What’s New Online at the Library of Congress: May 2025
Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress’s digital collections? The Signal shares updates on new additions to our digital collections and we love showing off all the hard work of our colleagues from across the Library. Read on for a sample of what’s been added recently and some of our favorite highlights. Click here for all previous updates.
Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection
The Manuscript Division’s Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection (called MMC-Alpha by those in the know!) is a group of approximately 5,800 small, individually cataloged collections. Most dating from the mid-17th century to the mid-20th century, they touch on a wide miscellaneous range of topics in American history.
The content of the MMC-Alpha holdings reflects the changing collecting practices of the Manuscript Division over the last 125 years and includes a broad mix of both famous and less-celebrated individuals. The first 148 collections (arranged alphabetically by name) were just released online. Each individual collection is no larger than a single folder and many consist of just one or two items.
Additional folders are scanned and added to this online collection every month. Soon, you will find items that begin with letters other than “A” and “B” in this collection. Stay tuned for the next round of additions!
Benjamin Luft Collection of 9-11 Oral Histories
The Benjamin Luft Collection of 9-11 Oral Histories consists of video interviews, photographs, and other documents from individuals impacted by the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center disaster. The collection is mostly first-person narratives told by World Trade Center site disaster workers, including police officers, firefighters, construction workers, demolition specialists, ironworkers, veterinarians, paramedics, and other volunteers at the site.
The interviews were conducted between April 2010 and September 2020, with this initial release consisting of 42 edited vignettes. More will be added on a rolling basis and please contact the American Folklife Center with additional questions.
Lao Special Guerrilla Unit and Royal Lao Army Veteran Interviews
This collection includes eight video and audio interviews of Lao Special Guerrilla Unit/Royal Lao Army and others recalling their experiences during the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War).
The Vietnam War was not only fought in Vietnam, but also spilled over into neighboring Laos and Cambodia. These veterans served in various roles as military region generals, Forward Air Guides, liaison officers with US CIA and other officials, nurses, infantry soldiers involved in large unit actions and those on “Road Watch” teams along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
They also discuss training, life before enlisting, as well as life in America as refugees after 1975. This collection allows you to hear directly from participants of this little-known story of the Vietnam War.
A few collections updates
In addition to our brand new collections above, we also have a few collection updates to share. Nearly 6,000 Foreign Legal Gazettes are now available from Honduras and Nicaragua. And the PALABRA Archive at the Library of Congress includes 50 new recordings in honor of National Poetry Month in April, which you can read more about here.
There are also over 460 new recordings from the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, spanning the years 1938 to 2005. Additionally, the Historical Media Publications collection now has 375+ new issues across 11 publications. Some highlights from that collection include a number of radio-related publications – Radio varieties, Radio review, Radio revue for the listener, Radio dial, and Radio Digest.
And if you’re interested in datasets of indexes, you’re in luck: the Library just published four new index datasets related to newspapers from John Gordon Burke Publisher, Inc. These titles can also be found in the Selected Datasets collection on loc.gov: Dataset from Index to the sporting news, The Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations, Dataset from Cook’s Index, and Access: The Supplementary Index to Periodicals.
More Early Copyright Title Pages transcriptions & datasets
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. Transcriptions from the latest addition to the Early Copyright Title Pages campaign offer a glimpse into early American print culture and come from books, sheet music, maps, advertising labels, and more!
There are also brand new, full-text datasets for several past transcription campaigns on loc.gov:
“Such Eventful Times”: Women and the American Civil War (updated version)
Chicago 1977: People, Places, and Cultures
Journey Across Mexico: Benajah Jay Antrim Journals and Sketchbooks
And want to learn more about the By the People crowdsourced transcription program? Watch our latest video below or on YouTube, and read the latest from community manager, Lauren Algee, about how volunteers leverage OCR to transcribe digital collections.
Chronicling America program update
The Library of Congress will be completing the Chronicling America migration this summer! On August 4, 2025, we will automatically send all users from the legacy Chronicling America site to the new collection on loc.gov. If at any point we are not successful, we will undo the URL redirects. After August 4, the URL chroniclingamerica.loc.gov will continue to be the home of the Chronicling America collection and will permanently redirect people to the new site.
We encourage you to begin using the new site and please use the resources below to assist you. Other questions or issues? Please email Ask-A-Librarian.
Federalist Papers now in Chronicling America
The Library of Congress regularly receives digitized 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 on the Chronicling America Research Guide.
One of the exciting additions from the Library’s collections are titles from New York: Daily Advertiser; Political, Historical, and Commercial (1787), Daily Advertiser (1787), Independent Journal, or the General Advertiser (1787-1788), New-York Journal, and Weekly Register (1787), New-York Journal, and Daily Patriotic Register (1787-1788), New-York Journal, and Weekly Register (1788), and New-York Packet (1787-1788). These newspapers printed the Federalist Papers, a collection of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, under the pseudonym “Publius,” lobbying for the adoption of the Constitution over the Articles of the Confederation.
While we do not have every Federalist Papers issue, we have digitized the issues for the two years when the Papers were printed. In the issues surrounding the Papers, you can find anti-federalist essays published under pseudonyms like “Brutus” and “Centinel” as well as commentary about both sets of essays. Revolutionary era history comes alive in these newspapers.
Other recent additions to Chronicling America include:
Atlanta, GA, 1932-1963. The Daily World and its predecessor the Atlanta World (1931-1932) served the African American community of Atlanta during the early and mid-20th century.
The Daily Cincinnati Republican, and Commercial Register
Cincinnati, OH, 1823-1837. This newspaper and its preceding title were established as a political newspaper in support of Andrew Jackson and slavery.
Lexington, KY, 1789-1803. Editor John Bradford began printing the Gazette three years before Kentucky became a state.
Yellville, AR, 1894-1929. This newspaper served the rural agriculture and mining community of a few hundred people in north-central Arkansas.
Newport, RI, 1944-1963. This newspaper served the Naval community and military base beginning in World War II.
New Britain, CT, 1908-1920. Polish Catholic immigrants near Hartford, CT published community news.
Warren, RI, 1813-1817. This newspaper begins by documenting the War of 1812 between the United States and British.
Toledo, OH, 1942-1963. The Journal served 26,500 Local 12 members of the United Auto Workers-Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO).
Little Rock, AR, 1864-1866. This short-lived title covered pro-Union news during the Civil War. The first issue in Chronicling America prints the Arkansas state constitution.
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.
Recent highlights from Stacks include newly added material from the AIDS Memorial Quilt Collection from the American Folklife Center, new poetry recordings from the St. Marks Poetry Collection from the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room, and new issues from mid Russian/Korean newspaper title, Lenin ŭi kich’i from the Asian Reading Room.
Some selected new titles include: The speedy spidersaurus, Snack time food art, Misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda in Greek historiography, Mathematics of tabletop games.
And some seasonal additions to Stacks include: Spring flowers, The NBA playoffs: in pursuit of basketball glory, Celebrating mothers, Flowers: from seeds to bloom, The Stanley Cup playoffs : the quest for hockey’s biggest prize
Please reach out to a librarian at ask.loc.gov with questions about accessing these materials using Stacks.
Industry Associations web archive now available
The Industry Associations Web Archive is a collection of select websites from industry associations, containing original content such as reports, statistics, and information on industry trends and advocacy work. This collection documents how industries have evolved and responded to national and international events. Read this interview with collection leader, Natalie Burclaff, on the Library’s Signal blog to learn more.
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