When Bob Hope died, on July 27, the man of a million canned jokes was honored with a million canned tributes. The New York Times was so well prepared, its obituary had been penned by a writer three years dead. And within hours of the news, the Library of Congress had converted its Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment at the Jefferson Building into a Hope memorial. At the entrance, a sign offered a framed photo of Hope, accompanied by his birth and death dates, a three-sentence appreciation, and a quote from the last line of his theme song, “Thanks for the Memory.” Curator Samuel Brylawski says that the display was prepared about a year ago, with space left blank for the date of Hope’s expiration. “He’s been ill for a long time,” Brylawski says, “so we wanted to be ready to pay tribute when he died.” —David Morton