looking to build their skills can choose from an array of online, self-directed training modules or customizable professional-development activities on the Teachers Page.

When in doubt, teachers and students can pose their questions through the Library’s online “Ask a Librarian” service.

“Looking ahead, we are energized by the possibilities that mobile devices offer cultural institutions like the Library of Congress, which seek to serve broad and diverse audiences, regardless of where they are located,” said Potter.

On-Site Opportunities

Teachers participate at an on-site workshop at the Library of Congress. Educational Outreach Division.

Each year, educators from across the country are selected to participate in one of several week-long Teaching with Primary Sources Summer Teacher Institutes held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. (Apply at the Library’s “Resources for Teachers” website.) To provide educators across the country with similar instruction, the Library’s Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Educational Consortium offers professional development workshops in various locations.

Teachers and elementary-school students who plan to visit the Library in person should not miss the Young Readers Center. They also will find that many of the Library’s exhibitions offer special guides for children to interact with the exhibitions. Student groups in grades four to six can participate in the LOC Box program to “unlock” the secrets of the historic Thomas Jefferson Building and learn about the Library of Congress and its resources. The program allows students to participate in hands-on activities designed for use by a team of students led by a teacher or adult chaperone.

Anyone age 16 or older can get a Reader Identification Card to do research at the Library of Congress. The reader card allows the public to access the more than 155 million items in the Library’s collections.

New Twitter Feed, @TeachingLC, Launches

(Today, one of the Library of Congress blogs, Teaching with the Library of Congress, made an important announcement about its new tool in education outreach.)

The Library of Congress Launches @TeachingLC, Its New Twitter Feed for K-12 Educators

September 12, 2013 by Stephen Wesson

Sharing ideas is a critical part of all great teaching, and now the Library of Congress has a new tool for exchanging ideas with the nation’s K-12 teachers: @TeachingLC, its new Twitter feed for educators.

The Library’s Director of Educational Outreach, Lee Ann Potter, hailed the launch. “Teachers and librarians use Twitter to discover new ideas and inspiration, and we at the Library are happy to be joining the conversation. @TeachingLC will be a great venue for educators to learn from each other and to explore the primary sources and teaching resources offered by the Library of Congress.”

The new Twitter feed will highlight intriguing primary sources, showcase new tools for teachers, and spark discussion between the nation’s K-12 educators and Library experts.

“There is always something new to discover at the Library of Congress, and we’re looking forward to working with teachers to find new ways to fuel student learning and encourage their discoveries.”

The Library of Congress makes available millions of digitized artifacts from across world history and culture, all for free. Primary sources like these have tremendous power to capture students’ attention and to build their critical thinking and analysis skills.

To help teachers bring these primary sources to life in their classrooms, the Library offers free teaching tools and professional learning opportunities on its Web site for teachers, loc.gov/teachers.

We hope you’ll follow us and spread the word! Meanwhile, let us know what you’d like to hear about in @TeachingLC.

Carrying a Torch — Ours!

The Library of Congress (top right) overlooks its National Book Festival, which returns to the National Mall Saturday, Sept. 21 and Sunday, Sept. 22

With the Library of Congress National Book Festival just days away (it’s a week from this weekend, Saturday, Sept. 21 and Sunday, Sept. 22, free of charge on the National Mall) we have a lot to share in addition to more than 100 best-selling authors for readers of all ages.  One of the great stops at this year’s festival will be the Library of Congress Pavilion.

This year the pavilion will be more packed than ever before with a huge variety of offerings from the Library – it’s your opportunity to sample our “universe under the dome with the torch of knowledge on top,” appetizer-style.  The Library of Congress, despite its name, is also your Library, and anyone over the age of 16 can get a reader card and use our reading rooms to do research within our vast collections; we also have a Young Readers Center for children and teens to visit, and several museum-style exhibitions, such as our ongoing blockbuster, “The Civil War in America.” All of this comes to you free of charge from the largest library in the world.

This year at the National Book Festival’s Library of Congress Pavilion, we will have tables featuring curators and other staff from a wide variety of Library divisions; we will also have two theaters where curators and other Library leaders will give brief presentations about their areas of expertise.  Both Saturday and Sunday, these leaders will give fascinating talks about topics ranging from Copyright and the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (both of them part of the Library of Congress) to genealogy, preservation, educational outreach, the aforementioned Young Readers Center, the Law Library of Congress, the Prints & Photographs Division, the Recorded Sound Collections, numerous collections based on regions of the world, the World Digital Library, and the Music Division.  Signs with times will be posted, and times will be in the official program as well, or you can view the schedule here.

There will be talks by curators from our Civil War exhibition and the Geography & Map Division; the Veterans History Project; and the project that preserves old newspapers from all over the country for digital perusal.

The Library of Congress Pavilion also will hold a display on “Books That Shaped the World,” which will offer you the chance to vote via survey to nominate a book you believe shaped the world or jot its title on our giant whiteboard.  Come be heard!

And one more thing – for those of you who’ve wanted to go home with a National Book Festival T-shirt – we will be offering T-shirts in designs for adults and kids at a special sales tent across the street north of the grounds, in front of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.  It’s near the book-signing area – come check it out.

The Library of Congress National Book Festival will take place, rain or shine, on Saturday, Sept. 21 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and on Sunday, Sept. 22 from noon to 5:30 p.m. on the National Mall, between 9th and 14th Streets.  Don’t miss it!

 

InRetrospect: August Blogging Edition

Let’s take a look back at some of the posts populating the Library of Congress blogosphere in August.

In the Muse: Performing Arts Blog

“We’ll walk hand and hand someday” — Music and the March on Washington

Music played a pivotal role in the March on Washington.

Inside Adams: Science, Technology & Business

No Opera, No X-Rays!

Researcher Mark Schubin talks about the deadliness of opera and x-rays.

In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress

Odd Laws of the United Kingdom

From plague-free taxi rides to no gambling in a library, Clare Feikert-Ahalt discusses U.K. law.

The Signal: Digital Preservation

Rich Online Resources Document the 1963 March on Washington

Bill LeFurgy presents other resources related to the historical civil rights event.

Teaching with the Library of Congress

Looking Behind the March on Washington: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Civil Rights Movement, and Labor in Primary Sources

Primary sources from the Library of Congress can help students learn more about the march.

Picture This: Library of Congress Prints & Photos

Summer Road Trip: From Sea to Shining Sea

Kristi Finefield writes on bygone era road trips.

From the Catbird Seat: Poetry & Literature at the Library of Congress

The Secret Anniversaries of the Heart

Director of Ed Outreach Lee Ann Potter talks about poetry in her life.

Library in the News: August 2013 Edition

August saw the opening of two new exhibitions at the Library of Congress. On Aug. 14, the Library exhibition “A Night at the Opera” debuted followed by “A Day Like No Other: 50 Years After the March on Washington” on Aug. 28. Both exhibitions received a variety of headlines.

“They came to Washington, D.C. with determination in their hearts and freedom on their minds. … They were from all walks of life, all races and all denominations. They were old and young, able-bodied and impaired, poor and wealthy, average citizens and the very famous, all sharing the same mission and goal – to be a part of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” wrote Yahoo! News. “This exhibition transports visitors to that momentous day, August 28, 1963 – a day that transformed our nation – when 250,000 people participated in the largest non-violent demonstration for civil rights that Americans had ever witnessed.”

In a headline that read “How to Commemorate the March On Washington Without Ever Leaving Your Computer, “ Popular Science highlighted the Library’s collection of march photos from U.S. News & World Report, in addition to linking to Library blog posts about the historical event.

Other outlets running features on the March on Washington exhibition included the Examiner and broadcast outlets WTTG Fox DC, NBC DC and WTOP (here and here).

Reviewing “A Night at the Opera” was the Washington Post’s Anne Midgette.

““A Night at the Opera,” an exhibition that opened last week at the Library of Congress and will travel to Disney Hall in Los Angeles in 2014, represents a lot of goals packed into a single show of about 50 objects. This makes it a fitting tribute to an art form that involves several different art forms — visual arts and theater, dance and music — packed into a single performance,” wrote Midgette.

“Opera buffs are as likely to feel as tantalized as fulfilled by glimpsing only individual items from the many archives and collections within the library’s holdings.”

Continuing to make the news are the Library’s preservation efforts, including its work in archiving tweets since Twitter’s inception in 2006. Robert A. Lehrman of The Christian Science Monitor spoke with the Library’s Jane Mandelbaum and Thomas Youkel, who are leading the project team.

“Mandelbaum and Youkel pool their knowledge to figure out how to archive the tweets, how researchers can find what they want, and how to train librarians to guide them,” Lehrman wrote.

“Historians want to know not just what happened in the past but how people lived. It is why they rejoice in finding a semiliterate diary kept by a Confederate solider, or pottery fragments in a colonial town,” he continued.

 

Saving Pulp Fiction

Photo by Shealah Craighead.

(The following is a story written by Lindsey Hobbs of the Library’s Preservation Directorate for the Library of Congress staff newsletter, The Gazette.)

Pulp-fiction authors created some of the most enduring characters of any literary genre including Tarzan, detective Sam Spade, and the sword-wielding Zorro.

The magazines that illustrated their exploits, unfortunately, haven’t fared as well. In fact, they never were built to last – the pulps were printed on cheap, wood-pulp paper (hence the name “pulp fiction),” which quickly became brittle and acidic.

Technicians in the Preservation Directorate, however, are working to give new life to the lustrous, eye-catching covers in the Library of Congress’s sprawling collection of pulp-fiction magazines. The Serial and Government Publications Division holds roughly 14,000 issues from more than 300 titles published in the United States between the 1920s and 1950s.

“American popular culture is an ever-expanding scholarly field, and the pulp magazines were a publication type that was popularized in America,” said Georgia Higley, head of the Newspaper Section in the Serials Division. “Anyone studying magazine history considers the covers important primary sources.”

The Library transferred most of the pulp serials to microfilm years ago because of the rapidly deteriorating wood-pulp paper. It was immediately apparent, however, that the color limitations of microfilm diminished the vibrant graphics.

“Since even the best microfilming efforts do not adequately reproduce illustrative material, especially color images, the pulp magazine cover collection preserves an aspect of the original that would otherwise be lost to researchers here at LC,” Higley said.

As a result, the Collections Conservation Section is conserving the original covers, and the Preservation Reformatting Division oversaw the creation of preservation facsimiles of much of the remaining text.

Nathan Smith of the Collections Conservation Section demonstrates paper repair on the cover of a pulp-fiction magazine. Photo by Shealah Craighead.

Pulp-fiction serials rose to popularity primarily in the first half of the 20th century, as new technology permitted cheap, mass production and a more literate working class sought new sources of entertainment.

Not known as purveyors of good taste, the pulps covered everything from romance and adventure to westerns and detective stories to horror and science fiction.

The racier versions, known as “spicy” pulps, most often featured a scantily clad damsel in distress on the cover. Although the spicy pulps enjoyed wide popularity in their day, none occupy the Library’s shelves – they were deemed unsuitable for collection at the time.

The striking cover art, which was at its most whimsical on the sci-fi and fantasy pulps, was a key factor in marketing and even story development.

Often, artists created a cover that would lure readers at newsstands, and writers then would develop stories around the illustrated theme.

Some artists made careers working exclusively for pulp magazines – Margaret Brundage created dozens of covers for “Weird Tales,” widely considered the greatest of the horror and fantasy pulps.

This issue of Startling Stories featured works by Philip K. Dick, whose later novels served as the basis for films such as “Blade Runner” and “Total Recall,” and Richard Matheson, whose novel “I am Legend” has been adapted for the screen three times. Serials and Government Publications Division.

In addition to the glossy covers, pulp magazines also are notable for the many now-famous authors who got their start writing stories for as little as a third of a penny per word – Ray Bradbury, Dashiell Hammett, H.P. Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Raymond Chandler. Even a young L. Ron Hubbard became a star pulp writer before publishing his pre-Scientology treatise “Dianetics” in the pulp magazine “Astounding.”

Conspicuously absent from the list are any widely recognized female authors. Women pulp writers often used pseudonyms or disguised their first names by only using their initials.

Mary Elizabeth Counselman, for example, wrote stories for “Weird Tales,” and Dorothy McIlwraith served as editor of both “Weird Tales” and “Short Stories” for more than three decades. Leigh Brackett wrote science fiction as well as hard-boiled detective stories and went on to write novels and screenplays, including the script for George Lucas’ “The Empire Strikes Back.”

Since a large number of the serials still are in copyright, digitization is not yet an option.

For now, Collections Conservation technicians are performing many tedious hours of paper repair and rusty staple removal, as well as creating a custom protective enclosure for each cover. Once the project is completed, CCS will have conserved more than 600 individual covers, which will return to the vault of the Serials Division in a condition suitable for handling by researchers.

The pulp-fiction era came to an end in the 1950s with the rise of the paperback novel and television, but the magazines continue to serve as a unique resource of pop-culture history.

The conservation work will allow researchers a more authentic and, likely, a more enjoyable experience.

Said Higley: “We’ll be able to offer researchers the chance to re-create the experience people had reading them.”