At the library
Kareem (our tour guide) told us the National Archives was his favorite—with its treasures of the actual documents signed by our founding fathers, Abraham Lincoln and so on. I was inclined to agree with him until we went to the Library of Congress! Oh my goodness! It was so impressive and beautiful. Three floors chock full of books, books, books. The card catalog, the Dewey Decimal System, the reading tables & lamps, the awe-inspiring silence, the illustrations in the books, the wood, the windows, the little balconies, the spiral stairs, even those old gray carts they use for reshelving. I loved everything!!
A friend told us that we could get a library card and that would give us access to the reading rooms. What a great tip that was! I pre-registered us online for a card, then we followed the directions to the room where they looked up our form and made a photo-id library card. How cool is that? We are card-holding members of the Library of Congress.
Once we had the card we went into the Main Reading Room. Photos were, unfortunately, not allowed. Wow. This was where we saw 3 floors chock full of books. There were long wooden reading tables with lights where several people were sitting with small piles of books and their laptops. It was a circular room with many little alcoves off the circle with shelf after shelf made of metal filled with books. We went into several alcoves and explored some of the books. In one alcove we opened several atlases with beautiful maps. In another we looked through maps and drawings of Civil War battles. Randy’s been reading and watching videos about Gettysburg so those were interesting. At one point, we could see people looking in through glass doors and I whispered to Randy, “Those poor plebes who aren’t allowed in because they don’t have a card like we do.” :)
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At one point in its history, during the war of 1812, the British burned the Library of Congress. Thomas Jefferson gave the library his personal collection to begin it again. Quite a collection!