What’s New Online at the Library of Congress: January 2026
Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress digital collections? The Signal shares regular updates to our digital collections and we love showing off our colleagues’ hard work from across the Library. Read on for a sample of recent additions and a few favorite highlights. Click here for all previous updates.
Spanning the years 1870-1954, the papers of educator and jurist, Robert Heberton Terrell (1857-1925), are now available on loc.gov. The collection contains correspondence, speeches and writings, clippings, printed matter, and other miscellaneous items.
As a Republican and a judicial appointee of four American presidents, including Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Terrell was one among a select group of African Americans nominated for government office in the period of reaction following Reconstruction.
Based on the 2022 American Folklife Center Community Collections Grant project, “Sofrito Conversations: Bridging the North and West of Chicago,” this collection documents contemporary food cultures and traditions on the West side of Chicago. The project was led by Chicago-based artist, curator, and arts administrator, Jorge Félix.
This rare collection of finely illustrated “Painted” Tai manuscripts, now on loc.gov, is written in variety of languages and scripts (Thai, Lao, Kham Mư̄ang [Northern Thai], Shan, Tai Khoēn and Pāli) and represents over 200 years of history.
Highlights include major Tai Buddhist literary traditions, astrological and medical manuscripts, popular funeral texts with scenes of Buddhist heavens and hells, as well as famous Buddhist stories of the previous lives (Jātaka) of the Buddha before enlightenment, good and bad luck cat texts, and protective diagrams. These illustrated manuscripts uniquely preserve the visual art of earlier periods not preserved elsewhere.
A few collections updates
In addition to our brand new collections above, we also have a few collection updates to share. Nearly 1,700 new Foreign Legal Gazettes are now available from Chad and Aruba, and 50 new recordings were added to the PALABRA Archive.
Included in this exciting PALABRA release is Peruvian American author, Marie Arana, reading from her work. In this recording session from June 2025, Arana reads excerpts from her books “Latinoland,” “Silver, Sword, and Stone,” “Bolivar: American Liberator,” “Celophane: A Novel,” and “American Chica.” You can read more on this 4 Corners of the World blog post from PALABRA Curator, Catalina Gómez: New PALABRA Archive Recordings Released for Digital Streaming.
And do you remember learning about “MMC-Alpha” back in May? We’ve just released 200 new, individually cataloged collections into the larger Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection – bringing us all the way up to the letter “B.” Each individual collection is no larger than a single folder and many consist of just one or two items. Let us know what catches your eye!
75,000 volunteer transcriptions and a dataset
In our last edition, we shared that the By the People crowdsourced transcription program returned a new batch of 18th- and 19th-century title pages from the Early Copyright Records Collection transcriptions back to their digital collections on loc.gov. These transcriptions from the latest addition to the Early Copyright Title Pages campaign are now available as a brand new, full-text dataset. Click below to access the catalog record and files:
American Creativity: Early Copyright Title Pages (record and dataset)
We’re also excited to announce that nearly 75,000 volunteer transcriptions from the following campaigns are now fully integrated back with their original digital collections on loc.gov, improving search and discovery for all:
Civil War Justice: The Correspondence of Joseph Holt, Judge Advocate General
African American Perspectives in Print
Rough Rider to Bull Moose: Letters to Theodore Roosevelt
Women’s Suffrage in Sheet Music
Want to learn more about By the People and how to get involved for yourself? Watch our latest video below or on YouTube, and read the latest from community manager, Lauren Algee, about our transcription projects commemorating America’s Semiquincentennial in 2026: Putting the American Revolution in Context Through Transcription.
Historical Washington, D.C. newspapers now available
Chronicling America is regularly updated with newspapers from contributors to the National Digital Newspaper Program. Digitized newspapers are delivered in the form of batches, where each batch can contain one to many issues, from one or more newspaper titles. Recently loaded batches can be discovered in the Chronicling America Research Guide.
One of the latest additions from the Library’s collections is the Daily National Intelligencer from Washington, D.C., spanning 1813-1870. This title, along with its previously-digitized preceding title, the National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser (1800-1810), provide near-complete historical coverage, from the founding of our nation’s capital city through the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Additional titles added to Chronicling America from state partners include:
The Arkansas State Democrat, and Helena Commercial Advertiser (1840-1841), Helena, AR
Brooksville Sun (1932-1959), Brooksville, FL
The Chitina Leader (1910-1921), Chitina, AK
The Colored Tribune & Savannah Tribune (1875-1943), Savannah, GA
East St. Louis Daily Journal (1918-1926), East St. Louis, IL
Fairport Beacon (1935-1953) Fairport Harbor, OH
The Fremont Clipper (1887-1896), Lander, WY
The Patowmac Guardian, and Berkeley Advertiser, (1790-1797), Sheperdstown, WV
Pinedale Roundup (1904-1929), Pinedale, WY
San Antonio Light & Antonio Light and Gazette (1909-1935), San Antonio, TX
The Siftings Herald (1908-1928), Arkadelphia, AR
Trainman News (1949-1955) Cleveland, OH and Indianapolis, IN
Union County Times (1934-1963), Lake Butler, FL
The Watchman (1836) Hartford, CT
Weekly Courier-Journal (1872-1908), Louisville, KY
New onsite digital content via Stacks
New items are added every week into stacks.loc.gov – the Library’s primary onsite platform for accessing restricted digital content. To learn more about Stacks, check out this video from our team: Access the Digital Stacks On-Site at the Library of Congress !
Recent highlights from Stacks include select comic books, like Avengers No. 1, X-Men No. 1, and Amazing Spiderman No. 1. Other highlights include the Candacy Taylor Collection, additional volumes for the NBC Television Master books collection, and over 400 issues from the Nigerian-English newspaper, This Day.
Some selected new titles include The untold story of Bridget Mason: a freedwoman becomes an entrepreneur, The moon’s impact on our Earth, What you never knew about LeBron James, and Lions vs. zebras: food chain fights. And some seasonal additions to Stacks include I want snow!, Cozy Christmas comforts: tried & true recipes to make your holidays special!, and The snowflake mistake.
Please reach out to a librarian via ask.loc.gov with questions about accessing these materials using Stacks.
Updates from the Library’s web archives
We’re excited to announce the release of two brand new web archives on loc.gov:
Art and Design Web Archive
Southeast Asia Defense and Military Web Archive
And two existing web archives have been updated or enhanced with additional contextual information: the Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) Web Archive and the Science Blogs Web Archive. You can read more about the Science Blogs Web archive in this interview on the Signal blog from JJ Harbster – Where Science Meets Storytelling: Twelve Years of the Science Blogs Web Archive.
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