Congressbird
Last week Dev and I visited the Library of Congress with some colleagues while we were in DC for a conference.
The tour included a little jaunt (courtesy of our guide, not on our own) into the members' room.
Behold the congressbird:
Also, we got to admire a book (not for its content so much as its provenance):
In case you, like me, don't recognize it, here it is with a label:
This was interesting for both its content and its purpose:
The explanation:
And this, part of the same collection, albeit almost a thousand years older:
(Much as I appreciated seeing it, I did keep thinking about the Elgin marbles and colonial theft. How did the codex and this jaguar end up in Washington DC?)
We also saw one old artifact that has a bit more reason to be in the USA -- the Waldseemüller Map:
And these blinds, though modern, were unquestionably USA-related:
Dev was awed, especially looking at them from a bird's eye view:
Back in the main areas, another feature that illustrates the builders' need to decorate every flat surface is the building's opinionatedness. The Library of Congress is one seriously aphoristic structure:
By now you might be wondering if this building is a library or a cathedral or some bizarre mashup of majestic columns and pithy wisdom. Rest assured, it is a library. For one thing, it says so:
For another, there are reading rooms. What has reading rooms? Libraries.
A library. QED.
Apparently one can get a reader card and go read in one of these rooms. Dev is quite exited to do so next time we are there. If they suggest he isn't a US citizen, I will show them his passport.
The tour included a little jaunt (courtesy of our guide, not on our own) into the members' room.
Behold the congressbird:
Also, we got to admire a book (not for its content so much as its provenance):
In case you, like me, don't recognize it, here it is with a label:
This was interesting for both its content and its purpose:
And this, part of the same collection, albeit almost a thousand years older:
(Much as I appreciated seeing it, I did keep thinking about the Elgin marbles and colonial theft. How did the codex and this jaguar end up in Washington DC?)
We also saw one old artifact that has a bit more reason to be in the USA -- the Waldseemüller Map:
And these blinds, though modern, were unquestionably USA-related:
Dev was awed, especially looking at them from a bird's eye view:
Back in the main areas, another feature that illustrates the builders' need to decorate every flat surface is the building's opinionatedness. The Library of Congress is one seriously aphoristic structure:
By now you might be wondering if this building is a library or a cathedral or some bizarre mashup of majestic columns and pithy wisdom. Rest assured, it is a library. For one thing, it says so:
For another, there are reading rooms. What has reading rooms? Libraries.
Apparently one can get a reader card and go read in one of these rooms. Dev is quite exited to do so next time we are there. If they suggest he isn't a US citizen, I will show them his passport.
When I was in high school in DC, I did research in that reading room! Fun to see it again. Yes, of course, card catalogs. One claimed a carel, then filled out the book request forms which zoomed off in those hydraulic cannisters, and sooner or later, a courteous book clerk (always African American gentleman) arrived with a cart and the books one had requested. By the way, my grandfather John Franklin Jameson was chief of manuscripts at the Lib Cong, so it's a family tradition! So glad you and Dev got to visit.
ReplyDeleteThat's wonderful -- and wonderful, too, that one can still get a reader's card and go use the space.
ReplyDelete