What’s New Online at the Library of Congress: March 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.

The over 17,000 books that make up the U.S. Local History Collection represent communities across the nation. Publications include biographical sketches of local residents, chronologies of city or county establishment and evolution, a variety of records (for business, cemeteries, churches, schools, military units, political activities, social organizations), and narratives of lived experiences that provide important context and perspective.

Stay tuned as we release more items as they are digitized or released into the public domain.

Community Collections Grants from the American Folklife Center supported contemporary cultural field research from 2022-2024. Read more about the program on loc.gov.

Neah Bay’s Path to Wellness

Neah Bay’s Path to Wellness documents educational workshops and reflections by teachers and elders of the Makah Indian tribe which promote and sustain spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental well-being for the community of Neah Bay, in Clallam County, Washington. Funding was provided by a 2023 Community Collections Grant from the Mellon Foundation, administered by the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.

The collection consists of seventeen digital video files and accompanying transcripts. Several videos document subsistence activities such as foraging for edible plants, like cranberries, gathering and preparing stinging nettles to make pesto, and preparing and steaming salmonberries (see image above, bottom left).

Trinidad and Tobago J’ouvert In Brooklyn

Trinidad and Tobago J’ouvert In Brooklyn documents the celebration of J’ouvert by the Trinidadian community of Brooklyn, New York. The annual celebration, which takes place during Labor Day Carnival weekend, brings tens of thousands of Caribbean and non-Caribbean participants to the streets of Brooklyn to celebrate the music, dance, food, and traditions that define and enrich Trinidadian culture. Undertaken through the Library of Congress’s Of the People: Widening the Path! Initiative, the resulting collection features videotaped oral histories documenting the history and practice of this historic yet continually evolving celebration.

These in-depth video interviews with 21 key leaders, organizers, exponents and performers of the J’ouvert community recount the history and development of the celebration that today involves hundreds of artists, musicians, choreographers, costumers, and creatives year-round in developing and maintaining J’ouvert and Trinidadian culture in the United States.

Specialty Coffee Farmers in Puerto Rico

Specialty Coffee Farmers in Puerto Rico documents the traditions of coffee growing and production in the mountains of central Puerto Rico, mainly through interview videos and photographs representing the perspective of coffee farmers and specialists.

The collection consists of over two dozen interviews, thousands of photographs, and hours of footage featuring well-known haciendas and farmland of Ciales, Yauco, Guayanilla, Adjuntas, Jayuya, Maricao, Lares, and Utuado. The collection highlights how coffee sustains families and fuels the island and brings to light the challenges of farming alongside moments of triumph, revealing how Puerto Rico’s coffee farmers preserve tradition while adapting for the future.

A few collections updates

In addition to our brand new collections above, we also have a few collection updates to share. Over 280 United States Reports (Official opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court) from 2013-2025 are now available. This collection will continue to grow as the Supreme Court digitizes more volumes.

And do you remember learning about “MMC-Alpha” back in May 2025? We’ve just released 77 new, individually cataloged collections into the larger Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection – bringing us all the way up to the letter “C.” Each individual collection is no larger than a single folder and many consist of just one or two items. Follow this dedicated link to the view the 77 new items.

Two new Abraham Lincoln datasets – and more!

The Library of Congress now has two searchable, full-text transcription datasets for the Manuscript Division’s Abraham Lincoln papers – one from the Library’s By the People program and one from a collaboration with the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College:

Transcription dataset from the Abraham Lincoln Papers, Manuscript Division by By the People

Transcription dataset from the Abraham Lincoln Papers, Manuscript Division by Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College

All transcriptions are available for download in a single file and we encourage you to read the readme and then experiment with them! Check out this blog post from our colleague, Madeline Goebel, to learn more about how to use transcription datasets: A New Resource to Explore Library of Congress Transcription Datasets.

And the Library’s Geography & Map Division published six openly available geospatial datasets, including Shipping activity and Large scale international boundaries. Check out their 2025 Mapping the Ocean StoryMap to see how datasets can be used for mapping.

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 comic books such as Detective Comics No. 1 and Batman No. 1. Other highlights include re-released NBC Press Releases, NBC Radio Master Books, and over 100 issues from the Japanese magazine Bungei Shunju.

Some selected new titles include: Global journalism: understanding world media systems, Advertising account planning: new strategies in the digital landscape, Media literacy in action: questioning the media, Exploring political ecology: issues, problems, and solutions to the climate change crisis.

And other seasonal additions to Stacks include Women in the Olympics, Let’s throw a St. Patrick’s Day party!, Paper crafts for St. Patrick’s Day, Walking Washington, D.C.: 30 treks to the newly revitalized capital’s cultural icons, natural spectacles, urban treasures, and hidden gems, and Spring flowers.

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:

Geographic and Cartographic Professional Societies and Organizations Web Archive

United States Indigenous Government Websites Web Archive

You can read more about the United States Indigenous Government Websites Web Archive in this recent interview on the Signal blog with Giselle Aviles and Maggie Jones – Preserving U.S. Indigenous Government Websites: From Directory to Digital Archive.

Special feature: ArchivesSpace

As part of a generational effort to enhance access for users, the Library has launched a new tool to discover and manage its unique special collections materials: ArchivesSpace.

ArchivesSpace supports a range of functions throughout the life cycle of archival collections. Within the framework of the Library Collections Access Platform (LCAP), which is a group of systems that form the heart of the Library’s collections discovery, description and management operations, ArchivesSpace replaces legacy technology with an open-source tool that offers flexibility and customization for Library needs. On Feb. 2, the Library completed the first phase of the project, unveiling a new public user interface with improved searchability for finding aids for archives, manuscripts and associated digital objects.

When researchers visit findingaids.loc.gov, they interact with a modern interface that aligns with the look and feel of the Library’s website. Users are able to browse by reading room, collections, subjects and names, and the new platform will support additional functions such as advanced search and filtering, as well as easy browsing of digital materials.

Learn more about finding aids in our guide as well as by exploring the site: findingaids.loc.gov