June 3, 1998
Contact:
Press Contact: Craig D'Ooge (202) 707-9189
Jefferson Building to Become Literary Landmark
In a ceremony on Neptune Plaza in front of the
Library's Jefferson Building on Friday, June 26, the Friends
of Libraries U.S.A. (FOLUSA) and the Center for the Book
will designate the Thomas Jefferson Building as one of
America's "literary landmarks." A program of readings at
10:30 a.m. will precede the ceremony, which will take place
at 11 a.m. The program is free and open to the public.
The Jefferson Building is located on First Street S.E.,
between East Capitol Street and Independence Avenue.
The Jefferson Building will join more than two dozen
other buildings or sites that have been designated as
literary landmarks by FOLUSA. The first site, designated in
1987 in partnership with the Florida Center for the Book,
was Boat Slip F18 at the Bahia Mar resort in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., the home of author Travis McGee's
fictional boat Busted Flush.
"When it opened in 1897, the press often referred to
the Jefferson Building as a 'Temple' of literature and the
arts," said Center for the Book Director John Y. Cole, who
also is the co-editor of the recently published book The
Library of Congress: The Art and Architecture of the Thomas
Jefferson Building (W.W. Norton, 1997). "It is filled with
names of authors, quotations from literary works, and murals
and statues that evoke Western civilization's rich literary
heritage. Shakespeare is the best represented author in the
building's iconography, but Tennyson, Milton, Alexander
Pope, Emerson, Dante, Sir Walter Scott, Longfellow, Benjamin
Franklin, and James Russell Lowell are also well
represented."
For information about the literary landmarks project
and FOLUSA, a national organization that helps develop and
support local Friends of Libraries groups, visit its site on
the World Wide Web at: http://www.folusa.com.
The Center for the Book was established in 1977 to
stimulate public interest in books, reading, and libraries.
For information about its activities, visit its site on the
World Wide Web at: http://www.loc.gov/loc/cfbook/.
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PR 98-091
6/03/98
ISSN 0731-3527