The Library of Congress will be 200 years old in the year 2000. As its contribution to the bicentennial celebration, the Center for the Book will sponsor a series of symposia, lectures and publications -- both popular and scholarly -- about the Library and its history.
"Few people realize the Library's importance in shaping our country's intellectual and cultural heritage," said John Y. Cole, the center's director. "The project's goal is to stimulate interest in the history and significance of the Library's collections, services, buildings and administrative units and to call attention to the contributions of individual staff members to their subject specialties and to shaping the institution's broader role."
Drawing on the Library of Congress Archives in the Manuscript Division and on archival materials held in other divisions and in private collections, the project will commission research, interviews and publications that examine and illuminate the Library's contribution to government, scholarship, librarianship and culture -- nationally and internationally. The art, architecture and symbolism of the Library's buildings, especially the Jefferson Building, also will be studied. Ideas and project proposals should be sent to the LC History Project, Center for the Book, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540.
Following are some recent publications and dissertations about the history and influence of the Library:
Carol Armbruster, ed. Publishing and Readership in Revolutionary France and America: A Symposium at the Library of Congress Sponsored by the Center for the Book and the European Division. Greenwood Press, 1993.
Lewis C. Branscomb. Ernest Cushing Richardson: Research Librarian, Scholar, Theologian, 1860-1939. Scarecrow Press, 1993.
John Y. Cole. Jefferson's Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress. Library of Congress, 1993.
William J. Crowe, Verner W. Clapp as Opinion Leader and Change Agent in the Preservation of Library Materials. Ph.D dissertation, Indiana University, 1986.
Phyllis Dain and John Y. Cole, eds. Libraries and Scholarly Communication in the United States: The Historical Dimension. Greenwood Press, 1990.
Scott Donaldson. Archibald MacLeish: An American Life. Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
Carl Fleishhauer and Beverly W. Brannan, eds. Documenting America, 1935-1943. University of California Press, in association with the Library of Congress. 1988.
Beverly Elson. The Library of Congress: A Merger of American Functionalism and Cosmopolitan Eclecticism. Ph.D dissertation, University of Maryland, 1981.
Charles A. Goodrum. Treasures of the Library of Congress. Revised and expanded edition. Abrams, 1991.
Barbra B. Higginbotham. Our Past Preserved: A History of American Library Preservation, 1876-1910. G.K. Hall, 1990.
Debora Kodish. Good Friends and Bad Enemies: Robert Winslow Gordon and the Study of American Folksong. University of Illinois Press, 1986.
Peggy Ann Kusnerz. Picturing the Past: Photographs at the Library of Congress, 1865-1954. Ph.D dissertation, University of Michigan, 1992.
William Lichtenwanger, ed. Oscar Sonneck and American Music. University of Illinois Press, 1983.
William McGuire. Poetry's Catbird Seat: The Consultantship in Poetry in the English Language at the Library of Congress, 1937-1987. Library of Congress, 1987.
Janet Cecelia Marstine. Working History: Images of Labor and Industry in American Mural Painting, 1893-1903. Ph.D Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1993.
Josephus Nelson and Judith Farley. Full Circle: Ninety Years of Service in the Main Reading Room. Library of Congress, 1991.
Anne-Imelda Radice. The Original Library of Congress: The History (1800-1814) of the Library of Congress in the United States Capitol. Committee on Rules and Administration, U.S. Senate, August 1981.
Jane Aiken Rosenberg. The Library of Congress and the Professionalization of American Librarianship, 1896-1939. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1988.
Jane Aiken Rosenberg. The Nation's Great Library: Herbert Putnam and the Library of Congress, 1899-1939. University of Illinois Press, 1993.
Morey Rothberg and Jacqueline Goggin. John Franklin Jameson and the Development of Humanistic Scholarship in America. University of Georgia Press, 1993.
Suzanne E. Thorin, ed. Automation at the Library of Congress: Inside Views. Library of Congress Professional Association, 1986.
