The Great Hall, exhibitions and Sales Shop in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress will be closed from Thursday, April 3 through Friday, April 11 in preparation for the opening of a new Library of Congress Experience for visitors. Ceremonies to celebrate the debut of the new Library of Congress Experience will begin at 11 a.m. on April 12. The Great Hall and exhibitions will reopen after the noon ribbon cutting.

Louis L’Amour, one of the most prolific and bestselling writers of all time, has been honored by the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress as its inaugural "Champion of the Book"—a unique designation reserved for those who have made an important contribution to the world of books.

The Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress and the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Inc., have awarded commissions for new musical works to seven composers. The foundations and the performing organizations that will present the newly composed works are jointly granting the commissions.

The Library of Congress–the largest library in the world and the oldest U.S. federal cultural institution–on Saturday, April 12, debuts an immersive, new "Library of Congress Experience," offering visitors unique historical and cultural treasures brought to life through cutting-edge interactive technology and a companion Web site.

This summer the Library of Congress, home of the U.S. Copyright Office, is once again offering special 10-week, paid internships to college students. For a stipend of $3,000, Junior Fellows Summer Interns will work full-time, starting on June 2 and ending on Aug. 8, to help locate and itemize uncataloged materials submitted to the office as part of the copyright registration process. In the past, summer interns have identified hundreds of literary, artistic, film and musical gems among the Library’s copyright deposits and gift collections.

A monthly online newsletter highlighting the important work that the Library of Congress’s digital preservation program is performing to collect and preserve the nation’s heritage in digital form will launch in March.

More than 500 years after its creation, Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map—the first map to display the name "America"—continues to fascinate cartographers, historians and those interested in the nation’s founding and the mapping of the globe. Acquired by the Library of Congress in 2003 and currently on display in the Thomas Jefferson Building in a sealed, oxygen-free encasement, the map is the subject of a new book, "The Naming of America" by John W. Hessler.

The Library of Congress has become one of the first federal agencies to implement an agency-wide "videophone" system that enables its deaf staff members who use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate with both hearing and deaf individuals. Using the videophones, deaf staff members can place Video Relay Service (VRS) calls, which are "relayed" through an ASL interpreter at a call center, to hearing individuals. Likewise, using the videophones, deaf individuals can place point-to-point calls with other deaf people who use ASL.

The Library has added new email alert services and RSS feeds in the following areas: Hours of Operation, Folklife (including News, Events, and Newsletter from the American Folklife Center), Legal Issues (including News, Research, Webcasts, and Global Legal Monitor from the Law Library), and news from Chronicling America, the Historic American Newspaper project.

The Preservation Directorate of the Library of Congress has announced that Karen Motylewski from IMLS will serve a one-year detail at the Library as special projects liaison. She will help both agencies advance shared goals for preservation and conservation awareness and action throughout the nation. She will assist the Library in meetings, in training sessions and in developing emergency plans.

The Library of Congress has begun to receive donated books from the National Library of China through the Window of China Project. Founded in 2006, the Window of China Project donates books to national libraries and other institutions around the world.

At a ceremony held today at the Library of Congress, the papers of civil-rights activist James Forman were given to the Library by Forman’s sons James Jr. and Chaka. Their mother, Constancia Romilly, also attended the event.

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed W. R. Smyser, adjunct professor in the BMW Center for German and European Studies, Georgetown University, as the Henry Alfred Kissinger Scholar in Foreign Policy and International Relations in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.

Out of some 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials at the Library of Congress, more than 3,000 photos from two of the institution's most popular collections are being made available on Flickr, a popular photo-sharing site, to include only images for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist.

Details of Abraham Lincoln's second inauguration come into clearer focus with the recent discovery at the Library of Congress of three glass negatives that show the large crowd gathered at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., for the president's address on March 4, 1865.

The Library of Congress and the Foundation Center, in a joint partnership, have recently compiled a new Web-based fundraising guide to help the preservation community save the nation’s millions of at-risk artifacts for future generations.

The Library of Congress and Microsoft Corp. have signed a cooperative agreement that will change the way Library visitors experience history. The joint technology initiative will electronically deliver the Library’s immense collection of historical artifacts to patrons visiting its Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C., and will allow unparalleled and immersive interactive experiences that will bring the institution’s vast historical collections and exhibits to life–on-site and online–through the upcoming myloc.gov Web site.

Mystery Writers of America (MWA) has announced that the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress is one of two recipients of its 2008 Raven Award, which honors outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing.

The Library of Congress is accepting nominations from publishers for the $10,000 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry. The prize will be awarded in April, which is National Poetry Month.

Twenty-one states, working in four multistate demonstration projects, are today joining the Library of Congress’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) in an initiative to catalyze collaborative efforts to preserve important state government information in digital form.