Read Making Our Mark: 2021 Innovator in Residence to Focus on Creative Notetaking (The Library of Congress)
The strike-throughs, underlines, doodles, and marginalia made by historical figures in their personal papers at the Library of Congress give researchers a more intimate sense of who they were. These markings sometimes shed light on the story of how a work was made or received. Researchers can understand more about the creative process, opinions and musings of people throughout the centuries by understanding these historical markings that are often, literally and figuratively, in the margins. Artist and educator Courtney McClellan is inspired by this tradition of mark-making, and today the Library of Congress announced her appointment as 2021 Innovator in Residence.McClellan’s project, Speculative Annotation, will invite Americans to join this historical lineage of annotators by creatively engaging with a curated collection of free to use items from the
I Annotate 2021 in I Annotate 2021 | Program ()

Bookmarked on 2021-06-20 at 7:19 PM; Read on 2021-06-21 at 5:22 PM

doodles 

aka drolleries

Annotated on June 21, 2021 at 05:19PM

These markings sometimes shed light on the story of how a work was made or received. Researchers can understand more about the creative process, opinions and musings of people throughout the centuries by understanding these historical markings that are often, literally and figuratively, in the margins. 

In addition to looking in the margins, one must also look at contemporaneous copies of both printed and privately held (or collected) commonplace books to cast a wider net on these practices.

Annotated on June 21, 2021 at 05:21PM

The project will be available in summer 2021 on labs.loc.gov. 

Return to this project in July 2021 to see it in action.

Annotated on June 21, 2021 at 05:22PM

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Chris Aldrich

I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.

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