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Preserving the Nation's Heritage at the Library of Congress
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Newspapers & Periodicals
Serial & Government Publications Division
Extra! Sinking of Titanic
New York Times
1 special supplement, newsprint
April 28, 1912
While other New York newspapers provided better early coverage of the Titanic disaster, this New York Times special supplement appeared two weeks after the sinking. It provided the public with detailed information about events leading up to the accident and actions taken in its immediate aftermath.
Treatment: This issue exemplifies the challenge of preserving highly acidic newsprint in its original form. The brittle, folded and cracked paper could not be opened without damage. The Library of Congress sent it to the ZFB company in Leipzig, Germany, to undergo an experimental new "paper-splitting" treatment.
The German conservators smoothed the sheets, faced each with tissue, attaching it with a gelatin adhesive, and pressed the faced pages. They pulled each page apart into two separate sheets, and inserted an acid-free core paper between them. After treatment, they encapsulated the pages in polyester film. Researchers can now read the original supplement if they handle it with care.
"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country"
Ulster County Gazette
(Kingston, NY) January 4, 1800
1 issue, rag paper
Expand images (all pages)
The Ulster County Gazette was established May 5, 1798, at Kingston, New York, by Samuel Freer and Son as a weekly Federalist newspaper. The newspaper is unremarkable except for a single issue, which commands more attention than all of its rivals put together, that of January 4, 1800. On page two of this four-page issue appears John Marshall's address on the death of George Washington. Marshall concluded his remarks to the U.S. House of Representatives with the now-famous phrase, "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country."
Treatment: Conservators washed the single rag paper sheet, mended it, and placed it between two plexiglass sheets in order to permit safe viewing of all four pages of the open newspaper.
Voice of the Government
Daily National Inteligencer (Washington, D.C.)
Joseph Gailes and William W. Seaton, 1813-1869
223 volumes, rag paper.
The Daily National Intelligencer served as the semiofficial newspaper of the U.S. government until Andrew Jackson's administration. It carried full coverage of Congressional actions and debates in addition to governmental notices, proclamations and advertisements. In the first quarter of the 1800s, virtually all other newspapers based their news of the government on the reports of the National Intelligencer. During the War of 1812, it was one of the few private enterprises in Washington destroyed by the British.
Treatment: The newspaper leaves were taken out of their original, library-style bindings, which had caused pages to tear along the spine edge. Although the pages were initially made from good quality cotton rag pulp, they had grown acidic due poor storage conditions. The pages were washed and deacidified. However, they were still soft, weak, stained and torn along the edges. Conservators mended tears with an all-rag paper lens tissue coated with acrylic resin. Using rice starch paste, they attached a strong Japanese paper "guard" to each sheet. The mended pages were then interleaved with sheets of acid-free paper so readers can turn the pages easily.
Cherokee Phoenix
Elias Boudinott
[Cherokee Phoenix]
4 volumes, rag paper,
March 6, 1828-Oct. 19, 1833
On February 21, 1828, the Cherokee Nation became the first Native American tribe with a tribal newspaper. It was printed "partly with English, and partly with Cherokee print; and all matter which is common interest will be given in both languages in parallel columns." Included were printed tribal laws, official notices, news articles, prayers, and historical descriptions in Cherokee and English.
Treatment: The original bindings of the Cherokee Phoenix were standard library style: half leather or cloth spines with paper sides. Conservators disbound the newspaper leaves and washed and deacidified them. They mended tears with an all-rag paper lens tissue coated with acrylic resin. They encapsulated the pages in polyester sheeting. To complete the treatment, they created a book structure for each volume of newspaper leaves.
Spokesman for the Revolution
The Connecticut Courant
48 issues
1770-1772
A weekly newspaper established in Hartford, Connecticut on October 29, 1764 by Thomas Green, the Connecticut Courant was the third newspaper published in the colony and an ancestor of the modern Hartford Courant. Following the British occupation of New York in 1776, the Courant assumed leadership as a spokesman for the Revolution. When paper became so scarce that some issues were printed on wrapping paper, published Ebenzer Watson built his own paper mill. Circulation is said to have reached 8,000 in 1778, when many colonial papers numbered their subscribers at a few hundred. In September of 1777 Hannah Watson assumed control of the paper after her husband's death.
Treatment: The textblock was removed from its original binding and the individual leaves were washed and then alkalized with magnesium bicarbonate. The leaves were sized by immersion in methyl cellulose and mended with Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste. The volume was rebound and placed in a specially constructed drop spine box.
Rare Book and Special Collections Division
Broadside Collection
Broadside Collection
[Susan B. Anthony Meeting]
Poster, 1896
This poster announcing a suffrage rally in Hyde Park is from the Susan B. Anthony scrapbooks. Anthony folded the poster and placed it in one of her 34 scrapbooks, which contain programs, tickets, photographs, manuscripts, and other ephemera documenting the woman suffrage movement. The scrapbooks are of utmost importance in understanding the progress of woman suffrage in America. They were compiled from 1848 through 1900, and with passing years, some of the items in the scrapbooks have degenerated. This poster exemplifies a conservation treatment that restored a piece of American history to a state in which it can be viewed and appreciated.
Treatment: Because of the size of the poster, it had been folded several times, resulting in breaks and separations. Conservators washed the poster and aligned all the fragments before lining the assembled pieces with Japanese tissue paper and wheat starch paste. This treatment not only kept all the pieces together, but also added support to the poster. Conservators completed the treatment by encapsulating the poster in polyester sheeting to make it easier for researchers to handle.
Microfilm Reading Room
Francis Long Collection of Plays and Other Theatrical Works
Francis Long Collection of plays and other theatrical works contain items published in English from 1607-1812. The collection was filmed in 1981. This extensive collection contains 2,105 bound plays and 331 volume sets.
Latin American and Iberian Biographies
Within this collection of 975 pamphlets on 20 reels is found information on pre-Hispanic leaders in America, including Acamapichtli, Axatacatl, and Cuitlahuac; on colonial figures such as Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes; and on 19th and 20th century political, literary and other cultural figures. The predominant segment of items relates to 20th century figures such as presidents and writers from throughout the Americas and Iberia, although there are also pamphlets on major 19th century figures such as Simon Bolivar, Jose Artigas, Andres Bello, Ruben Dario, Jose Marti, Francisco Miranda, Jose de San Martin, and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento.
The Latin American Microfilm Project (LAMP) for Memorias
The documents filmed under this project are official reports, constituting a large body of published information on the administrative, diplomatic, economic, cultural, fiscal, and social life of every Spanish speaking country in the Western Hemisphere and Brazil, that provide a rich statistical as well as analytical vein of information to scholars in the field. In 1986, a grant proposal from LAMP, a consortium of about 30 research libraries in the United States and Canada, was approved by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for the preservation microfilming of the annual reports of the Latin American ministries (commonly known as Memorias, Informes, and Relatorios) from the time of their independence (the early 1800's) through 1959. The goal of this project was to assemble and preserve records of primary historical materials that were in danger due to scarcity, aging and deterioration, and to make them more widely available through the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), which serves as a depository for the microfilm produced by this project and makes the film available on loan to all LAMP-member libraries. After surveying Library holdings, officials decided to do the filming in the Library of Congress because of the strength of its Memoria/Informe holdings, and its reputation for high quality preservation microfilming.
As of June 1998, a total of 115 titles and more than 3,500 volumes were filmed, producing about 6,000 reels.
Yudin Arrearage
Gennadii Vasilevich Yudin (1840-1912) was a liquor merchant and bibliophile from Krasnoiarsk, who assembled with his profits the largest private library in Russia. His was principally a Russian-language collection, strong in bibliography, history, literature and ethnography, and contained many materials on Siberia. Yudin paid considerable attention to historical sources: with a complete collection of the Russian chronicles and numerous publication of historical and archaeological societies. In 1898 Yudin advertised to sell his library to various Russian institutions for 250,000 rubles, with the stipulation that the collection was to remain intact. In October 1902, Alexis Babine, an emigre representing the Slavic Section of the Library of Congress, learned of the possible sale and traveled to Krasnoiarsk. Although initial negotiations failed, in 1905 Babine published a description of the collection, which pleased Yudin and on November 3, 1906 the agreement of sale was signed. From 1992 to 1995 Preservation Reformatting Division prepared over 400 brittle monograph titles for microfilming from the European Division's Yudin Collection.
General Collections Division
Lithuanian Yiddish Periodicals
The Library's Preservation Reformatting Division is inspecting and preparing for use 429 positive and 429 negative microfilm reels of Yiddish and Hebrew periodical titles from the National Library of Lithuania through the ongoing Department of Defense microfilming project.
Titles include: Di Tsayt (Vilnius, Lithuania), Vilner Radyo (Vilnius, Lithuania), Ovent Kuryer, Hayntike Nays, Yidishe Tsaytung, Di Idishe Shtime, Folksblat, Vilner Kuryer, Idenshtat in A.I., Dos Vort, and Frimorgn.
Asian Division
New Delhi Microfilming Project
Through this ongoing project, the Library annually receives large quantities of microfilm or microfiche of South and Southeast Asia serials and monographs. The Library receives on average 10,000 microfiche a year and in 1999 received approximately 18,000 rolls of microfilm.
Reports of the South Manchurian Railway Company
At the request of Japan's National Diet Library, the Photoduplication Service in cooperation with the Japanese Section, Asian Division, microfilmed 3,270 reports prepared by the South Manchurian Railway Company (Minami Manshu Tetsudo Kabushiki Kaisha). Acquired by the Library after World War II, the reports are a valuable sociological and legal source of information about the Japanese people working in the pre-Communist rural communities of Manchuria Members of the Diet and many Japanese citizens, especially former employees of this Japanese company, have been vitally interested in these unique reports.
Photoduplication Service
Records of Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America
Records of Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America were microfilmed and the collection totaled 376 reels. This important collection provides value information for researchers into many aspects of American life.
European Reading Room
Military Archives: Former Warsaw Pact Countries
Through the ongoing Department of Defense microfilming project, the Library received positive and negative reels of declassified records from the Centralne Archiwum Wojskowe in Warsaw covering the early years of the Cold War, primarily 1945-1950. This collection includes letters, memoranda, policy papers of the Polish Cabinet Ministers, the Minister of Defense, the General Staff, and other high military bodies.
Music Division
Copyright Music Deposits, 1870-1885
In 1870, the United States Copyright Office was established in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., as the central repository for copyrighted materials including music. Certain deposited music items were selected, classified, and added to the Library's collections. Eventually, the majority of these items came under the custody of the Music Division. During 1982-1985, the Photoduplication Service, completed a project to microfilm music materials deposited in the Copyright Office from 1870 through 1885, but not added to the Library's collections. The collection comprises 466 microfilm rolls.
Prints and Photographs Division
Historic American Building Survey
The National Park Service began the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1933, and the Federal Government took its first major step toward cataloging and preserving historic structures. In 1934, the National Park Service, American Institute of Architects, and the Library of Congress agreed to conduct a survey on a permanent basis. Under this agreement, the National Park Service selects subjects for recording, and the Library of Congress preserves the records and makes them available for study.
In 1982, the Photoduplication Service completed the microfilming of the 45,000 photographs and 35,000 pages of written documentation of the Historic American Buildings Survey, which is housed in the Library's Prints and Photographs Division. This work was done for the British publishing firm Chadwyck-Healey, Ltd., which produced a microfiche edition (1,400 microfiche sheets) of the Historic American Buildings Survey. This publication made an important Library collection accessible to researchers throughout the world.
Preservation Reformatting Division
Garden and Forest: A Journal of Horticulture, Landscape Art, and Forestry
Garden and Forest was the first American journal devoted to horticulture, botany, landscape design and preservation, national and urban park development, scientific forestry, and the conservation of forest resources. The journal was established by Charles Sprague Sargent (1841-1927), the founding director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.
Treatment: The Preservation Reformatting Division used LC preservation specifications to produce this digital reproduction of all ten volumes, comprising 8,400 pages and over 1,000 photographs and other illustrations.