Tag Archives: API

Searching the Library of Congress with Python and their new JSON API, Part 2

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This post builds on my last one: Searching the Library of Congress with Python and their new JSON API, which is why I’ve added Part 2 to the end of the title. Before we dive back into the Library of Congress‘s JSON API, some housekeeping items:

  1. Even though the Library of Congress’s website is loc.gov, the abbreviation for Library of Congress is LC
    1. I tried to find a press-ready image of NBC‘s old The More You Know logo I could add here, but
      1. the updated logo doesn’t make me hear the jingle in my head
      2. I did find Megan Garber‘s 2014 article covering the PSA series for The Atlantic that has some classic video I enjoyed
  2. As of October 2017, LC has expressly stated in a disclaimer that their JSON API is a work in progress. Use at your own risk!! We might (will likely) change this!

Recap on Stryker’s Negatives Project

I recently came across Michael Bennett‘s article Countering Stryker’s Punch: Algorithmically Filling the Black Hole in the latest edition of code4lib: <– GREAT STUFF!

He’s using Adobe Photoshop  and GIMP to digitally restore blank areas in images due to a hole punch having been taken to the physical negative.

Current Task

Use the Library of Congress’s JSON API to download all of the hole punch images and their associated metadata.

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Searching the Library of Congress with Python and their new JSON API

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I recently read Michael J. Bennett‘s article, Countering Stryker’s Punch: Algorithmically Filling the Black Hole, in the latest edition of code4lib and wow, great stuff!

Bennett is comparing Adobe Photoshop’s Content Aware Fill tool and a GIMP technique I haven’t seen before as part of a workflow to digitally restore areas in photographs with no picture due to a hole punch having been taken to the physical negative. Part of Roy Stryker’s legacy at the FSA. You can read more about the negatives in Bennett’s article, this recent feature by Alan Taylor in The Atlantic and in Eric Banks’s review of what sounds like an amazing gallery show by William E. Jones in NY in 2010 in The Paris Review.

Library of Congress Search Results totaled 2,474

Library of Congress Search Results

I have been dipping my toes into computer vision recently and thought expanding upon Bennett’s work seems a good and educating challenge. A quick search at the Library of Congress returns nearly 2,500 results so this would also be a pretty good-sized data set to work on for a beginner with a bunch of exceptions and tweaking for edge-cases, but also a LOT of images and metadata to gather!

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