There’s a fascinating backstory about the building that is now the National Audiovisual Conservation Center, which is where the Library of Congress stores all 6.3 million pieces of the library’s movie, television, and sound collection. It used to be a nuclear bunker that stored $4 billion during the Cold War. Now,…
The DMCA takedown and counter-takedown procedures has been a mess for a while now. And it didn’t look like anyone who could fix it cared to. Which made it a surprise when the Copyright Office asked for public comment on the issue on New Year’s Eve.
Decrypting copyrighted materials is, according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, an illegal act. Yesterday, the Library of Congress issued a set of exemptions to the DMCA’s decryption ban, which many outlets, including Gizmodo, hailed as “victories” and “big wins.” They’re not. At best, the new rules allow…
Most people who work in the U.S. Capitol don’t know about the 100-year-old book conveyor tunnel underneath them that used to connect the building to the Library of Congress. It’s long since abandoned, but it’s still down there.
New York and DC are piles of ash, but at least your checks are clearing. That was the idea behind the Culpeper Switch, a sprawling bunker built by the Federal Reserve to keep the banks running after nuclear apocalypse. But even some Cold War-era politicians thought it was silly.
Archivists at the Library of Congress recently discovered a "Nazi Driver Education Film." It shows German society just a few years before the war, along with the rather bizarre — and frightening — driving culture of the times.
Below the jump is the only remaining fragment of Winsor McCay's 1921 animation The Centaurs. It was produced by Rialto Productions and there's a certain charm to it. Except for the centaur foal at the end, which is just creepy.
Each year the Library of Congress adds 25 movies to the National Film Registry for preservation. This year they've selected a broad range of films, with everything from Pulp Fiction to Mary Poppins to more obscure movies with historical significance, like the 1962 Academy Award winner for best animated short film, The…
There may be a recent resurgence of interest in silent film (thanks in no small part to the success of The Artist), but anyone looking to get into the art form is in for a rude awakening. Of the nearly 11,000 movies made in the pre-talkie, golden age of silent film, 70 percent has been lost and gone forever.
The clock is ticking as a full-fledged government shutdown looms on the horizon. House Republicans remain resolute in their mission to keep Obamacare from kicking in on October 1, the first day of the new fiscal year. The science and tech communities, meanwhile, are bracing for the worst—again.
Emoji Dick, the oh-man-how-did-this-actually-work-out emoji translation of Moby Dick, is now in the Library of Congress. Why wouldn't it be.
The Library of Congress is brimming with flawless daguerreotype photographs that give us a pristine look into the state of things over the past two centuries. Now that's great and all, but perhaps even more incredible are the ones that succumbed to the 200 years of damage and decay.
The Library of Congress is one of the most splendid resources in the country—which is terrific, if you're in DC. For those who aren't (and even who are!), the Library's putting a massive audio archive online, for free.
In 1926 Nikola Tesla gave an interview to Collier's Weekly in which he predicted something that sounds remarkably like portable television. Perhaps most interestingly, he mentions that this technology would be used to watch war unfold, "just as though we were present."
Last week, the Library of Congress confirmed it's blocking WikiLeaks. Censorship principles aside, the ban has one clear consequence: the Congressional Research Service, responsible for crucial reports to lawmakers, is part of the Library. Now their plug is pulled too.
These incandescent pictures and postcards from the turn of the 19th century aren't true color photography — they were colored using a process known as photochrom that gave the landscapes they depict a fuzzy warm veneer.
Today's Library of Congress statement marks a historic moment in the battle between those who dictate how we should be able to use media and technology, and the rest of us. We explain what the new exemptions mean for you.
The woman in this photo is an employee at the Library of Congress. She is using a high-tech scanner to map the individual chemical components of a century-old book in order to learn how to better preserve it.
Maybe it's because I'm a film and video buff, but I just read an article that rocked my world a bit, and I recommend that you read it, too.
Internet, your narcissism has been validated. The Library of Congress will archive all public tweets for historical purposes. Somewhere in the unfathomable future, a historian really, really cares that you had a Reuben for lunch today. [Physorg]
