December 11, 2025 Library Innovator in Residence Launches Mobile Self-Guided Community Adventures

Artist, developer and 2025 Library of Congress Innovator in Residence Vivian Li is inviting the public to explore three American communities with Anywhere Adventures, a new interactive mobile website that showcases local history through items from the Library's digital collections. The web application launches on December 11, 2025, offering users their first opportunity to engage with these curated historical experiences.

In addition to Li’s hometown of Seattle, Anywhere Adventures spotlights Chicago and Southeastern Wyoming. These communities were nominated by Americans as part of a crowdsourced outreach campaign in early 2025.  

With dozens of historical photographs, maps, newspaper articles and more from the Library of Congress collections, this mobile site offers self-guided tours of locations across the selected areas. The website is designed to be viewed on a phone to be easily accessible while on the go.

“I always pictured my town as a fixed being. Over the last year, I’ve found that each town has a story,” said Li. “Why a bridge looks a certain way, where my city’s water comes from, the person a street is named after — things that I assumed were commonplace surprised me with how much charm and nuance they could contain. I hope that Anywhere Adventures can share some of these stories and inspire curiosity for our surroundings.” 

Users can click a location on the Anywhere Adventures map, learn about its history through collection items and document their own visit with photos and notes in a personal travel log. Each location is accompanied by vibrant art and comics drawn by Li. Additionally, users can customize their travel log entries with interactive elements, including stickers and text annotations. 

Featured collection items among the Anywhere Adventures’ tours include images of the first city park in Cheyenne, Wyoming, handwritten field notes about Chicago blues musician Muddy Waters and a colorful 1909 aerial map of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. 

In the second year of her residency with the Library of Congress in 2026, Li will add two new towns to Anywhere Adventures and encourages Americans to nominate their communities for the effort on the Library of Congress Signal blog.

Li will also collaborate with local libraries and community organizations to host public workshops to enhance the website with additional features and community programming.  

“I’m super excited for this next year with Anywhere Adventures out in the world. We’ll be working with local communities and organizations to host hands-on events like making zines and using stamps to create physical accompaniment to the digital travel log. We’ll also have workshops on how to research the topics people are curious about in their own hometowns,” said Li. 

The Innovator in Residence program is an initiative of LC Labs. The program invites arts and technology practitioners to conduct research with Library staff and demonstrate new paradigms for engaging with archives in the cultural heritage sector. A Broad Agency Announcement for the next Innovator in Residence is expected to be published in the first quarter of 2026, with the Residency beginning later in 2026. Please refer to labs.loc.gov/about/opportunities for more information.

LC Labs is the Digital Innovation Division in the Office of the Chief Information Officer’s Digital Strategy Directorate, aj.sunback.homes/digital-strategy, and supports the Library’s mission to engage, inspire and inform Congress and the American people with a universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity. LC Labs is home to the Library of Congress Innovator in Residence Program; leads experiments with emerging technologies; and supports communities in exploring the Library’s digital collections. Visit labs.loc.gov to see this work in action.  

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.