Public Affairs Office
101 Independence Ave. SE
Washington DC 20540-1610
tel (202) 707-2905
fax (202) 707-9199
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March 18, 1999
Contact: Guy Lamolinara (202) 707-9217
New On-Line Materials Debut from the Library of Congress
Items Range from Papers of Alexander Graham Bell and Three
Centuries of Printed Ephemera to Hispano Music and Culture, and
Photographs from the South Texas Border
The National Digital Library (NDL) Program has
recently added new multimedia materials from the
incomparable collections of the Library of
Congress to its American Memory Web site
(http://memory.loc.gov).
More than 40 electronic collections are now
available in a public-private partnership that
augments the $15 million in public funding
dedicated to the NDL Program. The goal of the
NDL Program is to have millions of items from
the Library and other repositories on-line by
the year 2000, the Bicentennial of the Library
of Congress
(http://www.loc.gov/bicentennial).
The new materials are:
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The Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers. The
first release of the Bell Family Papers contains
1,400 items consisting of correspondence,
scientific notebooks, journals, blueprints,
articles and photographs documenting Bell's
invention of the telephone and his involvement
in the first telephone company, his family life,
his interest in the education of the deaf and
his aeronautical and other scientific research.
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An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of
Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera. The
Library's Printed Ephemera Collection is a rich
repository of Americana. It comprises 28,000
primary source items dating from the 17th
century to the present and encompasses key
events and eras in American history. This
preview of the digitized Printed Ephemera
Collection presents 50 items that capture the
experience of the American Revolution, slavery,
the Western land rush, the Civil War, women's
suffrage and the Industrial Revolution from the
viewpoint of those who lived through those
events. A full release of this collection is
planned for later this year.
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The South Texas Border 1900-1920: Photographs
from the Robert Runyon Collection. This
collection is a unique visual resource
documenting the Lower Rio Grande Valley during
the early 1900s. Runyon's photographs document
the history and development of South Texas and
the border, including the Mexican Revolution,
the U.S. military presence at Fort Brown and
along the border prior to and during World War
I, and the growth and development of the Rio
Grande Valley.
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Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio
Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection. This is an
on-line presentation of a multiformat
ethnographic field collection documenting
religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking
residents of rural Northern New Mexico and
Southern Colorado. In 1940, Juan Bautista Rael
of Stanford University, a native of Arroyo
Hondo, N.M., used disc recording equipment
supplied by the Archive of American Folk Song
(now the Archive of Folk Culture, American
Folklife Center) to document alabados (hymns),
folk drama, wedding songs and dance tunes. The
collection also includes manuscript materials
and publications by Rael that provide insight
into the rich musical heritage and cultural
traditions of this region.
The National Digital Library Program, which
receives 75 percent of its funding from private
sources, will celebrate exceeding its fund-
raising goal during an evening reception on
April 13 in the Great Hall of the recently
restored Thomas Jefferson Building. Press
interested in covering this event should call
for further details.
# # #
PR 99-038
3/18/99
ISSN 0731-3527
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