America’s oldest federal cultural institution is experimenting with neural networks to help users search through some of its millions of digitized documents (24 Jun 2021) The Library of Congress expects that artificial intelligence can help people search through its troves of digital information to glean new insights about the U.S.’s history. To that end,…
(8 Jun 2021) The Library of Congress has acquired audio diaries featuring more than 200 frontline healthcare workers in the fight against COVID-19, a collection that provides first-hand testimonies from hospitals and communities across the country as the public health crisis unfolded. The audio library was donated by The Nocturnists, a San Francisco-based independent medical…
More than 1.5 Million Historical Newspaper Images Now Discoverable Online with Newspaper Navigator (15 Sept 2020) The public can now explore more than 1.5 million historical newspaper images online and free of charge. The latest machine learning experience from Library of Congress Labs, Newspaper Navigator allows users to search visual content in American newspapers dating 1789-1963. …
(14 Apr 2020) In March of 2017, senior Library of Congress managers formed a cross-departmental Digital Scholarship Working Group to respond to a set of foundational questions: What are the current demand and the current levels of response for digital scholarship? What are potential approaches to enhancing digital scholarship support across the Library? and, What would…
(22 May 2019) There has been a growing interest from libraries and other cultural heritage organizations in Wikidata. Of the many potential uses for Wikidata, one emerging area of focus has been using Wikidata as a hub for institutional identifiers. Many organizations maintain unique identifiers for people, subjects, works, etc. If these IDs are all added to…
(10 May 2019) A woodblock-printed set of 400 illustrations depicting the life and teachings of Gautama Buddha, painted silk scenes by Qing dynasty court artist Jiao Bingzhen, and 12 watercolors detailing indigenous life in Taiwan are among the 1,000 rare Chinese texts now available via the Library of Congress’ online catalogue. The library’s rare Chinese book collection includes 5,300 titles, 2,000…
(6 May 2019) In celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage month, the Library of Congress has digitized and made available online 1,000 Chinese rare books produced before 1796. The Chinese Rare Book Digital Collection includes the most valuable titles and editions housed in the Library’s Asian Division, some of which date as far back as the 10th century and…
(20 March 2019) For many years, the Library of Congress categorized many of its books under a controversial subject heading: “Illegal aliens.” But then, on March 22, 2016, the library made a momentous decision, announcing that it was canceling the subject heading “Illegal aliens” in favor of “Noncitizens” and “Unauthorized immigration.” However, the decision was…
(26 October 2018) The Library of Congress launched this week a new crowdsourcing tool that enables the transcription of digitised documents from their historic collections. This tool will improve the services provided by the library and the usability of their data making the documents more readable and searchable. The application can be accessed at crowd.loc.gov,…
(1 October 2018) Following more than a year of exploration, research and input from staff and experts, the Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden today announced a new strategic plan, “Enriching the Library Experience.” In executing this strategic plan over the next five years, the agency will make a decisive shift to be more user-centered, digitally-enabled…