Thursday, February 21, 2013

OT Library of Congress

Kid's dreams are a funny business. It became obvious to me that I was meant to be a librarian when I started obsessing about the Library of Congress. The ceiling. The card catalog. The hidden treasure. 

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with more than 155.3 million items on approximately 838 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 35 million books and other print materials, 3.4 million recordings, 13.6 million photographs, 5.4 million maps, 6.5 million pieces of sheet music and 68 million manuscripts.

But sadly, I have never been there. It's on my bucket list. 

There was a blog post the other day on "The LibrariYAn" about a chance to visit behind the scenes at the library of congress. You know how people always ask, "what would you do if you won the lottery?" That's what I would do, I would fly (first class) to Washington DC and spend days in the library of congress. Smelling old books. Watching people. Thinking about the lives of the items cataloged there.

Can you imagine being a "Librarian of Congress"? There have only ever been 13. 

Until I go, I will have to live vicariously through others. Virtual Tourist & the LibrariYAn 
(anyone else think of Ghostbusters when they see pictures of the card catalogs?)


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