April 24, 2007
The Library of Congress Joins the Blogosphere
By Elisabeth Grant
The Library of Congress announced Monday that in celebration of its 207th birthday on April 24th, it was launching the Library of Congress blog. Matt Raymond, the director of communications at the LOC, will be the main writer on the blog, but some posts will come from James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, along with other curators at the institution. For it’s first post, on April 24th, Matt Raymond began with the words of Samuel Morse in 1844: “What hath God wrought?” These four words were the first words ever transmitted electronically. Raymond goes on to tentatively explain the aims of the LOC blog, drawing his words from the library’s mission statement: “to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations.” He also says that the blog is meant “to give readers the opportunity to see more of the institution” and “highlight many of the wonderful things that happen here.” With these vague but promising words of intent it will be interesting to see what path this new blog takes. Welcome to the blogosphere Library of Congress!
