The Furious Spinner

Thursday was the day we went to the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. Oh my, oh my, oh my! For a writer, for a book freak, for a library geek, for a researcher by trade and nature, this is paradise right in the here and now. We had been here the other night when we got our library cards, but we went in through the door for the researchers then. Today we went through the front door. With our cards in hand, we got to go by everyone else, get our bags scanned and our bodies checked for metal (via the machine), and then we were inside the Library of Congress.



First, it is absolutely spectacularly gorgeous: It is gaudy, it is over the top, it is vaulted. After the Library burned twice, Congress ordered that a building be created without wood. So it is made of marble and stone. There is wood but not much and not in the walls and ceilings as far as we can tell. This place is a temple to knowledge. To learning. On the vaulted ceilings are the names of lots of men and only one woman: Sappho. Sappho is a grand gal, a fabulous poet, but she needs some company. Fortunately, women rule iconically in this building. (Yes, iconically is a new word.) D.C. is filled with iconic women, symbolic women. Come on, guys. We is real. Flesh and blood with real contributions; we ain't symbols. We're human beans. Or human binks. Anyway, women rule. In fact, the patron of the LoC is Minerva.


(Minerva is most likely the Romana counterpart to Pallas Athena. The Celtic Brigid and Minerva may be the same as well.)


(This is Minerva. Notice the head of Medusa on her chest. Pallas Athena wore the head of Medusa on her aegis.)







The LoC has a non-circulating collection of over 130 million items, including over 29 million cataloged books and 100 million special collection items. The LoC is in three buildings, primarily: Jefferson Building, Adams Building, and Madison Building. They have off-site storage since they receive about 20,000 items per working day (and they catalog about 10,000 of those). The Library's mission is "to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations."



The British burned the Capitol, if you remember, where the original LoC was housed, and the books burned with it. "Within a month, retired President Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library as a replacement. Jefferson had spent 50 years accumulating books, 'putting by everything which related to America, and indeed whatever was rare and valuable in every science'; his library was considered to be one of the finest in the United States. In offering his collection to Congress, Jefferson anticipated controversy over the nature of his collection, which included books in foreign languages and volumes of philosophy, science, literature, and other topics not normally viewed as part of a legislative library. He wrote, 'I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from their collection; there is, in fact, no subject to which a Member of Congress may not have occasion to refer.'" (From their website.)



Today the LoC has books and manuscripts from all over the world, and researchers come from all over the world to study here. On Thursday, Mario and I were two of those researchers. We first went on the public tour of some parts of the building. The tour guide was good. She pointed out that Sappho was the only woman's name in the entire place. She also showed us Minerva. And we got to look in the main reading room where Mario and I would soon be. The dome above the Main Reading Room is quite spectacular.
When the tour was over, Mario and I walked by the sign that said "researchers only" and we walked down a yellow winding corridor to the check in point for the main reading room.



(We had already checked out bags at the cloakroom. We couldn't bring anything into the reading rooms except our notebooks and pen.) On the opposite side of the corridor from the Main Reading Room was the computer catalog room. (No photographs are allowed anywhere around here.) We showed our cards to the guard who sat at a desk near the entrance. We signed the book (we do that once a day). Situated just before the Main Reading Room is a smaller room with two desks on either side of the path leading to the room. Since the librarian at our orientation said people would be eager to help us, I went straight to a man there and told him what I was looking for. (I'm researching about three books, but I started with the novel on the first lady.)

I said I was trying to find out what process the first lady goes through after her husband is elected: how she gets a staff, how she coordinates with the usher, etc. I explained that I had done a great deal of research on my own, but I wasn't finding much. He suggested I go to the White House Historical Society and see if they had anything. I was astounded. I was at the LoC, and he wasn't able to tell me anything beyond that? Well, okay, I thought. I'd try the catalog. So I went and searched a while, but I'd gone through this before, and I knew I wasn't going to find anything. Either I needed better searching skills or something. So I went to the librarian in the catalog room.

That was quite an experience. She was absolutely disgusted with my question. She made a face, made noises, corrected me, and was generally the nastiest librarian I have ever met in my life. She gives librarians a bad name. She would be a villain in any children's book with a nasty librarian. She did eventually lead me into the Main Reading Room—where I barely looked around so that I wouldn't do anything to call down her wrath again—and back into the reference stacks and found me something vaguely useful. Mario tried to talk to her, too, about something he wanted, and she was even nastier to him, but he held his own. He didn't let her intimidate him. She will forever be known as the Dragon Lady to us. (We recognize and acknowledge that Dragons and Dragon Ladies can be quite powerful and magical.) The rest of the people I dealt with that day at the library weren't much better, truth be known. Maybe it was a bad day at the LoC. Maybe they all get paid squat and are treated terribly. I don't know. The cloakroom people were great. The guards were fine. The tour guide was good. The librarians and library assistants: Not so great.

Now maybe most of them are great. I'm not saying they aren't. But on Thursday, they were not. They were bad librarians. (Remember, Mario and I both work for a public library. I am a librarian. We know what good service is.) For the rest of the day, I went to Mario if I needed help. (He's very good at narrowing searches.)

Anyway, here's the process: We went into the Main Reading Room which is this beautiful round room with rows of desks surrounding a main desk where the library workers are. Behind us are stacks of reference materials, up and down, and beyond that are stacks and stacks and stacks of reference books. When we found a book (or other materials) that we wanted, we filled out a slip and took it to the desk. If the book was in the Jefferson building, it took about an hour for the staff to retrieve it. If it was in the Adams Building it took about an hour and a half. If it was off-site, it took a day or more. When the book came in, they placeed it alphabetically by the patron's name on the round center desk.

There are also other reading rooms besides the main one. For instance, I went to the Folklife room to try and find folktales from Kentucky. They had Kentucky music, so I listened to that, but no folk tales. There are lots of other rooms like that one. The person at the Folklife room was very helpful, by the way. Mario used the Rare Books Room, and they were very helpful there, too..



Mario and I stayed all day and into the night in the Main Reading Room. About an hour before closing, we left and began wandering around the library. I hadn't brought my camera, so I don't have any pics of that night. (But I took some the next morning.) Hardly anyone else was in the library, so Mario and I wandered around by ourselves. Out one of the windows, we could see the Capitol building all lit up. Inside, the library was lit up, too. It was golden light. We noticed our voices echoed, so I began chanting. Ommmmm. And the building sang it back to me, again and again. Ahhhhh. Same thing. Hummmm. Right back at me. It felt as though we were in a cathedral. Exalted. But not cold or institutional. I felt as though I was walking some place extraordinary. We looked at the paintings and up at the ceiling, and we listened to my voice as it went around the building. It was beautiful. It was as if the building and I were singing to one another. Or as if all the fairies or spirits or beings of the place had been waiting for so long to find someone to sing with. I was happy to oblige.

The word Museum comes from the word "museion" which means temple to the Muses. I know the LoC isn't a museum, but I felt like I was in a temple to the Muses. It was divine. I don't have adequate words to tell you what the experience was like. I was so grateful that Mario was there with me.

We reluctantly said good-bye to the building and went home.



We returned Friday and Saturday. We loved it. We want to stay here for weeks. The place is extraordinary. The ability to get so much material so quickly all at the same time is a dream for a researcher. It'll tell you more about that later. Right now, I'm going to listen to some baseball and eat a little with my husband.

Hope you're having a grand weekend.

Labels: libraries, Library of Congress, travel

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.