Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed children’s book author Jon Scieszka as the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. The position was created to raise national awareness of the importance of young people’s literature as it relates to lifelong literacy, education, and the development and betterment of the lives of young people.

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today named 25 motion pictures— classics from every era of American filmmaking—to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, including "Bullitt," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Grand Hotel," "Oklahoma!" and "12 Angry Men."

U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic and 19 other noted poets will be featured in the winter 2008 season of "The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress." The radio series is available to all public radio stations through Public Radio Satellite Service via National Public Radio distribution.

"Collecting, for me, has always been an adventure, a journey of exploration … Over the years, the path of collecting has led me through wonderful passageways into history and cultures."

So explains Jay I. Kislak in his introductory note to "The Jay I. Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress," a broad introduction to Kislak’s gift to the Library. In 10 richly illustrated chapters, this book examines in detail more than 900 items from the collection that show the extensive range of the collector’s vision.

Distinguished architectural photographer Carol M. Highsmith, who began donating her work to the Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress in 1992, has turned her lens on the Library itself.

In more than 400 color digital images, Highsmith has captured both the artistry and symbolism of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, from the floor of the Great Hall to the dome of the Main Reading Room. These images and others can be found online at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/highsmhtml/highsmabt.html.

The Library of Congress today made a grant to Southeastern Louisiana University to join a program designed to encourage the educational use of the Library’s vast collections of online primary source materials.

The Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control has released its draft report on the future of bibliographic description in light of advances in search engine technology, the popularity of the Internet and the influx of electronic information resources.

The Library of Congress, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and OCLC have signed a memorandum of understanding to extend and enhance the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), a project that virtually combines multiple name authority files into a single name authority service.

Martha Anderson was today named director of program management for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP).

U.S. Representative Jon Porter (R-NV) has announced that the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 770, a bipartisan resolution designating the week of November 11 through November 17, 2007 as "National Veterans History Project Week." The special observance mobilizes America to record the oral history of its wartime veterans. Co-sponsors of the resolution include U. S. Representative Ron Kind (D-WI), original sponsor of the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress American Folklife Center, and 23 other members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Library of Congress Veterans History Project, a program of the American Folklife Center, will feature a special series of narratives from World War II’s China-Burma-India Theater via the project’s Web site www.loc.gov/vets/.

o commemorate the birthday of world-renowned bandleader and composer John Philip Sousa on Nov. 6, 1854, a new Web site dedicated to the composer of "The Stars and Stripes Forever" is now available from the Library of Congress at www.loc.gov/lcp.

n his new book, "Silent Movies: The Birth of Film and the Triumph of Movie Culture," Peter Kobel has created the definitive visual history of silent film. Published this month by the Library of Congress in association with Little, Brown & Co., this richly illustrated work draws on the Library’s extraordinary collection of posters, paper prints, film stills and memorabilia—most of which has never been in print. More than 400 images capture the birth of film and the rise of such icons as Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow and Rudolph Valentino.

Frank Kurt Cylke, director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), Library of Congress, received the 2006 Golden Cassette Award for Library Partnership from the Los Angeles-based Braille Institute of America Library Services Inc.

In response to the fires in Southern California and the resulting damage to personal and public collections, the Library of Congress has updated its preservation Web page on emergency care.

As part of the Library of Congress’s mission to ensure that America’s history and heritage are available and accessible for generations to come, the Library and Xerox Corporation are working together on a project to develop better ways to store, preserve and access treasured digital images. The collection includes such images as a panorama of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake, a photograph of Abraham Lincoln taken four days before he was assassinated and a picture of the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk.

Beginning in November, the Library of Congress Music Division, WETA-FM and CD Syndications will be launching a 13-week classical music radio series slated for broadcast nationwide. Bill McGlaughlin, creator and host of the Peabody Award-winning program "Saint Paul Sunday Morning," hosts "Concerts from the Library of Congress," which features excerpts from past performances held in the Library’s historic Coolidge Auditorium.

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and UNESCO Assistant Director for Communication and Information Abdul Waheed Khan today signed an agreement at UNESCO headquarters in Paris pledging cooperative efforts to build a World Digital Library Web site.

Four national libraries have joined forces to implement a new standard for resource description and access designed for the digital environment in which libraries now operate. The Library of Congress, the British Library, Library and Archives Canada, and the National Library of Australia have agreed on a coordinated implementation of "RDA: Resource Description and Access," the successor to the "Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules."

The possibility of flight captured human imagination long before the Montgolfier brothers’ unmanned hot air balloon succeeded in carrying a duck, a rooster and a sheep above the city of Versailles in 1783. Before and after that date, people sketched, painted, photographed, sang about and described in words the ways a human being might fly like a bird. Each time someone achieved an advance in flight, the world took note. The record of these advances is described in "Aeronautical and Astronautical Resources of the Library of Congress: A Comprehensive Guide" by Ronald S. Wilkinson, John F. Buydos and others.