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The folks who manage our popular THOMAS legislative information website have been taking advantage of the August congressional recess to make some upgrades.

Enhancements include optimization for mobile devices, easy links to social media and links to the legislatures of all 50 states, D.C. and U.S territories.

There’s more on the Law Library’s new blog, In Custodia Legis.

My colleague Erin Allen wrote the following for the Library’s in-house letter, The Gazette, and I thought it worth sharing with a wider audience:

The late psychiatrist Fredric Wertham examines a comic book in his office. (Photo by E.B. Bratner)

Among comic-book aficionados, psy­chiatrist Fredric Wertham (1895–1981) is considered as much of a villain as those he assailed in the crime and horror comics he criticized. However, Wer­tham was more than just an outspoken crusader against comic books. He was dedicated to protecting children from harmful material in all mass media. His research about the detrimental effects of segregation was used in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education court case. In addition, Wertham founded a clinic in Harlem, providing mental-health services to the underprivileged African American community.

The Library of Congress acquired his papers in 1987, through the estate of his wife, Florence Hesketh Wertham. In May of this year, all 222 containers were opened to public research access. Previ­ously, they were sealed except to people approved by the estate.

“We realize that donors have certain interests they want to respect,” said Len Bruno of the Library’s Manuscript Divi­sion, which houses the collection. “Of course, things can’t stay closed forever,” he added, saying that the Library often agrees to reasonable restrictions in order to acquire materials.

Bruno said that since access became unrestricted, interest in Wertham’s papers has increased. His papers add another component to the Library’s collections, which include comic books in the Serials and Government Publications Division, about 128,000 works of cartoon art in the Prints and Photographs Division and the papers of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and the International Psycho-Analytical Association in the Manuscript Division.

Wertham was born Fredric Wertheimer in Munich, Germany, on March 20, 1895. He received a medical degree in 1921 and moved to the United States to teach at Johns Hopkins University and practice at the university’s Phipps Psychiatric Clinic a year later. In 1932, he moved to New York City to serve as the head of the Court of General Sessions psychiatric clinic, which examined every convicted felon in the city. In 1936, he was named director of Bel­levue’s Mental Hygiene Clinic in New York and later became director of psychiatric services at Queens Hospital Center.

Patient notes by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham describe the effects of a “Superman” comic book on a young boy. (Library of Congress/Abby Brack photo)

“One of the things he did was create a clinic in Harlem to serve the underprivi­leged community,” said Bruno. In 1946, the Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic – a small outpatient facility run by volunteers – opened, providing care to the poor for almost 13 years.

“He was also a highly respected wit­ness in high-profile criminal court cases,” Bruno added.

In 1935, he testified for the defense in the trial of serial child-killer Albert Fish, whom he had examined at length, declar­ing him insane. Wertham also testified on behalf of convicted spy Ethel Rosenberg, despite never having questioned her, in order to offer his expertise on her condi­tion of “prison psychoses” while she was imprisoned at Sing Sing.

According to Wertham, he believed his testimony helped with Julius Rosenberg’s transfer to Sing Sing and the warden’s allowance for visitation rights between the married couple.

Wertham also provided his expertise as a forensic psychiatrist in a number of cases involving teenagers. This involve­ment was the basis for his book “Dark Legend: A Study of Murder” (1941).

Despite his humane interests and broader concerns with violence and protecting children from psychological harm, Wertham is best known for his book “Seduction of the Innocent” (1954) and its resulting fallout. The book was the culmination of a decade-long campaign against comic books.

Wertham’s notes on this 1967 “Kid Colt Outlaw,” comic book: “111 pictures; 62 scenes of violence = more than half.” (Library of Congress/Abby Brack photo)

“The book presents his research on the negative impact of violence in comics on impressionable youth,” said Bruno. “He was for censorship as it pertained to children.”

In “Seduction” Wertham wrote, “There seems to be a widely held belief that democracy demands leaving the regula­tion of children’s reading to the individual. Leaving everything to the individual is actually … anarchy. And it is a pity that children should suffer from the anarchistic trends in our society.”

Among the items in the Library’s col­lection of Wertham’s papers is a selection of comics he deemed offensive, with notations he wrote inside.

His copy of “Kid Colt, Outlaw” (1967) includes a note that of the 111 pictures, 69 were scenes of violence. An issue of “Justice League of America” (1966) includes markings calling attention to the sounds of violence like “thudd,” “whapp” and “poww.”

“Guns Against Gangsters,” 1948. Fredric Wertham papers. (Library of Congress/Abby Brack photo)

In addition, Wertham’s papers include patient drawings and his analy­sis of those sketches. He writes of a young patient: “This case demonstrates the confusion created by comic books between fan­tasy and reality … cruelty in children’s play especially directed against girls.”

Wertham testified six times under oath on the harmfulness of comic books, including provid­ing testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Though the committee’s final report did not blame comics for crime, it recom­mended that the comics industry tone down its content voluntarily, thus resulting in the Comics Code Authority.

According to comic book historian and blogger Mike Rhode, Wertham’s research would likely not be accepted by most today as it relied on anecdotal evidence of children he saw in his Harlem clinic. Still, his legacy reverberates among comic-book fandom with his objection to even the most beloved heroes like Super­man, Batman and Wonder Woman.

“I think he was part of a movement that is uniquely American – this need to protect children from adult life – that started in the 1950s. It was the same movement that said every child ought to graduate from high school and have the opportunity to go to college,” said Sara Duke, curator of the Library’s comic arts collections in P&P. “Until we can synthesize Wertham in his time, he will be demonized by historians for changing the comic-book industry and affecting the way generations of adults see comic books.”

I have been a painfully lazy blogger lately. Life is happening and I just haven’t had time to process it all. I had a rough couple weeks a while ago: letting go, changing directions, remembering what is most important. I think we all need those reality checks now and again. Then I fell down the [...]

If you follow popular music, you likely saw in June that Sir Paul McCartney—in Washington to receive the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song—not only sang at the White House but also, the night before that elegant gig, performed at a venue at the Library known as the Coolidge Auditorium.

You might also have noticed that the Coolidge was the site of Stevie Wonder’s premiere, a year earlier, of his piece “Sketches of a Life,” which the Library commissioned from him in conjunction with his receipt of the Gershwin Prize in 2009.

The 500-seat Coolidge is even cooler than that among devotees of classical music. Since its opening of the concert hall in October, 1925 following a gift from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, a wealthy aficionado of chamber music, it has been the first-performance site of such works as Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” Igor Stravinsky’s “Apollon Musagète,” Maurice Ravel’s “Chansons Madécasses,” Ned Rorem’s “Evidence of Things Not Seen” and string quartets by Béla Bartók, Arnold Schoenberg, Benjamin Britten, and Sergei Prokofiev.

Performers on its stage have included Bartók, György Kurtág, Joshua Bell, Leonard Bernstein, Dave Brubeck, Savion Glover, Leontyne Price, Rudolph Serkin, Bobby Short, and some of the world’s finest chamber-music ensembles, from the Juilliard String Quartet to the contemporary classical sextet eighth blackbird.  Recently, the Dalai Lama spoke from the stage of the Coolidge.

Each year, in addition to a season of free concerts by world-famous chamber-music groups, (although there is a minimal fee payable to a ticketing service to make sure seats don’t get double-booked) there are performances by jazz combos and folk musicians. Stars who are members of the songwriters’ rights group ASCAP and hit-makers from the world of country music have played there recently. The Coolidge is, as they say, “music to your ears.”

That’s a good thing, because even though the auditorium is part of the lavishly embellished Thomas Jefferson Building, the Coolidge isn’t exactly eye candy. That’s how the patron wanted it: she sought “severe and chaste beauty” rather than “ornate display.”

The walls are flat, with minimal decoration–a little molding, a bit of metalwork–and cream-colored paint; the theater-style seats are padded, but not plush, and the floor is covered with medium-brown tiles made from cork.

There is no carpet.

There is no curtain.

Ornate, it’s not.

But close your eyes when there’s someone on that storied stage and be carried away on a wave of sound–because the Coolidge is what sound engineers call a “live” hall. Its acoustics can move the sound waves from a single violin or a small group of instruments out and out so that the 499th person back there in the last row can hear the sound quite clearly, without amplification. 

That cork floor may be part of the secret – along with the empty space below the stage, the design of the roof, the sound-reflecting angle of the back wall.  Whatever it is, it’s made the Coolidge world-famous among musicians.

History is replete with costly, beautiful concert halls that became infamous for their sonic dead spots.  There’s a concert hall in New York City named after the generous gentleman who paid to have its acoustics redone several years after it opened – years after that, more work is scheduled. Many a stage manager has struggled with acoustic “holes” in the audience, or with stage acoustics that keep singers from hearing the music, or musicians from hearing each other – it’s all too common.

But only a few halls are as reliably delightful to the ear as the Coolidge – perhaps the Musikverein in Vienna, or Symphony Hall in Boston.  And when you scrutinize them, you’ll see that they, too, went easy on the carpeting and velvet wall covering, letting the sound bounce all around instead of being absorbed.

The hard wooden floorboards on the Coolidge stage fairly glow with memories of the luminaries who have spoken there, sung there, played there, danced there. It’s the plain-Jane frame to some priceless artistic portraits.

Today the latest Twilight movie opens yet it was apparently way better to share the news that my butt is still out of shape. Thanks USA Today! Cause today wasn’t weird enough. I needed my butt to be the cover story.  The least you could have done is linked to me since you found me [...]

Lauren Cater (right) explains some of the work that she did this summer as a Junior Fellow in the Serial and Government Publications Division developing research guides (also known as “Topic Pages”) for the Library’s Chronicling America website. She focused on the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, which included such events as the assassinations of Presidents McKinley and Garfield and the Spanish-American War. (Library of Congress/Abby Brack photo)

My colleague Audrey Fischer, who has been taking the lead on publicity for the Junior Fellows program for the last few years, has offered up this guest post:

ser•en•dip•it•y (n): a propensity for making fortuitous discoveries by accident.

“Serendipity” is the word that most comes to mind while viewing a special display of Library materials assembled by the 2010 Junior Fellows Summer Interns and Library curators.

Approximately 100 items from 30 collections housed in 16 Library divisions were assembled and displayed at the Library on Aug. 5 by 41 interns selected from more than 600 applicants from colleges and universities throughout the country.

“The items you’ve processed are part of the national collection and the display is a living tribute to Mrs. Jefferson Patterson, who believed in making an investment in young people,” said Associate Librarian for Library Services Deanna Marcum, who addressed the interns at the event.  (The late Mrs. Jefferson Patterson and the James Madison Council generously support the annual Junior Fellows Summer Internship Program.)

An ambrotype of an African-American soldier and his family. This photograph was found in Cecil County, Md., making it probable that this soldier belonged to one of the five U.S. Colored Troop regiments from Maryland. (Library of Congress/Abby Brack photo)

But getting back to serendipity, there’s:

The rare (perhaps only) underground copy of Leo Tolstoy’s “Novoe Evangelie” (The New Gospel, 1883), which was found by a Russian-speaking intern in the European Division’s Cyrillic 4 Collection. This re-write of the Gospels and other perceived offenses got Tolstoy excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church.

New and different perspectives on the Civil War, World Wars I and II and the Cold War were found in the Prints and Photographs Division (ambrotypes and tintypes soon to be shared on Flickr), American Folklife Center (Veterans History Project collections from World War I veterans), the Asian Division (items revealing World War II events from the Japanese perspective) and the Manuscript Division (papers of Bernard A. Schriever who helped develop the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile).

An 1886 pamphlet urging Congress to pass the International Copyright Law of 1891, containing signatures of Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Oliver Wendell Holmes and others was found in the Law Library’s collections. Enterprising interns cross-referenced the famous names with the Library’s other resources and found related material in the Manuscript Division.

An intern from the University of Michigan learned that her summer project (Digital Preservation Outreach and Education) was spearheaded by the University of Michigan – one of the Library’s many partners in the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. So she can continue to help with the effort – and perhaps carve a career path – when she returns to campus.

That’s serendipity for the Library and its summer interns!

One of the myriad new ways we’re marking the 10th National Book Festival — “A Decade of Words and Wonder,” as we say — is to give you, the National Bookworms, as it were a chance to make your voice heard.

This year we have posted a poll at loc.gov/bookfest asking people to vote for their favorite author out of all 530 (!!!) authors, illustrators and poets who have graced the National Book Festival since it began in 2001.  You can peruse authors alphabetically and select your fave, and there are also links to vote from each individual author’s bio page.  (The previous link lists 2010 authors, while there is also a drop-down box where you can choose authors from previous festivals by pavilion.)

We’ll tell you more about those other “myriad new ways” in the coming weeks.  But for now, head to the ballot boxes!

I didn’t want any more time to go by this week without welcoming the newest member of the Library of Congress blog family.

“In Custodia Legis” isn’t the guy who cleans up after the legislature adjourns.  Rather, it’s the new blog of the Law Library of Congress.  As chief blogger Andrew “Middle Name Not Lloyd” Weber puts it:

In Custodia Legis is Latin for in the custody of the law. One role of the Law Library of Congress is to be a custodian of law and legislation.  As part of this, our team of bloggers covers current legal trends, collecting for the largest law library in the world, a British perspective, a perspective from New Zealand, developments and enhancements in THOMAS, and cultural intelligence and the law.

“In Custodia Legis” joins this blog, as well as others from the Library of Congress, including our Music Division and our Science, Technology and Business Division.

If you’re a hard-core Library of Congress aficionado–and if you’re not, you should be!–you can follow all of us on this aggregator page, and also on this page, which lists the whole gamut of social media in which we’re participating.

The Law Library is also active in other social media as well, such as its Facebook page , its Twitter feed and YouTube videos.

Welcome, “In Custodia Legis”!

Developers for the iPhone and iPad have been able to say “there’s an app for that” about a quarter-million times–the total number currently available in Apple’s App Store.  But not until now has there been an official app for the Library of Congress.  (So far it’s the first and only app–don’t be fooled by imitators!)

Yesterday we launched the Library of Congress Virtual Tour.  It’s an ideal companion to an on-site tour, as much of its content tracks with the Library of Congress Experience in the Jefferson Building.  But if you can’t make it to Washington, the app is the best substitute that’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

Click here to learn more and download it.

The app includes highlights of exhibitions and architectural features, with photos, audio by curators and other experts, links to more detailed online exhibitions, and even a video about the history of Thomas Jefferson’s Library, which in 1815 reconstituted the Library of Congress after the British burned the Capitol in the War of 1812.  The architectural photos come courtesy of Carol M. Highsmith, who has been donating magnificent collections of images to the Library copyright-free, for the American people.

Like all iPhone apps, it also works on the iPhone Touch and iPad (in the standard 1x/2x resolution options, of course).

The app was developed by three of our very own talented staff.  While this is the first mobile app for the Library, we hope it won’t be the last.  There are so many collections and services at the Library of Congress that could be quite useful on a pocket-sized device, and there are also other mobile platforms that are growing in popularity.

So what do you think of our app?

Jenny, the Bloggess, has officially saved me from a life of drugs and for that we must all thank her! I was catching up on my feeds and since she is one of my favorites I actually went to look and see what I missed last week from her. Thank god I did. She had [...]

PBS tonight airs the long-awaited “Paul McCartney: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song In Performance at the White House” at 8 p.m. EDT, with an encore showing at 9:30.

It’s an all-star concert that features music from McCartney himself and Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, Jonas Brothers, Herbie Hancock, Corinne Bailey Rae, Dave Grohl, Faith Hill, Emmylou Harris, Lang Lang and Jack White, with remarks by Jerry Seinfeld.

The Library announced in May that Sir Paul was to be the third recipient of the Gershwin Prize, which celebrates a lifetime of creative output in the realm of popular music.  President Barack Obama conferred the Prize on the legendary rocker last month at the White House during the taping of the performance that airs tonight.

To whet your palate, enjoy a couple of videos.  The first is a backstage look at the Jonas Brothers and their White House performance of “Drive My Car.”  The second is White Stripes frontman Jack White’s rendition of the hauntingly beautiful “Mother Nature’s Son.”

You can read a little more about it on the Music Division’s blog, “In the Muse.”

Looking for ideas on how to incorporate manuscript materials into classroom activities? There is a new page for teachers on the Manuscript Division website. The page includes links to resources on the Teacher’s Page, suggestions on where to look for manuscript collections on the Library’s website, and a highlighted document from the Library’s manuscript collections. Currently featured are George Washington’s School Copy Books.

O M G- I just returned from the best blog conference I have ever attended, EVO10 and I have so much to share with you all about PR, brands, relationships and the evolution of this wild, wild west atmosphere we are all currently in. There were so many brilliant speakers and one on one conversations [...]

"Caricature Wielding Her Lash" by Honore Daumier

There are many avenues of research at the Library of Congress.

Some are a laugh riot!

Take, for example, the vast collections of cartoons and caricature in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division. For more than a century, the Library has collected pictorial humor  – collections that range from a lifetime’s worth of cartoons by the late Washington Post political cartoonist Herb Block (“Herblock”) to more than 20,000 original cartoons by generations of America’s best cartoonists. 

There are also historical cartoons from such giants as 19th-century French artist Honoré Daumier (see above) to early American Paul Revere; arrays amassed by individuals, from Jack Kapp’s collection dealing with the sound-recording industry (including art by such figures as Rube Goldberg and Gluyas Williams – these are found in the Library’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division) to the Caroline and Erwin Swann Collection of Caricature and Cartoon, which records the development of U.S. newspaper funnies.

To explore the many ways that the pen has proven mightier than the sword at the Library of Congress – or at least, funnier – click here.

*Republishing since it is feels timely* I have waited for years for the chance to see Wicked, so H1 (yes, it is running through our house) be damned, I was NOT going to flake out on tickets that we got 6 months ago to go see it! If you have not seen or heard of [...]

Let’s see who was paying attention during last weeks PR Monday when I said that I was posting it every other week during the summer……cause this ain’t no PR post. Happy Belated Fathers Day to all those awesome dads! Hope my father-in-law had a wonderful day. I tried to make sure that Bob did as [...]

*You probably think this post is about you* Oh wait, it is…. I seriously needed that. Thank you, Lori! And thanks to all my awesome friends who read the blog. You never comment but I love you anyway. PS—I would rather talk to you all in person anyway so it is OK you don’t comment. [...]

List your blog giveaways here. Readers are encouraged to enter these contests to win prizes! Just put the direct link to your giveaway with the expiration date at the end. Happy winning! Just as a reminder, member of my site The Coupon Cupboard can leave their giveaways anytime they want for free so go join [...]

This is a guest post by Carl Fleischhauer, program officer with the Library’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program

In 1975, Alan Jabbour and I began a project to document the fiddle playing of Senator Robert C. Byrd, who passed away a few days ago at the age of 92.  Sen. Byrd was aware that Alan and I had produced an extensive set of field recordings of the music and tales of other West Virginia musicians, notably the Hammons family of Marlinton.  The Hammons project took place in the early 1970s, when Alan was the head of the Archive of Folk Song (later known as the Archive of Folk Culture) and I worked for the public television station at West Virginia University.

Alan met Sen. Byrd at a public event where the senator played his fiddle and sang.  In 1975, Senator Byrd contacted Alan about making a recording of his own.  I drove over from Morgantown and Alan and I carried out our first session at Byrd’s home in McLean, Virginia.  In 1976, Alan moved back to the Library as the director of the American Folklife Center and I joined the center’s staff toward the end of the year.  Before long, Alan arranged for the senator to be recorded on the stage of the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium (no audience). I took photographs.

The initial recordings were added to the Library’s collections but Senator Byrd broached the idea of releasing an LP of his playing and singing with musical backup.  Alan contacted an old North Carolina friend, Barry Poss, who then worked at County Records.  Barry suggested we engage a group of top-notch bluegrass professional musicians to accompany the senator and bring in one of the region’s best engineers to make the recordings.

In sessions in early 1978, this stellar group — Robert Byrd, Doyle Lawson, James Bailey, and Spider Gilliam, aided by recording engineer Bill McElroy — laid down 14 tracks for the County label.  They were recorded right in the U.S. Capitol.  In October, the new release was presented with much fanfare at Discount Records near Dupont Circle in northwest Washington, DC.

This year, County went back to the original masters and digitally re-released the recordings as a compact disc (County CD-2743), illustrated with photographs from the Folklife Center’s collection.  Advance copies of the new CD were sent to the senator’s office as his health was failing and, as chance would have it, the re-release of “U.S. Senator Robert Byrd: Mountain Fiddler” coincided with Sen. Byrd’s passing.

Listening to the recordings today, I join many in a feeling of real loss.  But at the same time the music brings back a smile — especially when I hear the great politician sing, “I’ve gambled down in Washington, I’ve gambled over in Spain, now I’m down in Georgia to gamble my last game.”

Did you happen to catch the “CBS Evening News” last night?  They featured the latest audio recordings the Library has added to the National Recording Registry, which features everything from Jiminy Cricket and Little Richard to Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Tupac Shakur and a World War II battle.

As Katie Couric might say, Anthony Mason has the story.

As the story mentions, while the Librarian of Congress makes the final selection, anybody can nominate a recording. The criteria and instructions can be found here.

(The headline refers to a line in Mason’s story.)