Return to the LoC
The Library of Congress is one of the great treasures of Washington. It's probably the biggest library on the planet, in terms of total holdings. What really makes it great, though, is that almost anyone can get a reader's card and gain access to the Library's collection.
I first registered as a reader back around 2000. I was an undergraduate then, and looking for a place to keep up with my reading out-of-term. I loved working there, particularly in the stately Gilded Age Jefferson Building main reading room, under whose dome I spent many hours puzzling over texts both obscure and mundane.
I returned today, for the first time in many years. I walked in the west door of the Jefferson Building, under the carriageway arch, and was greeted by a guard who called out to me as he slouched on his chair, next to the magnetometer:
"Visitor or Researcher?"
"Researcher," I answered him, "but I need to renew my ID."
"That's in the Madison Building," he said, nodding.
"Oh it's in Madison now?"
"It's always been in Madison," he said. I laughed to myself. When I first registered, reader registration was in in the back of the Jefferson Building.
I made my way over to Madison and re-registered. The clerk at the registration desk asked me what my old ID number was.
"Does it start with a 5 or a 6?"
"Two," I answered. She looked at me, surprised.
"How old are you??" She didn't believe that I was old enough to have been issued a card with such an early serial number. It was a good-natured exchange, and in a little under a minute, I surrendered my tattered old ID and was issued a shiny new one--albeit with the same, smug, nineteen-year-old face smiling on it.
I returned to the Current Periodicals reading room--my least favorite space in the whole Library. I had always thought of it as a kind of Hell reserved for survivors of the Carter administration: a windowless space lit with harsh, lowest-bidding-subcontractor flourescent tubes.
I bumbled a bit--I had forgotten where the circulation request slips were, and ended up stammering a lot, but a kindly circulation librarian got me exactly what I needed in a facation of the time usual.
I will have to go back more often. I've missed the Library.
I first registered as a reader back around 2000. I was an undergraduate then, and looking for a place to keep up with my reading out-of-term. I loved working there, particularly in the stately Gilded Age Jefferson Building main reading room, under whose dome I spent many hours puzzling over texts both obscure and mundane.
I returned today, for the first time in many years. I walked in the west door of the Jefferson Building, under the carriageway arch, and was greeted by a guard who called out to me as he slouched on his chair, next to the magnetometer:
"Visitor or Researcher?"
"Researcher," I answered him, "but I need to renew my ID."
"That's in the Madison Building," he said, nodding.
"Oh it's in Madison now?"
"It's always been in Madison," he said. I laughed to myself. When I first registered, reader registration was in in the back of the Jefferson Building.
I made my way over to Madison and re-registered. The clerk at the registration desk asked me what my old ID number was.
"Does it start with a 5 or a 6?"
"Two," I answered. She looked at me, surprised.
"How old are you??" She didn't believe that I was old enough to have been issued a card with such an early serial number. It was a good-natured exchange, and in a little under a minute, I surrendered my tattered old ID and was issued a shiny new one--albeit with the same, smug, nineteen-year-old face smiling on it.
I returned to the Current Periodicals reading room--my least favorite space in the whole Library. I had always thought of it as a kind of Hell reserved for survivors of the Carter administration: a windowless space lit with harsh, lowest-bidding-subcontractor flourescent tubes.
I bumbled a bit--I had forgotten where the circulation request slips were, and ended up stammering a lot, but a kindly circulation librarian got me exactly what I needed in a facation of the time usual.
I will have to go back more often. I've missed the Library.