As of 2024, Historian and librarian John Y. Cole received the 2024 Trask award from the Society for History in the Federal Government in recognition of "his innumerable contributions to federal history over the course of his fifty-five year career at the Library of Congress."  Before becoming the Library's first official historian in 2016, for more than four decades he served as director of the Center for the Book, which initiated activities such as the National Book Festival and the Library of Congress Literacy Awards. He wrote or edited more than a dozen books about the Library and its activities.