Today, I had the pleasure of attending the press preview for the Library of Congress‘ new exhibit “With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition.”

First off, I was pleased to see two of my other DC blogging brothers there with me.  I look forward to see the analysis of Frank Gruber from Somewhat Frank and Tom Bridge of We Love DC.  They’re both outstanding bloggers.

During college, I was a student under RIT Professor Joseph Fornieri, a renowned Lincoln scholar, so I definitely understood the history, importance of his presidency, and how he was able to hold the union together.  What was incredible about the Library of Congress’ exhibit is that I was able to see that history sitting before me.

You walk through the hall and you get to see documents, drawings, photos, and books that tell the story of Lincoln and the time which he lived.

Right before you there’ll be things like the Bible that he was sworn into office on (Prez. Obama too), a draft of the Gettysburg Address, contents of Lincoln’s pockets when he was assassinated,  the first draft of the Emancipation proclamation,  Lincoln’s Farewell Address, his first and second Inaugural addresses and much more.

Throughout the exhibition, you’re greeted by a variety of video screens which help to provide you with the context of what you’re seeing.

Overall, I think that if you have the opportunity to see this exhibit DO IT!   It opens to the public on February 12th at 5pm.  It really is a treasure trove that you get to see and interact with in a way that you may not get to do again for a long long time.

If you don’t live in Washington, DC or you won’t be visiting, there is an online companion to this exhibition.  It looks like the first half of it is currently available with the other half coming soon.

As a history nerd, these exhibitions make me giddy.  I could have spent hours inside the room looking at all pieces but the sad part is it ends.  The exhibition is a bit like a roller coaster ride.  You leave the room and you’re like “now what?” It’d be great if the Library of Congress could find a way to extend a visit to a exhibit into a relationship between me and the institution. It’d be great if the exhibit was just the beginning, where over time they continued to feed me more and more.  I’ll write up more on this later.

So… go see this exhibit.  It’s very rad.  You won’t regret it.

Check out…

• My Flickr photos from the exhibition walkthrough
• Some Qik videos of the press conference and the walk through

In preparation for the upcoming Lincoln Bicentennial, the Library of Congress has uploaded a set of photos of President Abraham Lincoln to their Flickr account.  The photos are AWESOME.  Would recommend that you check them out.

If you live in the Washington, DC area, you should check out the brand new Lincoln exhibition, “With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition“, which opens to the public on February 12th.   They’re letting me into the press preview tomorrow, so I’m going to try and grab as many fun tid bits for you all as I can.

If you don’t live in Washington, DC, they have an online version of the exhibit.

There needed to be more of a destination for the community to gather so that the community could get to know each other and for the Library of Congress staff to get to know the community… forming relationships.

Well, the Flickr community launched a Flickr Group dedicated to discussing the photos that had been contributed to the common, which is AWESOME but it didn’t stop there.

Members of the community have recently launch Indicommons, a blog which dives even further into the photos and the institutions which posted them.

If like me, the Flickr Commons project and it’s photos has captured your imagination.  I’d definitely think that this blog is a must read.

These two are my favorites:

As my long time readers know, I acquired a love for the institution of the Library of Congress during my tenure as a contractor for their Web Services division.

I had the pleasure (and honor) of being on the team that helped kick off the Library of Congress’ foray into the world of Flickr.

Well this week the project team issued a 50 page report detailing its success, (which in and of it self is cool because typically the Library has kept these internal reports pretty close to the chest.)

Here are some deets:

• “As of October 23, 2008, there have been 10.4 million views of the photos on Flickr.
• 7,166 comments were left on 2,873 photos by 2,562 unique Flickr accounts.
• 67,176 tags were added by 2,518 unique Flickr accounts.
• More than 500 Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) records have been  enhanced with new information provided by the Flickr Community.
• Average monthly visits to all PPOC Web pages rose 20% over the five month period  of January-May 2008, compared to the same period in 2007.”

It’s so cool to see this project reach such unparalleled success.  I’m going to write more about my thoughts about it later but I just want to encourage you all to read the report.  It’s fascinating to hear about a government project that used Web 2.0 be so successful.

Here are thoughts from DCist and Thomas Hawk.

This week the Library of Congress has uploaded another batch of great photos to their Flickr account.  The one above of Capt. Von Krosigk especially caught my eye.

What else is cool is that someone has already commented that the photo might match up with a 1901 New York Times article.

This is kind of stuff that makes me REALLY excited about the Web.

This one is of guys tearing up the floor at the chamber of the House of Representatives at the US Capitol building.

This one is a great drawing of Grand Central Station in NYC.

This one is of a Greek church service for King George in NY.

I found this photo in the recent upload of Library of Congress photos to Flickr.  I thought it was pretty cool so I figured I would share it with you all.

It’s entitled “Where Wilson ‘will be’ sworn in, East Front of Capitol.”

Considering before too long we’ll be inaugurating a new president, I thought the photo was fun and appropriate.

Plus I think it also displays the little known fact that up until recently that the inauguration happened on the East side of the Capital and not the West side like we do it today.