Law

On Wednesday, July 24 due to a special event, public areas of the Thomas Jefferson Building will be closed for the entire day. No timed-entry passes will be offered for the day.Reading rooms in the Thomas Jefferson Building will be open to registered researchers, who must enter through the James Madison Memorial Building or the John Adams Building, then access the Jefferson building via...

Visitors are invited to celebrate the sounds of summer during Live! at the Library with various musical performances during the entire month of August. The United States Air Force Band returns to the Library of Congress on Aug. 1 to whisk audiences away on a romantic adventure in Paris. On Aug. 8, escape to the Caribbean without leaving D.C. to hear the vibrant island...

The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled at the Library of Congress today recognized two of its cooperating libraries in Maryland and Michigan for their outstanding service to readers with visual, physical or print disabilities.The Maryland State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled in Baltimore received the 2024 Regional Library of the Year Award, while the Larry Gorton Talking Book...

The Library of Congress will host a conversation with Zachary Levi and Zooey Deschanel who star in the new film, “Harold and the Purple Crayon” in the Coolidge Auditorium on Tuesday, July 30 at 5 p.m. Prior to the discussion, a sneak peek clip from the upcoming movie will be presented. From 6 to 7 p.m., visitors are also invited to view a display...

Throughout history, the art of reading has nourished the mind, sharpened perspective and inspired change. Books are foundational building blocks to learning and the preface to understanding one another, the human condition and lived experience. In so many ways, books build us up, and that’s the theme for this year’s Library of Congress National Book Festival. Beginning July 10, bookworms across the country can...

On Wednesday, July 10 due to a special event at the Library, the entire Thomas Jefferson Building will be closed for the entire day to staff, researchers and the public. No timed-entry passes will be offered for the day.There is no impact to James Madison Memorial Building or John Adams Building on Capitol Hill, or other Library facilities.Normal access to the reading rooms in...

On Thursday, July 4, the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson building, including the Main Reading Room, will be open to visitors with timed-entry tickets from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The James Madison Memorial Building, John Adams Building and all reading rooms are closed in observance of the federal holiday, and there will be no research availability or reader registration on this date. There...

The Library of Congress has acquired the House of Blues Radio Hour spanning 20 years’ worth of programs that promoted the blues, introduced new audiences to the popular music genre and showcased emerging talent. Hosted by celebrity actor-musician Dan Aykroyd, the series was a soulful journey through a cornerstone of American music, offering poignant interviews and stories of blues legends past and present, including...

Enjoy summer movies on the lawn beginning on July 11 with a screening of “The Wizard of Oz”. Before the film, join us on the mezzanine of the Thomas Jefferson Building for a bachata class led by Orlando Machuca, Estefany, and DJ Hercules. Visitors are invited to come for a special pop-up trivia event celebrating the 2024 Olympics in Paris on July 18. Trivia...

The papers of talk show host and sex therapist Ruth Westheimer have been acquired by the Library of Congress and are now opening for research in the Library’s Manuscript Division.Westheimer became a household name as “Dr. Ruth” in the 1980s, filling radio airwaves, television screens, and bookshelves with advice on sex and relationships. Westheimer was a pioneering voice in sex education, speaking openly about...

The festival’s theme this year, “Books Build Us Up,” explores how reading can help connect us and inform our lives. It’s through books that readers can develop strong bonds with writers and their ideas — relationships that open the entire world, real or imagined, to us all.Throughout the day, attendees will hear conversations from authors of various genres across the festival's many stages. Award-winning...

The Library of Congress will host its annual “Summer Movies on the Lawn” series starting July 11. The series featuring films from the Library’s National Film Registry will be presented on Thursday evenings at sundown on the southeast lawn of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building. The scheduled films include:July 11: “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) (1989 National Film Registry)July 18: “An American in Paris”...

On Tuesday, June 11, a special event in the Great Hall will reduce access in the Thomas Jefferson Building. All exhibitions, public spaces and the Library Shop in the Jefferson Building will be closed for the entire day, and no timed-entry passes will be offered to the public.Researchers may access the Jefferson Building reading rooms as they will be open normal hours of service...

The Library of Congress will host a Family Day on June 15 with focused programming around the new Treasures Gallery exhibition. Natalie Merchant will begin the day leading a folk-song sing-along in the historic Coolidge Auditorium with a selection of traditional folk music drawn from the Library’s vast archive at the American Folklife Center. Activities will be held on Saturday, June 15, on the...

The Library of Congress Veterans History Project will host a screening June 6 of the “Invisible Warriors: African American Women in World War II,” a documentary about the 600,000 African American “Rosie the Riveters” who served during that conflict. The screening, jointly sponsored with the Daniel A.P. Murray African American Cultural Association, honors the 80th anniversary of D-Day in which the Rosies played a...

Celebrate the opening of the David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery at the Library of Congress during Live! at the Library on June 13.Experience the gallery’s inaugural exhibition featuring one-of-a-kind items from across the Library’s vast collections. Natalie Merchant will perform an evening concert in the historic Coolidge Auditorium to celebrate the opening of the Treasures Gallery with a selection of original material and traditional...

“Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress,” will open the evening of June 13 as the inaugural exhibition in the new David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery and will be on view through December 2025 in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building.“Collecting Memories” explores how cultures preserve memory, including the role of the Library in preserving collective memories representing entire societies, important moments in history...

The 56 affiliated Centers for the Book of the Library of Congress have chosen books, called Great Reads, that will be recognized at the 2024 Library of Congress National Book Festival, the Library announced today. Every year since 2002, these Library affiliates have chosen a book to celebrate at the Book Festival in the Library’s Roadmap to Reading -– a vast space at the...

The Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK) has announced the winners of its national awards for federal librarianship, which recognize the many innovative ways that federal libraries, librarians, and library technicians fulfill the information demands of the government, business and scholarly communities, and the American public.Federal libraries and staff throughout the United States and abroad competed for the awards. The following winners were chosen...

National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Meg Medina is launching a new video series starting on May 14, featuring beloved children’s and young adult authors, illustrators and graphic novelists to foster a lifelong love of reading among young learners. Primarily intended for families and children between the ages of 9-12, and for librarians and educators, this dynamic 18-segment series is part of Medina’s “Cuéntame!:...

Library of Congress 2023-2024 Innovator in Residence Jeffrey Yoo Warren is inviting the public to visit a series of virtual installations in the Library’s Washington, D.C. campus and five historic Asian American sites around the country. Accessible by mobile device, the experimental Hidden Portals experience provides an immersive 3D reconstruction of these neighborhoods developed using archival photographs and records from local and Library of...

A new book from the Library of Congress offers a compelling cultural snapshot of a diverse California during the late 1930s at the height of the New Deal. “California Gold: Sidney Robertson and the WPA California Folk Music Project” draws on the career of folk music collector Sidney Robertson, who proposed and directed a New Deal initiative designed to survey musical traditions from a...

ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” Blondie’s era-defining “Parallel Lines,” The Notorious B.I.G.’s landmark “Ready to Die,” Green Day’s “Dookie,” The Chicks’ “Wide Open Spaces” and Lily Tomlin’s comedy have been selected as some of the defining sounds of history and culture that will join the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden today named 25 recordings as audio treasures worthy of...

The Library of Congress has acquired the collection of manuscripts, instruments, costumes, video and audio recordings, and more from the San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet and its non-profit organization, Kronos Performing Arts Association. The quartet consists of David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola) and Paul Wiancko (cello). For 50 years, Kronos has challenged and reimagined what a string quartet can be. Founded...

The Library of Congress is seeking applicants for its next Archives, History and Heritage Advanced Internship Program, which will run from Sept. 9 to Nov. 15. This 10-week, paid internship is open to currently enrolled undergraduate juniors and seniors, master’s and Ph.D. candidates from all majors or those who have graduated or will graduate between Dec. 1, 2023 and Aug. 31, 2024. The program...

The Library of Congress will host cast members from CBS’s hit comedy “Ghosts” on April 9. A special episode screening and a panel discussion with series stars Richie Moriarty, Danielle Pinnock, Asher Grodman, Román Zaragoza and Rebecca Wisocky will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 9 in the Coolidge Auditorium.Free tickets can be obtained at loc.gov/events. From 5 to 6 p.m., the...

Celebrate National Poetry Month during Live! at the Library on Thursday evenings throughout April. Ada Limón will visit Live! at the Library to talk about her new anthology "You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World” and kick-off of the Library’s annual Mary Oliver Memorial Event. The event will feature an introduction by Limón, readings by poets Molly McCully Brown, Jake Skeets, Analicia Sotelo...

In the event of a temporary shutdown of the federal government effective 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 23, all Library of Congress buildings will be CLOSED to the public and researchers.All public events will be cancelled. Also, all inquiries and requests to the Library of Congress web-based services will not be received or responded to until the shutdown ends. Information on loc.gov will not be...

On Tuesday, March 19, a special event in the Great Hall will reduce access in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. 2 p.m. – last entry for visitors with timed-entry or walk-up passes5 p.m. - all Jefferson Building reading rooms will close and researchers must exitResearchers may access the Jefferson Building reading rooms via the Jefferson Building West Basement (Carriage) doors,...

Library of Congress Awards Third Round of More than $500,000 to Support Contemporary Cultural Field Research within Diverse CommunitiesThe Library of Congress American Folklife Center is pleased to announce the 2024 recipient cohort of the Community Collections Grant program. This series of grants, part of the Of the People: Widening the Path initiative, is awarded to individuals and organizations working to document cultures and...