The eighth annual National Book Festival (Sept. 27, 2008) has an outstanding lineup of authors, and I've been having the privilege of interviewing several of them for podcasts. The subscription link is here. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I have to disclose that I have been doing my own audio engineering (with practically zero training) on new equipment.  The good news is that the new equipment...

This week, we announced that the Librarian of Congress will award the fourth John W. Kluge Prize for the study of humanity on Dec. 10. But we also announced that nominations will be accepted for a few more weeks, until July 15. The $1 million Kluge Prize recognizes lifetime achievement in fields not traditionally represented by the Nobel Prize, such as "history, philosophy, politics, anthropology,...

One of my favorite new RSS feeds or email subscriptions from the Library is put out by the folks who bring us "Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers." (RSS here, email sign-up here.) The feed gives a daily look at what was going on in the news 100 years ago — something I tried a couple of times on my own (here and here). Apropos of the current election season, I recently received this...

A wonderfully innovative fan of the Library's pilot project with Flickr photos decided to restage a World War II-era photo for the modern day, at the same exact location as the original. (The first thing you'll notice, as the author points out, is that there are many more trees today.) It immediately reminded me of another photo from the collection ("Factory buildings in Lowell, Mass.?"), on which...

I was saddened today to learn of the death of Tony Schwartz. You might not immediately know the name, but many Americans — especially those who participate in or follow political campaigns — are undoubtedly aware of at least one piece of his work. Schwartz was the creator of a famous and controversial 1964 TV ad for Lyndon Johnson, which showed a girl picking petals from a daisy and then a gian...