october 23-25, 2003
washington, dc
After months of planning and great anticipation, twenty of so SILSians headed up to DC
to visit Our Nation's Capital to see Our National Treasures.
There were eleven tours in total. I only took pictures of two.
The main entry inside of the library.
There is a beautiful marble courtyard in the entryway. The ceiling and walls have gorgeous paintings depicting images related to the subject matter of the collections and inspirations to learning.
One of the ceiling emblems.
Three SILSters waiting on the tiled floors outside the main reading room.
The Librarian of Congress has a special back exit door to his office, which is adjacent to the main reading room. It's not so secret as his title is etched on top. Alas, it's a misnomer as the current Librarian of Congress is not actually a librarian.
We got to see some of the inner workings of the library, such as this reference room. The desks with computers on them are built in to the former frames of the card catalogue.
For me, visiting National Public Radio was a little like visiting Mecca.
Here's the outside of the headquarters
In the entryway are rows of photos of many of the personalities.
Dan Onstad, one of the Tape Librarians, gave us an overview of their audio collections.
This is one of the tape storage rooms.
We were amused by this sign on the end of the shelf that held preparatory obituaries for noted figures. It was interesting, yet morbid, to see some of the names on the sides of tapes. I think Crystal Gale might have been the most obscure.
Kee Malesky, one of NPR's Reference Librarians, gave us a tour of the library. Most interesting was to see how much they keep in print vs. relying on electronic data.
Marianne, me and Kee. Yes, I am literally about a foot taller than her.
