By: Ally Laird

Penn State University Libraries’ Open Publishing program recently learned that its flagship bibliography, Utopian Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography from 1516 to the Present by Lyman Tower Sargent, was recommended and added to the Library of Congress (LOC) e-Resource Online Catalog.

“I became aware of this resource in connection with a Researcher and Reference Services-sponsored lecture entitled ‘African Americans and Utopia: Visions of a Better Life,’” notes Sibyl E. Moses, reference specialist and recommending officer, African American History and Culture. “This is the richest online database in existence on the topic of Utopia and Dystopia, and it is compiled by a leading international Utopian scholar.” Sargent gave the lecture on May 14, at the Mary Pickford Theater in the Library of Congress James Madison Building, in Washington, DC.

Fast approaching 10,000 entries, Sargent updates this seminal work of utopian and dystopian literature in its myriad forms regularly with new citations and revisions. Sargent’s thoughtful use of keywords to identify authors’ nationalities and gender, when known, adds an additional demographic resource for political science, literary, and other humanities research.

Following the confirmation that the LOC cataloged the bibliography in the e-Resources Online Catalog, the Open Publishing program was again approached by the Library of Congress, this time requesting permissions to include the bibliography in their web archives. The LOC notes that they “preserve important cultural artifacts and provide enduring access to them,” and that content is considered important and thus chosen “because they contribute to the historical record, capturing information that could otherwise be lost. With the growing role of the web as an influential medium, records of historic events could be considered incomplete without materials that were ‘born digital’ and never printed on paper.” This marks the first publication by the Penn State Libraries Open Publishing program to be archived and catalogued by the Library of Congress in this way.

Penn State Libraries Open Publishing is the Open Access imprint of The Pennsylvania State University Libraries, and is a unit within the Research Informatics and Publishing department. We provide tools and support for Penn State-affiliated authors and groups to publish full-featured electronic scholarly journals, searchable annotated bibliographies, monographs, and topical web portals using a variety of digital platforms. All of the publications are free to view online and download. Copyright is retained by the individual authors, journals, or sponsoring entity, and almost all publications are licensed for use under a Creative Commons license. For more information about the program, please visit openpublishing.psu.edu/, or contact Ally Laird at alaird@psu.edu.