Library of Congress's Blog, page 191

See It Now: J. Edgar, Man of Mystery

J. Edgar Hoover – former Library of Congress employee, longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a highly respected but feared individual – has been the subject of admiration and controversy alike. Some 40 years since his death, he has returned to the spotlight thanks to Clint Eastwood's biopic "J. Edgar," the DVD of which was released this month. (Although I haven't seen the DVD, one of the extra features is a "Making Of …" segment, in which Eastwood talks about Hoover working at the Library.)

In Eastwood's characterization, Hoover claims to have invented the Library's card catalog system. While not true, Hoover did become very adept at using the resource – the knowledge of which he would later use to build the FBI's own, very extensive files.

J. Edgar Hoover, Dec. 22, 1924 / National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress)

The Library had no direct input in the writing of the screenplay by Dustin Lance Black.  (Within the context of the film, the scene featuring the Library implies that Hoover might have been bragging to impress his date).

According to author Kenneth D. Ackerman, separating fact from perception of the legendary American is difficult. Hoover was a hero but also had a dark side. And, of course, the rumors circulating around his personal life remain.

Ackerman spoke at the Library on Jan. 18 regarding his book "Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare and the Assault on Civil Liberties" (Carroll & Graf, 2007). A webcast of his talk is now available on our site. Ackerman did much of his research here at the Library, using the many collections of our Manuscript and Serial and Government Publication divisions.

Regardless of the mystery and controversy surrounding Hoover, he built the FBI into a modern and professional crime-fighting organization, brought scientific investigation to the bureau, established an FBI National Academy and made the G-man brand hugely popular.

P.S. I'm hoping to make "See It Now" a more regular feature, in an effort to bring to you the various programming we host here at the Library.

Rolling Out the Welcome Mat

One would be hard-pressed not to appreciate the splendor of the Library of Congress Main Reading Room. Granted, I may have an employee bias, but it truly is a magnificent space. A local blogger once referred to it as the "Sugar Ray Robinson" of interior spaces, with grandeur that "can't be beat."

Photo by Deanna McCray-James

Twice each year, the Library opens the reading room for a special public open house. The winter open house takes place next week on the federal Washington's Birthday (Presidents' Day) holiday, Monday, Feb. 20, from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

More than 4,200 visitors attended last year's open house. And Library staff expect large crowds again, as this event has become increasingly popular.

James Sweany, head of the Local History and Genealogy Reading Room, talks about doing research at the Library/Photo by Deanna McCray-James

Visitors will have the opportunity to learn about the Library's genealogical collections and services, view recipes from our collection of presidential and White House cookbooks, become acquainted with the "Ask a Librarian" online reference service and check out the "Chronicling America" historic American newspaper resource, featuring president-related topic pages such as this one on Teddy Roosevelt.

A highlight of the open house is the card catalog – particularly popular with the kids, many of whom have never seen one before.

A sign of our technological times?

Visitors peruse the Library's card catalog/Photo by Deanna McCray-James

Another special treat for will be a read-aloud with Miss International, Ciji Dodds. She'll be reading "A. Lincoln and Me," by Louise W. Borden.

So grab the kids and get thee to the Library next Monday. See you soon!

Your Well-Wisher, H. C. Andersen

The following is a guest post from Taru Spiegel, reference specialist in the Library's European Division.

How would you like to receive a phone call out of the blue, asking if you are interested in a gift of priceless original letters by your favorite author? When you work at the Library of Congress, fairy-tale offers like this can come true.

Donor Barbara McKnight holds a painting of her ancestor, Louis Bagger.

For a Hans Christian Andersen fan, the Library's collection of his first editions, manuscripts, letters, presentation copies and pictorial material is a treasure trove. The collection was recently expanded with a donation of four new Andersen letters from a descendant of Louis Bagger, a 19th-century journalist, lawyer and ardent admirer of the Danish author of the classic children's stories "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina" and "The Ugly Duckling."

Bagger, who immigrated to the United States from Denmark in the late 1860s, helped Andersen as a translator, editor and proofreader – assistance appreciated by the author and Horace Scudder, his U.S. promoter.  Hans Christian Andersen was quite popular in the U.S. and some of his stories – "The Great Sea Serpent," about the trans-Atlantic telegraph cable, for example – first appeared in the U. S. and in the English language.

The Andersen letters to Bagger span 1863 to 1872 and discuss, among other things, Andersen's fear of crossing the Atlantic, which kept the author from his admiring U.S. public; allusions to the married singer Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt, for whom Andersen held romantic feelings; and young Danish authors Andersen thought were worthy of translation into English.

Hans Christian Andersen addressed this envelope to Louis Bagger, then the editor of a Washington, D.C., newspaper called the Daily Patriot. The envelope bears Andersen's signature in the lower left corner.

Bagger also at one time entertained his own ambitions as a poet – efforts that drew a diplomatic assessment from Andersen:

Your letter and the enclosed short poems tell me that you have a warm heart and much love for poetry, but how much talent you have or do not have, I cannot possibly tell," Andersen wrote Bagger. "To put one's thoughts in verse form in our time is as easy as writing an essay. If you feel a truly intense need to compose, do it, but only when it quite overcomes you. I cannot and dare not encourage you, but neither will I discourage you. Time will disclose whether or not you have talent. — Your well-wisher, H. C. Andersen.

The letters will be housed in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

Reverberating Still

Dr. King, shortly before his trip to Norway to receive the Nobel Prize

Half a century ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave motion to a powerful, peaceful movement – and his words remain deeply moving today.

Here, from the Library's photographic collections, is a photo of Dr. King shortly before he traveled with members of his family to Oslo, Norway, where in December of 1964 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in the struggle for African-Americans' civil rights.

You can find the text of his stirring acceptance speech here.

On Monday, Americans will observe Martin Luther King Day. Consider his words: "Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts … right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant … I still believe that We Shall overcome!"

Consider his words–and be moved.

 

 

 

 

The Registry — and Beyond

The closing days of the year are always exciting here at the Library of Congress, because the Librarian of Congress names the 25 films that are this year's selections to the National Film Registry, which designates films that are to be preserved for posterity due to their cultural, aesthetic and historical value.

But keep in mind, it's part of a larger preservation story that takes place every day at the Library's Packard Campus in Culpeper, Va., a state-of-the-art facility where the nation's library acquires, preserves and provides access to the world's largest and most comprehensive collection (6 million items, and counting) of films, television programs, radio broadcasts and sound recordings.

This year's picks, the culmination of a process advised by the National Film Preservation Board with extensive public input, include "Forrest Gump" (1994), "Bambi" (1942), "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), "Stand and Deliver" (1988), "The Lost Weekend" (1945) "Porgy and Bess" (1959) and "Norma Rae" (1979). There are many other less well-known films on this year's list, but all are fascinating in one way or another – for example the home movies of Fayard and Harold Nicholas, famed dancers in the 1930s and 1940s.  While documenting their stage life, they captured rare footage now unable to be found anywhere else – scenes from the interior of the Cotton Club, for example.

Also on this year's list is the 1921 full-length silent Charlie Chaplin classic, "The Kid," featuring a child star named Jackie Coogan later known to television audiences as Uncle Fester in TV's "The Addams Family."

There were 2,228 films nominated to the registry this year; if you want to nominate some, you are welcome to voice your opinions at the website of the National Film Preservation Board.

And heads up! This is important!

On Thursday, Dec. 29 at 10 p.m. on PBS stations' show "Independent Lens" (check local listings) an excellent documentary about the National Film Preservation Board and the registry will be aired.  Titled "These Amazing Shadows," the film by Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton tells how the NFPB is saving these wonderful artworks from extinction.

If you love movies, you won't want to miss "These Amazing Shadows."

A Big Day for "Small-d"

Here at the Library of Congress, we take in more than 10,000 items a working day – books, films, music, photographs.  Many are the basic stuff of everyday research; some are rare items, especially beautiful, unusual or unique; and some are major treasures of the world, to be held and preserved for the knowledge and benefit of future generations.

On October 23, 1991, we let one of those Really Big Treasures slip from our grasp – and were happy to do that, because we were sending it home in loving hands.

On that date, Vaclav Havel, then-president of Czechoslovakia (who died earlier this week) visited the U.S. Capitol to receive the 1918 first draft of the Czechoslovak Declaration of Independence, in the handwriting of the man who might be termed the Czech Thomas Jefferson — Thomas G. Masaryk, the first president of the Czechoslovak federation created at the close of World War I.  In a ceremony attended by the bipartisan leaders of the U.S. House and Senate, Havel was given the document to repatriate to his country.

It had been given to the Library of Congress to keep safe in 1951 after Czechoslovakia came under Communist rule, by Masaryk's former private secretary, Jaroslav Cisar.  At that time, Cisar stated that "it would, in proper time, be transferred to its final resting place in the Archives of the National Museum in Prague."

But in 1980, Cisar wrote to the Library and made an outright gift of the document, despairing of seeing his nation return to its earlier form of governance: "My hopes of seeing Masaryk's name restored to its rightful place in the official accounts of the foundation of the first formative era of our new state have, alas, proved to be overoptimistic," he said.

Cisar said he felt the document would be safer at the Library of Congress.  And so it was, until the day came — following the bloodless 1989 "Velvet Revolution" that brought playwright and anti-Communist Havel to his nation's executive mansion – when it could return home safely. Havel served as president of the republic of Czechoslovakia for 2-1/2 years, and later served two terms as president of the Czech Republic that followed.

Dr. James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, noted that "This document … rightfully belongs to the people who have, after so many years, realized Thomas Masaryk's ambitions."

Then-House Speaker Thomas Foley noted, "Once the Library of Congress takes possession of a document, it seldom, if ever, gives it up … This is a major exception and only presented because it is a foundation document of a nation."

Havel said the care it had received at the Library of Congress "is better than it would have gotten on some shelf of the Communist Party."

"This deed is part of history," Havel said as he received the document, which he termed "the birth certificate of our nation … I cannot but be deeply moved."

Here's a webcast of a human-rights lecture Havel delivered in the Library's Coolidge Auditorium on May 24, 2005, titled "The Emperor Has No Clothes," when he was the holder of the Kluge Chair for Modern Culture at the Library's John W. Kluge Center.  You can also view a discussion Havel led at the Kluge Center on Feb. 20, 2007, titled "Dissidents and Freedom."

 

A Stradivari Good Copy

To say that a violin made by master luthier Antonio Stradivari (1644 – Dec. 18, 1737) is priceless is an understatement. His are some of the finest stringed instruments ever made, often selling for several million dollars – that is, when they are lucky enough to be found and put on the market. Of the estimated 1,000 violins Stradivari made, there are only about 650 still in existence. The Library has three of them (and a few violas and violoncellos he also made).

Violin by Antonio Stradivari, Cremona, 1704, "Betts" / Michael Zirkle

People have been copying these and other Stradavari instruments almost ever since they were first produced. And, while owning an original may be unattainable, thanks to some cool science, getting your hands on a pretty spot-on copy could be well within reach.

Minnesota radiologist Steven Sirr, along with violin makers John Waddle and Steve Rossow, have conceived a way to replicate a Stradivarius through CT scans. Using computed tomography (CT) imaging and advanced manufacturing techniques, they recently built a reproduction of one of the Library's Strad violins – the "Betts," dated 1704. Their goal was to "understand how the violin works" and to make reproductions available to "young musicians who can't afford an original."

Metallic aura scan of "Betts" violin / Steven Sirr

 

More than 1,000 CT scan images of the "Betts" were produced and then converted to a program that instructs a machine to replicate those elements. Then, Waddle and Rossow finished, assembled and varnished the replica by hand. What resulted was an instrument with a sound quality very similar to an original Strad, according to Sirr, who is also an amateur violinist.

Scan of front detail of "Betts" violin / Steven Sirr

This isn't the first time Library strings, including the "Betts," have been scanned. Through a project with the Smithsonian Institution, Bruno Frohlich, a research anthropologist with the Museum of Natural History, has scanned nearly 50 violins and other stringed instruments – by Stradivari, his peers and today's artisans – to study their anatomy of design and hopefully uncover that elusive sound secret.

A New Copyright Blog — and a Challenge

One of the largest card catalogs in the world, the U.S. Copyright Office card catalog comprises approximately 46 million cards. Photo by Cecelia Rogers, 2010.

The following is a guest post by Maria A. Pallante, Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office. See the new U.S. Copyright Office blog at http://blogs.loc.gov/copyrightdigitization/

Help Wanted: Have you ever attempted to build an electronic index and searchable database of a complex and diverse collection of 70 million imaged historical records? Neither have we.

Current records dating back to 1978 are available online and searchable at www.copyright.gov/records. The office's records date back to 1870, however, and many pertain to works still under copyright protection. These records are the focus of our current digitization efforts.  This is an ambitious project that I announced recently as one of several priorities and special projects the U.S. Copyright Office is undertaking. To date nearly 13 million index cards from our card catalog and over half of the 660 volume Catalog of Copyright Entries have been scanned, and the images have been processed through quality assurance and moved to long-term managed storage.

So, back to the earlier question: How do we go about creating a searchable database comprised of 70 million digital objects? For that matter, how do we create metadata for such a large volume of records? Assuming we would like to achieve full-level indexing, how do we do so on a rudimentary indexing budget? What technologies and creative approaches can we profitably employ to get this work done? We welcome your ideas and suggestions on these and many other questions related to this project.

The Copyright Office historical catalog serves as the mint record of American creativity, and there are great benefits to making the collection accessible online. We know that working collaboratively will ensure that the final product best meets the needs of the widest audience of users. I hope you will subscribe to our project blog at http://blogs.loc.gov/copyrightdigitization/ and visit our project web page at www.copyright.gov/digitization from time to time. Most of all, I hope that you will be an active partner in this important effort.