The LOC.GOV Wise Guide : Are You a Cat Person?

The Library, with the nation's largest collection of films, is able to present film series dedicated to virtually any subject. This month, "feline flicks" are being screened in the Mary Pickford Theater in the Library's Madison Building. The series will feature familiar cartoon characters such as Krazy Kat and Sylvester. Films such as 1961's "The Shadow of the Cat" and "Gay Purr-ee," in which "Wizard of Oz" composer Harold Arlen reunites with Judy Garland in an animated musical about Mewsette, a beautiful French cat (voiced by Garland) who gets into trouble when she trades the quiet countryside for the excitement of Paris.

The Pickford Theater, which is overseen by the Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, routinely offers free evening screenings of films both familiar and little-known.

Go online for the current film schedule and information about making reservations for the 60-seat theater.

If you can't attend these viewings, there is a lot of other "cat" material elsewhere on this site. In American Memory type "cat" in the search box at the upper right of the page. You will get 67 pages of links to "cat" items - photographs, posters, prints, sheet music, sculpture. "Cat with a Pet Rat," may be one of the most unusual photographs on the Library's Web site.

A. David Alan Taylor, photographer. "Pattern for a Garfield the Cat product," 1994. American Folklife Center. This image forms part of a group of images documenting scenes at Technocraft, a pattern-making firm in Bloomfield, N.J. Reproduction information: Call No.: AFC 1995/028: WIP-DT-B001-06

B. Harry M. Rhoads, photographer. "Cat with a Pet Rat," between 1910 and 1930? Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library. Reproduction information: Reproduction No.: Rh-4487. Not in Library of Congress collections; contact Denver Public Library