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ABOUT THIS SITE

This Wise Guide portal was designed to introduce you to the many fascinating, educational and useful resources available from the nation's library and one of the most popular Web sites of the federal government.

The "Wise Guide" will be refreshed monthly, much like a magazine, offering links to the best of the Library's online materials. Each of these "articles" is based on items contained in a collection, database, reading room or other area of the Library's online offerings. You will see that we are "more than a library," and our holdings range from prints, photographs, films, audio recordings, maps, manuscripts, music and digital materials to (of course) books. We are also a place that sponsors concerts, lectures, dance performances, film screenings, and poetry readings. We hope the Guide's monthly "articles" will encourage you to explore the millions of items we make available at www.loc.gov.

The "Wise Guide" to loc.gov is a project of the National Digital Library (NDL) Program and the Public Affairs Office of the Library of Congress and was designed by the Web development firm 415 Inc. of San Francisco. The NDL Program makes more than 7.5 million items from the Library and other repositories freely available at its flagship American Memory collections Web site.

The "Wise Guide" marks the second time that the Library of Congress has partnered with the Ad Council to create a public service advertising campaign. This new campaign - "History: America's Great National Pastime," was created through the Ad Council, with creative services donated by DDB Chicago. The other public service advertising campaign is for the America's Library Web site (www.americaslibrary.gov).

Soon you may see or hear the advertisements for this Guide. In the coming editions of the "Wise Guide", you will be able to view and hear the ads as well as read the "articles" that the ads are based on.

The Ad Council is a private, nonprofit organization with a 60-year history of marshaling volunteer talent from the advertising and media industries to deliver critical messages to the American public. The Ad Council has produced thousands of public service campaigns that address the most pressing social issues of the day. Ad Council icons and slogans are woven into the very fabric of American culture - from Smokey Bear's "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires," McGruff the Crime Dog's "Take a Bite Out of Crime" and the United Negro College Fund's "A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste" to "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk." Last year, the Ad Council received more than $1.58 billion in donated advertising time and space from the media. To learn more about the Ad Council and its campaigns, visit its Web site at www.adcouncil.org.

DDB Chicago is the largest of the DDB agencies worldwide. The agency works for a strong roster of blue-chip clients such as Anheuser-Busch, Tyson Foods, FTD, McDonald's, J.C. Penny, Dell, State Farm and The Home Depot.

415 Inc. (www.415.com) - which also designed the Library of Congress's America's Library site - is an interactive design firm headquartered in San Francisco. 415's proven expertise in visual and user interface design produces measurable results. From Fortune 500 enterprises to internationally recognized cultural institutions, 415's clients include 3Com, Credit Suisse, Intel, KQED, Levi Strauss & Company, McGraw-Hill, Macromedia, Providian Financial, Robert Mondavi Wineries, the San Francisco Symphony and the Seattle Symphony.