News from Library of Congress
News for Library Leaders
from the Associate Librarian for Library Services
The Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. 20540-4000
Issue #6, November 2006
New Preservation Survey Instrument Available to Libraries
A survey methodology and database for use in surveying the condition of photographic collections of libraries is now available. Grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation enabled Harvard University to develop the survey and the Library of Congress to adapt it. The survey has helped L.C. recognize needs to improve storage furniture for glass negatives, deepen risk assessment to prepare for sizeable emergencies, continue efforts to transfer materials to improved environmental facilities, expand staff understanding of the diverse nature of photographic materials, and increase our ability to meet treatment needs of large numbers of photographs. For information on how your institution might use the survey, please contact Andrew Robb at anro@loc.gov.
Coming Up
Hearings on Sound Preservation: On November 29, 2006, in Los Angeles, and on December 19, 2006, in New York City, public hearings are scheduled on the current state of recorded sound preservation and restoration in the United States. The hearings are part of a study undertaken by the Librarian of Congress on behalf of, and in consultation with, the National Recording Preservation Board. Findings of the study will be presented to the U.S. Congress. Groups and individuals interested in submitting oral and written comments may obtain guidelines from the Library of Congress:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/nrpb-clir.html
Preservation Course: From January 11 to April 26, 2007, the Preservation Directorate of the Library of Congress will again offer its course on "Specializations: Archives, Book Arts, and Special Collections." The course gives students opportunities to work in rare collections and prepares them for careers in libraries, archives, museums, and independent information collections. The course will focus on the directorate's works on preservation reformatting, binding and collections care, research and testing, and conservation, and will include sessions on mass de-acidification, exhibition, emergency mitigation, and environmental control and storage. The course will be offered through the School of Library and Information Science at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. For more see http://slis.cua.edu/courses/schedules/2007spring.cfm.
New Resources
Cartoon Book and Exhibit: A newly published book entitled Cartoon America: Comic Art in the Library of Congress celebrates more than 250 years of American cartooning with 275 full-color illustrations by the most accomplished cartoon creators. The publisher is Harry N. Abrams in association with L.C. Also, masterworks of cartoon art are now on exhibit at L.C. until January 27, 2007, under the title "Cartoon America: Highlights from the Art Wood Collection of Cartoon and Caricature." More information is available at http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2006/06-165.html, and http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2006/06-196.html.
Latin American Bibliography: Volume 61 of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, an annotated bibliography, has been published by the University of Texas and the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress. For more see http://memory.loc.gov/hlas/.
Technology Progress
Newspaper Web Site: In January 2006, the Library of Congress expects to open a free, public-access Web site called, "American Chronicle: Historical American Newspapers." This searchable database will contain a national collection of historical newspapers developed by the National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership between L.C. and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The digital collection will begin with 118,000 pages from newspapers published between 1900 and 1910 in California, Florida, Kentucky, New York, Utah, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Over time newspapers published between the 1830s and 1922 will be added from all states and territories. Also "American Chronicle" will offer a Newspaper Directory of records for more than 125,000 newspaper titles published between 1690 and the present, along with library holdings information, acquired from OCLC WorldCat, with links to digitized page content when available. For more see http://www.loc.gov/ndnp.
Collection Additions
Gay-rights Papers: The Library of Congress is receiving a gift of the papers of Frank Kameny, a pioneering crusader for gay rights. Included are some 70,000 letters, documents, and memorabilia of value to researchers seeking to trace the gay-rights movement from the 1950s through the 1990s. Contributors to the Kameny Papers Project purchased the papers and donated them to L.C. For more see http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2006/06-185.html.
Asian Division Gifts: The Asian Division of the Library of Congress has received the following donations of collections: Kenneth Robbins's collection of 30,000 Indian legal documents pertaining to peoples under the British India empire; Betty Lee Sung's personal collection of works on Chinese Americans; Carl Smith's collection of documents, maps, records, and research papers on Hong Kong; a hard drive containing some 3,000 volumes of Gene Smith's Research Library of Scanned Tibetan Literature; and handwritten biographical sketches of Soviet administrators sent to North Korea in the mid-1940s. For more information, see http://www.loc.gov/rr/asian/.
Staff Announcements
Georgette Dorn, chief of the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress, has recently received two honors: King Juan Carlos I of Spain made her a commander of the Order of Queen Isabella for her scholarly contributions to Spanish and Latin American culture. And the Conference on Latin American History gave her its Distinguished Service Award for 2006.
Hwa-Wei Lee, chief of the Asian Division of the Library of Congress, has received the Advocacy Award of the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color. The conference presented the award at its meeting in Dallas on October 13, 2006.
Jeremy E. Adamson has been appointed director for Collections and Services, which incorporates the general, international, and special-format collections of the Library of Congress, and the online reference services in sixteen of L.C.'s twenty-one reading rooms.
Susan Vita, formerly chief of Special Materials Cataloging at the Library of Congress, has been appointed chief of the Music Division, of which she has been acting chief. She will oversee all operations related to print and manuscript music.
The Overseas Operations Program of the Library of Congress has recently made the following staff changes: Carol Mitchell is now director of the Islamabad Office; Will Tuchrello, of the Jakarta Office; Pamela Howard-Reguindin, of the Nairobi Office; and Laila Mulgaokar, of the New Delhi Office. James Gentner, director of the Cairo Office, has been detailed to L.C. in Washington as acting chief of the African/Asian Acquisitions and Overseas Operations Division. A former director of the Cairo Office, Michael Albin, now retired, has agreed to return as acting director of that office for 120 days. Fred Protopappas, acting director of the Rio de Janeiro Office, has returned to Washington to his regular post as senior overseas operations officer, and Linda Stubbs, currently acting chief of L.C.'s Special Materials Cataloging Division, will serve for 120 days as acting director in Rio.
Kudos to Librarians
I take this opportunity to send you and your families my warmest wishes for the holiday season. -- Deanna B. Marcum.
News for Library Leaders is a periodic update from the Associate Librarian for Library Services of the Library of Congress about developments of interest to other libraries. Readers are welcome to reproduce and distribute content without permission if attribution is made. Please send QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, and REQUESTS FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION to Deanna B. Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services: alls@loc.g