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The Library of Congress–the largest library in the world and the oldest U.S. federal cultural institution–on Saturday, April 12, debuts an immersive, new "Library of Congress Experience," offering visitors unique historical and cultural treasures brought to life through cutting-edge interactive technology and a companion Web site.

The experience comprises a series of new ongoing exhibitions, dozens of interactive kiosks, an inspiring multimedia "overture" on the collections and programs of the Library, and a continuing online educational experience at the upcoming Web site myLOC.gov. All exhibits are free and open to the public.

Detailed information on the Experience can be found at a new microsite, www.loc.gov/experience/.

The site also enables the public to participate directly in the Experience by way of "Inspiration Across the Nation." Because the Experience celebrates and showcases the creativity and contributions of our nation’s early cultures, great minds and other founding influences, people nationwide will have the opportunity to submit to the Library their own creative works in the form of stories, poems, video, audio, photos–anything that can be transmitted in an electronic file.

Select entries will be chosen to be part of the Library’s permanent collections, joining the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and other cultural and historic legends.

Back in June of 2007, we began our first collaboration with a civic institution to facilitate giving people a voice in describing the content of a publicly-held photography collection, The Library of Congress. The pilot project we created together launched on January 16, 2008. (More info on the pilot.)

The key goals of The Commons are to firstly give you a taste of the hidden treasures in the world's public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer.

You're invited to help describe the photographs you discover in The Commons on Flickr, either by adding tags or leaving comments.*

The Gigapan process engages with you in four steps:

1. Explore

Starting right now, you can search, browse and explore all of the panoramas that are available on the GigaPan sharing site. Dive into the panoramas to explore for yourself, or explore other users' snapshots to see what others have found.

2. Discover

As soon as you create your free user account, you can not only explore, but you can also annotate and share your discoveries by creating new snapshots and describing what you have found. This is a way to take part in the GigaPan community even if you have not done panoramic photography yet.

3. Create

We are beta-testing prototypes of the Gigapan robotic mount, which attaches to your small digital camera to create a fast and easy-to-use high-resolution panorama capture device. We are growing the beta process and are negotiating concerning general release and sales of the Gigapan camera. You will be able to purchase these low-cost robotic mounts and take several hundred or thousand images at a time to create panoramas with one billion pixels and more.

You don't need specialized GigaPan hardware to take your own panoramas. If you have lots of patience, a high-quality digital camera, and a good tripod (or very steady hand!) you can take hundreds or thousands of overlapping, zoomed-in pictures for a gigapixel-scale panorama, then use off-the-shelf stitching software to combine the images into one very high-resolution panorama for upload.

4. Share

Once you create your free account, you can download our free upload tool to
enable you to take any panoramic, high-resolution image and add it to the
GigaPan sharing site for community exploration, annotation, and discovery.