The United States Library of Congress, the institution for which Alan and John Lomax famously recorded Muddy Waters, Leadbelly, and thousands of other folks singers, has selected AmericanBluesScene.com for inclusion into the historic collection of Internet materials related to the Performing Arts Archive, stating that, “we consider your website to be an important part of this collection and the historical record.”
“We’re humbled and honored to be any part of the Library of Congress,” says Editor Matt Marshall. “In our lexicon, research and documentation has been one of the absolute most important pillars of the blues, helping us understand where this music came from, who the men that made it were, and how they lived.”
“We’re honored,” he continued, “that the quality of our publication is up to the standard of one of greatest libraries in history.”
The Library of Congress preserves the Nation’s cultural artifacts and provides enduring access to them. The Library’s traditional functions, acquiring, cataloging, preserving and serving collection materials of historical importance to the Congress and the American people to foster education and scholarship, extend to digital materials, including websites.
The Library is now arguably the largest and most international library in the world, and the second largest library in the world by items categorized. Promoting literacy and American literature, one of it’s most powerful projects include archiving folklore and folk music, including thousands of blues tracks, at the American Folklife Center.
