Friday, April 11, 2008

Vaults of Library of Congress To Open

I like this news:

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Library of Congress will open its vaults to the History Channel in a deal to bring the library's vast public collections to a larger audience.

The History Channel and its numerous sister channels will draw from the historical content preserved by the Library of Congress for original specials and documentaries. An official announcement of the partnership is to be announced Monday.

Billington said there are over 138 million items in the library's collections, meaning plenty of fodder for historical stories previously untold. Such items include a Gutenberg Bible, George Washington's copy of the Constitution, the first United States map and the contents in Abraham Lincoln's pockets the night he was assassinated.

In contrast to an exclusive deal made in 2006 between the Smithsonian Institution and CBS's Inc.'s Showtime Networks, the History deal is non-exclusive, meaning all items will still be publicly available.



Ideally items like this should be scanned and digitalized for downloading from the Library of Congress website, too.

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