By Popular Demand:

High-Demand Images from the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress

Library patrons and staff often select pictorial materials from the Prints and Photographs Division for reproduction in books, exhibits, lectures, television documentaries, decorative calendars, research papers, and many other kinds of projects. Researchers arrange with the Library's Photoduplication Service to produce copies of selected items. Typically ordered are 8x10-inch prints or 4x5-inch color transparencies. In order to make the prints, the Photoduplication Service must create a copy negative, if none exists. Afterwards, those negatives and color transparencies are added to a file of high-demand images maintained by the Prints and Photographs Division.

By 1996, this file had grown to approximately 120,000 negatives and transparencies and serves as a ready reference source for many of the Library's most popular pictures. The high-demand image file complements the division's heavily used collections of original negatives, including its Selected Civil War Photographs , Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection (forthcoming), and Historic American Buildings Survey and Historic American Engineering Record collections .

Over time, the Library plans to place a significant percentage of the high-demand file online under the series title "By Popular Demand." The first group of images will consist of items which appear in staff-selected illustrated reference aids. Likely candidates will be guides relating to immigration at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The entire high-demand file covers a broad range of international subjects and popular American topics such as eyewitness drawings of the Civil War, photographs of Native Americans, historical prints by Currier & Ives, political cartoons, and portraits of prominent figures in many fields.

Presidential Portraits | American Memory | Future Collections

Return to Presidential Portraits | "Votes for Women"

am Aug-26-97