Web Discussions

Delve Into, Discover, Discuss

The Digital Reference Section offers monthly programs via webinar. Topics reflect the depth and breadth of the resources available in the Library's digital and physical collections, and provide participants with opportunities to interact with Library of Congress staff specialists.

Programs are announced through the Virtual Programs & Services RSS Feed and Email Subscription. To register for an upcoming program, complete the Participant Registration Form. To request a program on a particular topic for your group, contact the Digital Reference Section via the Ask A Librarian form.

Upcoming Programs:

An Eye for Poems: An Editor's Perspective

Join W. W. Norton & Co. poetry editor Jill Bialosky and Poetry magazine editor Christian Wiman as they give a behind-the-scenes look at the editorial process -- how and why they decide to champion the poets they do.

Date: Tuesday, April 30

Time: 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time

To Register use the Participant Registration Form.

Past Programs:

Invisible Ancestors: Ideas & Strategies for Recreating Their Stories

Many ancestors - early immigrants and pioneers, slaves, women, native peoples, and others - do not have compiled biographies. They are invisible in the historical record except through the census or other data collection entities, yet their stories can be told by recreating the context of the times and events through which they lived.

Using early travelogues, letters, first person accounts, printed ephemera, photographs, newspapers, maps, and other primary materials online at the Library of Congress, we will reconstruct the stories of three individuals: an Irish immigrant; a pioneer woman; and an ex-slave. These stories will provide ideas and strategies for combining primary materials to take you beyond census data and enrich the stories of those whom you would like to know better.