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The Library of Congress now has its own channel on YouTube!

Timeless treasures and contemporary presentations from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. As the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, we are the steward of millions of recordings dating from the earliest Edison films to the present.

This is a wonderful resource that is now so easy to access!

There are videos of talks by well-known authors at the 2008 National Book Festival, such as this one of Jon Scieszka:

There are also fascinating clips of early film from the Edison and Westinghouse laboratories:

And the Journeys and Crossings playlist, which “[brings] to life some of the Library’s most exciting and historically significant materials through the personal insights of the staff who know them best.”

Have fun sifting through all of these fabulous treasures!

Stephen’s Lighthouse featured an article from globeandmail.com describing recent research that shows people who read fiction have better social skills.

At the Blue Skunk Blog, Doug Johnson explored the issue further with his post about building the capacity for empathy.

The AASL blog reports back on the Library of Congress Primary Sources workshop that was held a couple of weeks ago at NECC. The post includes links to handouts and other great resources.

The YALSA blog invites us to complete the free registration for Teen Read Week 2009 to get incentives and win prizes.

YALSA also provides a link to mp3s of the speeches given by Geraldine McCaughrean and other Printz award winners at ALA’s annual conference in June.