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Category: Library Work and Employees

Folklorist Sidney Robertson and Her “California Gold”

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The folklorist Sidney Robertson was one of the trailblazing American women of the 1930s and 1940s, the kind of life you’d associate with Martha Gellhorn, Dorothea Lange or Zora Neale Hurston. Her work directing the California Folk Music Project from 1938-40 is the subject "California Gold," a new book from the Library and the University of California Press.

A woman with sterile rubber gloves leans over a turntable to place a needle on a record.

Saving the Sounds of History

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

The Library's custom-designed multitracking studio at National Audio-Visual Conservation Center was built to house and preserve the collections of guitarist and audio-engineering innovator Les Paul. But it's also used to convert, preserve and save recordings made on formats that may not last. It's one of several labs that use cutting-edge technology to save the nation's recorded sound history.

Painted illustration depicts the emperor, his crown prince and the royal family celebrating a joyous, nighttime Indian festival on the banks of a river with fireworks, music and feasting.

Library Treasures: New Gallery Shows Off Premier Holdings

Posted by: Neely Tucker

This June, the Library will open “Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress,” an exhibition that explores the ways cultures preserve memory and shows off some of the Library's most valuable holdings. The exhibition is the first in the Library’s new David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery.

A man in a cap and glasses stands behind of a large desk with several items set in front of him.

Alan Haley, Preservation Specialist

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Alan Haley, a preservation specialist in the Conservation Division, has worked on everything from an ancient Chinese scroll to the transcript of the Amistad trial in the Library's collections, but has also traveled the globe assisting other libraries with important items or artifacts that are threatened.

Two men sit on a slightly elevated stage, engaged in conversation.

Researcher Story: Cormac Ó hAodha & the Heart of Irish Music

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Cormac Ó hAodha, a resident fellow in the John W. Kluge Center, is taking a deep dive into the Library's Alan Lomax Collection. Lomax, a major figure in 20th-century folklore and ethnomusicology, made field recordings in the Múscraí region of County Cork, Ireland, in the early 1950s. Ó hAodha is using those recordings as part of his Ph. D studies at the University College Cork into the history of the Múscraí song tradition.

Color closeup of an intricate art deco design

The Adams Building Turns 85!

Posted by: Neely Tucker

-This is a guest post by Jennifer Harbster, head of the science section. The year was 1939. Pan American Airways’ Yankee Clipper made its first transatlantic passenger flight. The technology company Hewlett-Packard was founded in a garage in Palo Alto, California. Scientists at Iowa State College developed the prototype for the first digital computer. And …