Library Of Congress Online Application: Fill & Download for Free

The Library is staffed with professionals who build, preserve, and make our incredible collections available to the public. If you want to use the Library of Congress, here are some places you can start your journey:If you are looking for something about a specific topic or era, check out our research guides: Research Guides (Research Guides). They cover everything from a list of resources on Halloween and Día de Muertos to a beginner’s guide to small claims court. If you want to cast a broad net, search our catalog online here: LC Catalog (LC Catalog), it contains records for everything in the Library’s collections.If you find something intriguing, want to know more, or would like help navigating our collections, use our Ask a Librarian service to connect with the Library’s subject specialists: https://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib (https://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib)Here’s a curated set of collection items that are free to use and reuse: Free to Use and Reuse Sets | Library of Congress (Free to Use and Reuse Sets | Library of Congress )Volunteer with us! You can volunteer online at By the People or in person — see more at Volunteer Opportunities.If you want a broad overview of what the Library acquires, take a look at our collection policies, Collections Policy Statements and Overviews (Collections Policy Statements and Overviews)A subset of our collections items are available online for you to search, browse, view, and download. Find them here: Search results from Digital Collections (Search results from Digital Collections)If you’re interested in using our collections to build an app, to do some computational analysis, or for a machine learning project, check out this LC for Robots page: LC for Robots | Welcome to Labs! | Library of Congress (LC for Robots | Welcome to Labs! | Library of Congress ). It lists all of our Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and collections available for bulk download. It also includes guides on using our JSON API which provides computational access to our digital collections About the Home | Library of Congress JSON API (About the loc.gov JSON API)You can also come to the Library in Washington, DC to tour our inspiring buildings (Visiting the Library | Library of Congress ), see special exhibits (Library of Congress), and use our collections (https://www.loc.gov/rr/gettingstarted.html) in our various reading rooms (https://www.loc.gov/rr/hours.html).

You are the author. When you use the copyright symbol, put the year of creation, and your name. Sign it. You are the copyright owner. It is your responsibility to copyright it. To make it official, get an application from the library of Congress. Fill it out along with a small fee I believe . Make copies of the book, mail it to the address of the library of Congress along with the fee, and application. You should receive your official copy from them in a few days.

That’s not how it works. Braille isn’t a language unto itself. It’s a codification of a written language into tactile dots. Therefore, all one has to do to get a braille book is convert the printed word using a system of rules into tactile dots. There are transcription services (not translation services) for that. The author has no need or reason to create their own Braille version (and would probably screw it up).With the advent of electronic documents, this process has never been easier. Now software programs can convert the electronic version of the book into Braille instead of a live person … as long as that electronic version is accessible. Formatting and accessibility of the program itself remain major issues with most electronic books.So what did a deafblind book lover such as myself do? I found three ways to access books via braille. These methods vary in convenience and quality.Library of CongressLibrary of Congress hosts a National Library Service for the Blind, which is a consortium of libraries specializing in Braille and audio books for the blind. Once a blind person’s application—which includes medical certification of their low vision status—they can receive the said braille book or audiotape via mail. They also have an electronic database of digital books that are accessible via a refreshable braille reader or via audio.I use the NLS for reading physical braille books, as the formatting of those are superior to electronic braille. The selection is a bit thin, so I don’t use it as often as I would like. If a book is available in physical braille, I simply contact the library. A few days later, they—as they often come in multiple volumes the size of a printer—show up at my front door. Once I’m done, I arrange for the mail carrier to pick it up. It’s quite easy and stress-free.BookshareBookshare brands itself as the world’s largest accessible online library, which must be true. It serves people with print disabilities which ranges from severe dyslexia to low vision. The process of gaining access to the Bookstore online library mirrors the NLS: You must submit documentation of your print disability. Once approved, you get full access to the quite large online library.You can access Bookshare books via braille using a refreshable braille display. You can read book several ways:web browser - once you open up the book in a DAISY format, your braille reader will use the reader software you’ve already paired with your device. (I use VoiceOver as I have a Mac).brf format - if you use either a SD card (only available for braille notebooks) or your braille display is connected to the computer, you can read ebooks formatted specifically for refreshable braille readers. The format is unimaginatively titled .BRFembossed braille- using the aforementioned .brf format, you can print out the braille books as long as you have an embosser. (These things are a pretty penny and use up a lot of paper.)mobile (my preferred method) - you can use your phone to access Bookshare books via apps like Read2Go or VoiceDream. This method is the most flexible as you don’t have to be at your computer or lug around an enormous braille book. The apps, however, are clunky and somewhat difficult to use.Bookshare provides the largest repository of accessible books, hands down. This is especially true of recent publications, which usually end up on Bookshare when advance copies go out to pre-order recipients. For $50/year, it’s a pretty sweet deal to get access to hundreds of thousands of accessible books. It really is.Bookshare isn’t perfect, though. Some books I want aren’t available. All of my requests to have a certain book made available online has thus far been ignored. This is why I haven’t been able to get my hands on an accessible copy of Natsuo Kirino’s Out, a Japanese noir novel that I’ve wanted to read for a few years now. Some Bookshare books also have OCR formatting errors, particularly in less popular books.The iPhone Kindle AppThe iPhone Kindle app is braille-accessible … barely. I use this as the last resort if NLS and Bookshare don’t have the book for whatever reason.You can use VoiceOver to read the text and navigate from one line to the next. Formatting problems abound. The most serious one being that the sentences separating paragraphs run together, turning it into a long string of nonsense. An example would be: I am Cristina.Nice to meet you.That is more or less how far the accessibility goes for a braille display. Unlike with more accessible apps, I cannot navigate via commands. (You can use commands on a braille display much like you would on a keyboard.) So, to navigate, I must use the hand swipes for VoiceOver, which can be a pain if you’re deafblind and unable to hear the VoiceOver instructions.Still, I can read the book.As a deafblind woman who loves to read, I’ve been able to access books reasonably well with the above three options. I’ve only been unable to access two books I’ve wanted to read: Natsuo Kirino’s Out and Mordecai Richler’s Solomon Gursky Was Here. (Admittedly, these are somewhat obscure books.) There is much room for improvement, such as with the selection and the user interface of the apps. All of my bitching notwithstanding, the advent of the electronic age has been a boon for accessible books. Now software programs can automatically convert ebooks into braille where human transcribers used to.N.B. School books and textbooks are often still transcribed by humans as many textbook require specialized formatting that requires human intervention. That being said, many students use Bookshare