Hayden Library - QD921.J36 2018

Hayden Library - QD172.S93 C43 2019

Online Resource

Hayden Library - QC798.D3 C66 2017

Happy New Year/ feliz año/ feliz ano novo from the Library of Congress’ Hispanic Division! We feel privileged for the opportunities 2019 offered to continue our mission of sharing the Library’s wonderfully rich Luso-Hispanic collections. We are thrilled to welcome 2020 and look forward to its surprises. 

In case you missed it, here are some highlights from this past year:

Jaime Conlan and Sam Awad, an intern and Librarian in Residence, shared accounts of their work in the “Library of Congress, 4 Corners of the World” blog. We are grateful to learn with these budding professionals. 

We inaugurated a new series of events in our Reading Room’s vestibule to connect the public with distinctive collections and services against the backdrop of the impressive Portinari Murals. With nearly 30 partners, we welcomed 765 participants to combined collections displays, presentations or readings, and maker workshops.  Some highlights included a reading with Portuguese award-winning poet Ana Luisa Amaral; an homage to the late Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik; a Wikipedia edit-a-thon and a workshop with Chicano muralist Mario Torero.

We continue to create more online accessibility to recordings from the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape and to recent acquisitions on and from Latin America through the Handbook of Latin American Studies, with volume 73 published and 74 on the way.

In 2019, the Hispanic Division also celebrated the impressive career and retirement of Juan Manuel Peréz (July), while welcoming Liliana Lopez (September) Dani Thurber (January).

We look forward to expanding our efforts and continue connecting users, creators, and learners with our treasures and resources. Please let us know if there is something you would like to see us prioritize in 2020 and stay tuned!

Many of our effort are possible thanks to generous support of the Huntington Endowment, for which we remain grateful, now 80 years after the establishment of the Hispanic Reading Room.

Schwab, Klaus, 1938- author

Callow, Jon, 1964- author

Hayden Library - QA641.H475313 2018

Online Resource

Hayden Library - QA76.9.U83 P37 2018

Hayden Library - QA8.4.H45 2019

Celebrate Morehead's anniversary weekend with a special gift: See a planetarium show for $1.

Clikeman, Paul M., 1960- author

Puri, aged 66, died at his residence on Friday after a massive heart attack

Hayden Library - QL761.P744 2017

Hayden Library - QP376.B87217 2018

Hayden Library - QP355.2.A65 2018

Barker Library - QP451.J66 2018

Hayden Library - QP398.M58 2018

Dewey Library - PR6045.O72 Z6439 2019

Flint Ashery, Shlomit, author

Eberhardt, Jennifer L. (Jennifer Lynn), author

A select list of stories to read before you start your day

Hayden Library - PT401.S342 2017

Talking kids' science books with Maria Sosa; predicting happiness in marriage with James McNulty; investigating questionable scholarly publishing practices in China with Mara Hvistendahl.

Sean Wojcik discusses the relationship between happiness and political ideology. Emily Conover discusses daily news stories. Hosted by Susanne Bard. [Img: Erik Hersman/flickr/CC BY 2.0]

This week, we chat about the science behind breaking the 2-hour marathon barrier, storing data in DNA strands, and a dinosaur’s zigzagging backbones with Online News Editor Catherine Matacic. And Carolina Levis joins Alexa Billow to discuss evidence that humans have been domesticating the Amazon’s plants a lot longer than previously thought.   Read Carolina Levis’s research in Science.     Listen to previous podcasts.   [Image: Carolina Levis; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

This week we have stories on the new capabilities of science balloons, connections between deforestation and drug trafficking in Central America, and new insights into the role ancient Egypt had in taming cats with Online News Editor David Grimm. Sarah Crespi talks to Mary Caswell Stoddard about why bird eggs come in so many shapes and sizes. Listen to previous podcasts. [Image:; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

David Grimm—online news editor for Science—talks with Sarah Crespi about two underwater finds: the first sharks shown to survive off of seagrass and what fossilized barnacles reveal about ancient whale migrations. Sarah also interviews Staff Writer Adrian Cho about what happens after quantum computing achieves quantum supremacy—the threshold where a quantum computer’s abilities outstrip nonquantum machines. Just how useful will these machines be and what kinds of scientific problems might they tackle? Listen to previous podcasts.  [Image: Aleria Jensen, NOAA/NMFS/AKFSC; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Would happy lab animals—rats, mice, even zebrafish—make for better experiments? David Grimm—online news editor for Science—talks with Sarah Crespi about the potential of treating lab animals more like us and making them more useful for science at the same time. Sarah also interviews Jon Abbatt of the University of Toronto in Canada about indoor chemistry. What is going on in the air inside buildings—how different is it from the outside? Researchers are bringing together the tools of outdoor chemistry and building sciences to understand what is happening in the air and on surfaces inside—where some of us spend 90% of our time. Listen to previous podcasts. [Image: Austin Thomason/Michigan Photography; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

When Indonesia’s Mount Toba blew its top some 74,000 years ago, an apocalyptic scenario ensued: Tons of ash and debris entered the atmosphere, coating the planet in ash for 2 weeks straight and sending global temperatures plummeting. Despite the worldwide destruction, humans survived. Sarah Crespi talks with Online News Editor Catherine Matacic about how life after Toba was even possible—were humans decimated, or did they rally in the face of a suddenly extra hostile planet? Next, Julia Buck of the University of California, Santa Barbara, joins Sarah to discuss her Science commentary piece on landscapes of disgust. You may have heard of a landscape of fear—how a predator can influence an ecosystem not just by eating its prey, but also by introducing fear into the system, changing the behavior of many organisms. Buck and colleagues write about how disgust can operate in a similar way: Animals protect themselves from parasites and infection by avoiding disgusting things such as dead animals of the same species or those with disease. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. [Image: Emma Forsber/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Armed with new data, archaeologists are revealing that mind-altering drugs were present at the dawn of the first complex societies some 5000 years ago in the ancient Middle East. Contributing writer Andrew Lawler joins Sarah Crespi to discuss the evidence for these drugs and how they might have impacted early societies and beliefs. Sarah also interviews Sarah Hobbie of the University of Minnesota about the fate of plants under climate change. Will all that extra carbon dioxide in the air be good for certain types of flora? A 20-year long study published this week in Science suggests theoretical predictions have been off the mark. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. [Image: Public domain Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Wild polio has been hunted to near extinction in a decades-old global eradication program. Now, a vaccine-derived outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is threatening to seriously extend the polio eradication endgame. Deputy News Editor Leslie Roberts joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the tough choices experts face in the fight against this disease in the DRC. Sarah also talks with Online News Editor David Grimm about when dogs first came to the Americas. New DNA and archaeological evidence suggest these pups did not arise from North American wolves but came over thousands of years after the first people did. Now that we know where they came from, the question is: Where did they go? Read the research. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Download a transcript of this episode (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast [Image: Polio virus/David Goodsell/RCSB PDB; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Chemists have long known how to convert carbon dioxide into fuels—but up until now, such processes have been too expensive for commercial use. Staff Writer Robert Service talks with host Sarah Crespi about using new filters and catalysts to close the gap between air-derived and fossil-derived gasoline.   Also this week, host Sarah Crespi talks with Nitish Padmanaban of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, about replacing bifocals with “autofocals.” These auto-focusing glasses track your eye position and measure the distance to the visual target before adjusting the thickness of their liquid lenses. The prototype glasses have an onboard camera and batteries that make them particularly bulky; however, they still outperformed progressive lenses in tests of focus speed and acuity. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy.   Download a transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts.   About the Science Podcast  

On this week’s show, Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt talks with host Sarah Crespi about modeling coronavirus spread and the role of forecasts in national lockdowns and other pandemic policies. They also talk about the launch of a global trial of promising treatments. See all of our News coverage of the pandemic here. See all of our Research and Editorials here. Also this week, Nadine Gogolla, research group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, talks with Sarah about linking the facial expressions of mice to their emotional states using machine learning. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast Download a transcript (PDF)

After soaring the temperature with a throwback shirtless picture, Shahid Kapoor has been winning over the internet with his latest post which is a 'quote on happiness' by Pope Francis.

Reminder!!

Please join us for our May topical webinar:

Happy Birthday Walt!: Digitized Walt Whitman Collections from the Manuscript Division

May 2019 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of poet Walt Whitman, who revolutionized the style and content of American poetry with his 1855 publication of Leaves of Grass. Whitman was also a journalist, printer, publisher, orator, and prose writer.

The Library of Congress holds the largest group of Whitman-related special collection materials in the world, including printed materials, rare books, photographs, and manuscripts. In this webinar program, Manuscript Division historian Barbara Bair highlights the content and research use of three digitized Whitman manuscript collections as well as programs celebrating Whitman’s birthday at the Library of Congress.

Date: Thursday, May 30
Time: 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm EDT
Registration (required): Please register via Eventbrite.

This program will be held in real time via webinar software, which allows participants from around the country and the world to join us. Confirmation and log-on instructions will be sent via email. Please read the Library of Congress Comment and Posting Policy.

ADA: Request ADA accommodations five days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ada@loc.gov. Registration for the program is also required.

Questions? Ask A Librarian!

International instances back higher tax liabilities for the rich at times of exigencies.

Chapman, Stephen J., author

Online Resource