Display Day success

It's with a bittersweet smile that I realize I am done with my internship in a week. This month in particular seems to have run away without me. In the past three weeks I have answered approximately fifty digital reference questions, registered at least 15 new researchers, pulled material from more than thirty different collections and had some lovely visitors and fun outings along the way.

This past Wednesday we had the "crown jewel" of the internship program, Display Day. All 38 of us Junior Fellows were able to show off our work in the 26 projects we have been working on since week 1. The process of getting to this day was a long and involved one - but great as I really got to see what goes into developing a exhibit. First, as fellows, we were asked to pick a few items that best displayed our work, we had to propose the items to the Display Day Committee and once we were approved, we had to clear all the items with conservation to make sure they were aptly protected on the day. We also wrote labels to accompany our items and had those proofread by exhibit staff at the Library and then we had to make sure our "blurb" was ready for the day and look up a few extra details to flesh the whole thing out. On Tuesday we had a rehearsal day to set up our tables and then the acting Librarian of Congress, David Mao, came and visited each one of our tables and listened as we described our projects and items on display.

On the actual day, we were set up and ready to go by 9, when the photographer from the Library and the video team arrived to get some extra footage. We opened to Library staff, congressional members (not that I remember seeing any, especially since Congress isn't in session), and friends and family at 10 AM and were pretty much continuously presenting to anyone who passed by our table until we closed at 3. I did get to have a lunch break, thank goodness! And it was a wonderful treat to be able to share both the Day and lunch with my Grandma, who drove from Baltimore to visit. Interestingly, when my friend Katie (the intern in the Manuscript preparation section) went to lunch, I was responsible for manning her exhibit and trying to describe her project to passer by's. It was fun to describe the process of how a collection arrives at the Library in disarray and then an archivist reads through and creates an organization system, then the rehousing of the materials and typing a finding aid so researchers will be able to navigate the collection.

Our display (pictures below), was centered on William T. Hornaday, for those of you who haven't read the previous blog posts. He was responsible for creating life-like exhibits in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in the 1880's and 1890's and was sent to the west in 1886 to retrieve specimens of Buffalo for the museum. The whole exhibit centered on the journal we have of his from that 1886 expedition that is a new acquisition of the Library and has never before been displayed. Trying to link the materials on the table, however, to my actual project, which was reference, was a tad difficult. I liked to always start my schpeal with letting the person know that I worked as a reference intern in the Manuscript Reading Room and that the items on the table were just a small representation of what I've gotten to work with this summer. And that's absolutely true!

My reference highlights this week are mostly generated by the email reference questions this week than researcher interaction. I am particularly proud of finding an unpublished manuscript titled "An Enlisted Man in the Chancellorsville Campaign" from the Civil War. The manuscript, penned by Lucius Swift, seemed not to exist on its own in the Library catalog, nor did the Manuscript Division have his papers in custody. Doing what any self-respecting reference librarian would do at that point, I turned to Google to try and see if there was a footnote, reference, anything mention at all of it online. Every time I typed in some variant of the title, I would get a few references to a book titled "The Campaign of Chancellorsville" by John Bigelow which was published in 1910. I took a chance, and typed his name into the Library's catalog search and sure enough, we did have his papers on-site at the Library. I figured it was a long shot, but I pulled up the finding aid to the collection and searched for Chancellorsville among the papers - there was a box that contained notes for his book. I went over to the stacks and started searching through that particular box. It was incredible the letters he had from people who were present at the Battle of Chancellorsville and for the Campaign and their recollections would take up letters of 10 pages or more. One man recalled that he wasn't sure if Gen. Joseph Hooker was sleepy or drunk that day! Finally, after about 10 minutes of rifling through, I discovered a letter written by Lucius Swift to John Bigelow and attached was an excerpt of his Manuscript! Win!

I was so excited that I found it and was a bit disappointed that I couldn't reveal my whole saga to the writer of the email inquiry, just because of how cool it was. Nevertheless, the recipient was very thankful and I felt like a history sleuthing boss yet again. :) I'm going to be sad to say goodbye next week to the awesome people I've met through this 10 week journey - especially all the reference librarians I work beside everyday. But in a week I will be home, and as much as I love DC - there is something about Columbia that just makes it home.

The cover of the Display Day program

The little recaps of the Manuscript interns projects this summer

Looking down from our display towards the end of the table

The other side of the table

The "small" room of the two used for Display Day - the guy in the white shirt is the other reference intern, Luke

 

Yours truly in action - explaining the display to a Library staffer

Library Stacks and other Adventures

Well it's been a few weeks since I've updated and of course those few weeks have been anything but boring at the library. At the end of last week (Friday, July 1st), the Junior Fellows were invited to meet the acting Librarian of Congress, Mr. David Mao. After a great Q&A session, probably the best part of the meeting was his offering for us to come visit the ceremonial office of the Librarian in the Jefferson Building. If you go back to one of my first blogs, you'll see the picture of the door with the word "Librarian" over top, and this room is what lay behind the door. The room, complete with balcony, domed roof, and vault is one of the most beautiful rooms in the building, in my opinion. The intricate wood carving and decorative paintings on the ceiling are all a tribute to learning, knowledge and books. One of the funny things I discovered while in the room, was that the acoustics can play tricks on your ears, much like the Capitol building or the dome at St. Paul's in London: I could hear my friends whispering to each other as if they were right behind me even though they were on the opposite side of the room. At first I was confused, but after figuring it out, we had some fun "telephone"-like whispering games. We also got to take a peak at the vault door, which is where in 1975, he then Librarian of Congress found the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets from the night of his assassination at Ford's Theater. (They had been sitting there since their placement in 1937 and obviously forgotten about...)

This past Friday's excursion was just as interesting and almost more awe-inspiring. We got a fabulous tour of the Jefferson Building's Stacks, where most of the library's on-site books reside. (The other parts of the collection are housed in the Adams and Madison Buildings). The Jefferson Building is the first and probably most recognizable of all the library's buildings - it was opened in 1897 and was thought to be the solution to all the space problems that the original Library of Congress had to deal with when it was housed in the Capitol Building. Obviously, with the addition of two more buildings and two more off site storage facilities over the next century or so, the building proved to be beautiful and functional, but not nearly big enough for the Library's ever growing collection. Even now, as you can see from the pictures below, there are books on the floor of the stacks and shelves that are packed to full capacity.

One of my favorite parts of the tour was getting to see the space directly underneath the Main Reading Room of the Library. The stairs that are in the pictures below go right up to the middle of the reference desk in the Reading Room. (And for anyone else who loves National Treasure, those are the same stairs that Abigail and Reilly have to fly down to escape in National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets!) I did not know that the Library acquires about 200,000 books every year - helped by the Mandatory Deposit requirement that every copyrightable book published in the US must send 2 copies to the Library. The Library might not keep all these copies, or they may choose to send them to be stored off sight, depending on the content, but the collection continues to grow at a massive rate. Some of the original courtyards of the Jefferson Building were filled in to make more room for stacks in the early 1900's, which is why you can see the brick wall at the end of the stack in the picture below. There are two courtyards left in the building of the original four.

Other fun happenings this week at the library included a consultation with the board in charge of the Display Day coming up quickly on the 27th of July! Luke and I loaded our materials for display into a cart and hiked over to the Adams building to meet with the conservation department to check the documents and pictures we want to display will be properly housed and preserved during Display Day. It was incredible to have the conservation department measure and make cradles and bolsters for the Hornaday journal and the sheet music we found right on the spot. They event took this map we have of the Bronx Zoo from 1915 (Hornaday being the founder of said zoo) and measured it to make a custom Mylar covering for it. The next hurdle after this meeting is writing our Labels for the display, for which we were given the size templates and the number of labels we are allowed to use so the table is explained but not cluttered. I do love seeing all that goes into the exhibit process, especially now that I'm interested in exhibition development as a possible career. Not only does the department have to liaise with all the different library services division to acquire the material for displays, but they have to go through conservation and labeling issues as well as organizational questions of how to best utilize the space. I find it all completely fascinating.

This week will already be week 7 of the 10 week internship and I can't believe how fast time is flying. I'm loving the hustle and bustle of the Reading Room just as much as when I first started - except now I think I'm building the stamina to deal with all the walking! July is such a great month because in addition to my birthday, I'm looking forward to visitors coming up (including my family - hooray!) and all the fun we'll have exploring DC and looking at the museums on the weekends, so there will be plenty of pictures and stories to come.

The ceremonial office of the Librarian of Congress

The incredible ceiling in the office

The infamous stairs that go up to the reference desk in the Main Reading Room

Looking down the rows of stacks towards the far (east?) wall

Note the books on the floor and then at the end of the row, the brick wall that used to be one of the walls of the courtyard

History Sleuthing

So the past few days have been busy - not because there have been a mass amount of researchers, but because I've been trying to answer questions that come in via email and the "Ask a Librarian" system on the LOC website. As the questions come into our division, our boss delegates questions to each member of the reference staff so we all can help answer them in a timely manner. (I think two or three days is the average response time)

On Thursday, I had three different questions to answer- all requiring me to head back into the stacks for some answers. The first one, and probably the most straightforward, was a USMC historian asking for the exact date that a Marine was awarded his Medal of Honor by President Coolidge. The historian gave a date range of three months in 1928. To get the exact date, I had to go back through Coolidge's presidential papers and retrieve his appointment books from 1928 and then flip through the pages until I found the date: June 9th.

The second inquiry I had was regarding a much more recent archive: the Samuel Dash papers. If you don't know who he is (I didn't...), he's a famous lawyer, most noted for being chief counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee during Watergate. A researcher who last visited in 2012 emailed to ask us to find a document from the Enron Senate Hearings in 2002. Unfortunately, the box number given to me by the researcher did not contain the document - and I checked three times. To be sure that I had the correct box, I looked up when exactly the researcher was in the Reading Room in 2012 and then went and found the call slips from 2012 to check which boxes he had requested. Sure enough, it was the box I had already thoroughly combed through. Thankfully, after a tedious internet search, I was able to find the document online through a government publication website.

Third, a patron had emailed to ask for copies of a specific letter from January 4, 1778 concerning provisions for the Continental Army. For this, I was only given a vague idea of which collection contained this document and the sender and recipient. The Manuscript Division's finding aids are quickly becoming my new best friend in searches like this, because they list the contents of each container of a certain collection in enough detail to help you know which box, or microfilm reel in this case, will have what you're looking for. For an interesting example, you can check out the Abraham Lincoln Papers finding aid here: http://rs5.loc.gov/service/mss/eadxmlmss/eadpdfmss/2009/ms009304.pdf. 

So after consulting the finding aid, I then was able to narrow my search down to one reel of microfilm (which is still quite a bit) and from that had to read the microfilm until I was able to find the exact letter needed. This was a case where there were a slew of letters all written on the same day by similar people about the provisions for the army, so when in doubt, copy it all and send it to the patrons to figure out. :)

After all this, I was on the desk later that afternoon, and needless to say, when I got home I was exhausted both physically and mentally from all the fact-finding. Thankfully these questions are helping me to a) get into the collections themselves and b) learn how the collections are organized and the resources available to navigate them. Every question I am assigned always brings about a learning experience - which hopefully means by the end of the summer, I'll be familiar with at least some of the material, finding aids, and resources in the Manuscript Division!

Finding my groove

Thankfully the end of this week brought with it a slow down in the amount of readers/researchers visiting the Manuscripts Reading Room. Not that I don't enjoy the hustle and bustle of always going into the stacks for something else, but it was nice to sit down at the desk and work on an email question and not be interrupted four times. We'll see tomorrow if the trend continues, but somehow I doubt that.

Another "show and tell" (see last week's post if you don't know what that is) this week gave me the amazing opportunity to work with the Library's Core Collection. The collection consists of documents, sketches, letters and photographs that are historically significant and fairly recognizable for anyone who's taken Fourth grade American History. The collection is housed in plastic and card stock cases that allow them to be moved and touched without much damage - which makes them easy to pull out when we find out that a group of congressional interns are coming in less than two hours and want to see some "cool" stuff. (Apparently, according to my boss, it's not that infrequent that they are asked to provide a show and tell on super short notice.)

So some of the materials that we specifically chose for this group of interns was a letter written by Jackie Kennedy to her wedding photographer, Alexander Graham Bell's first sketch of the telephone, a letter written by Lincoln to a subordinate in the army about African Americans receiving the same widow's rights as white women, and a petition written around 1692 by a group of women accused of witchcraft in Ipswich, asking for bail. The whole collection is digitized so anyone can look at these online (here's the address: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mcchtml/corhome.html) but I always think there's an awe-inspiring aspect of being able to see the tangible object in its original form.

Also part of the show and tell - something I didn't even know we had in the Manuscript Division - was a collection of three separate locks of Thomas Jefferson's hair. My first reaction, and some of my family's, was more disgust than interest, but historically, people would cut locks of hair from their loved ones after they passed away as something to save as a memento. I didn't find it particularly appealing, however the interns all found it exciting to see.

On Friday, the Junior Fellows had the unique option to go on a tour of the high-efficiency storage facility the library has in Fort Meade, MD. As you can see from the pictures below, the warehouses are huge, but even more impressive is the engineering innovations that help to conserve the materials stored there. For example, the warehouses are kept at 50 degrees Fahrenheit with about 30% humidity - needless to say, we were all a bit chilly when I took these photos. Also, there's another "cold" storage area specifically for microfilm that is housed at 35 degrees Fahrenheit with 30% humidity. In order to get a microfilm reel from the cold storage area, it has to be left in a 50 degree staging area for 48 hours to minimize the condensation damage when it gets transported to the library.

The process of shelving the materials is also rather unusual but effective: books are stored according to size and not subject. This way, storage shelves can be designed to match a specific height and leave more room for more books. In order to prevent mass confusion, each book is bar-coded and then placed in a box with other similarly sized books, which in itself is also bar-coded and then placed on a specific shelf location, which, surprise, is also bar-coded. Then all these bar codes are linked to that one book so when the request comes in from the Library, finding the book on the shelf is a short task.

When I go on field trips like this, I am amazed at how all the storage facilities, reading rooms and different divisions work together to form the largest library in the world. I am a small part of what happens in the Library, and yet, what I do is just as important as the archivists, conservators and historians. It is a truly incredible place to be a part of - and I'm really loving every minute of it.

The preparation area, where materials get cleaned and ready to go on the shelf

A view of one of the rows of stacks. The shelving goes 30 ft up and there are multiple rows per store room.

The forklift they have to use to get materials down from the upper shelves.

A view looking down to another store room, there are 3 in total with plans to build more.

The front of the building - very ordinary for a not-so-ordinary facility.

Summer has begun!

Summer has begun, and I know so because this week we saw a massive influx of researchers in the reading room who are on their summer breaks. Monday we had so many people, it was all hands on deck at the reference desk - I walked so many steps going to retrieve materials from the stacks that I probably hit my 10,000 for the day before I took my lunch break. The rest of the week remained more busy but tapered off towards Thursday and Friday, but all the experienced staffers keep saying it will only become more crowded as the summer goes on.

I am feeling more and more at home in the Manuscript Division as I continue to answer reference questions (both in person and via email), navigate the stacks, and work with the patrons. Wednesday morning I attended the monthly staff meeting where the main topic on the agenda was the Kissinger Papers and their restriction and accessibility of the collection within the library. Since a portion of the papers are jointly owned by the LOC and Yale University, the collection has a complicated access process.

One of the absolute highlights of my week was helping my boss set up what we call a "show and tell" for a congressman and some of his constituents who were planning to visit that day. (Pictures below) A show and tell involves the staff finding interesting items within our collections and prepping them for display in our mini conference room. When it's finished, it looks like a small archives exhibit like you would see in a museum.

This particular show and tell was geared towards Arkansas history (that's where the congressman was from) and so my boss pulled a few letters written by an Arkansas judge, Jacob Trieber, to President Taft and President Roosevelt, along with their responses (typewritten, of course). Trieber was the first Jewish federal judge in the US serving from 1900 to 1927 and wrote to both presidents about various issues - once concerning a racial conflict in his home state.

Another cool item he pulled was a petition from the 1830's against Arkansas being admitted to the Union. The manuscript had well over 100 signatures and there were at least 10 more in the same folder, the petitions all originating from the fact that Arkansas was a slave state and would tip the balance of power in Congress. Controversial stuff.

I enjoyed setting up the mini exhibit, listening to my boss' advice about how to display certain items and placing some of the more delicate manuscripts in Mylar film so that they could be handled without damage. The experience made me look forward to the museum exhibit development class I'm hoping to take towards the end of my MLIS program - I think designing exhibits is a great balance between archival work and teaching.

This week also had myself and Luke (my co-junior fellow) starting on our Display Day project for the end of the summer. My supervisor suggested we take a look at William Temple Hornaday's journal from his Buffalo hunt in the west. The journal is from 1886 when Hornaday was sent west to hunt Buffalo for displays in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. It's an incredibly personal and detailed account of the day to day activities of the hunting party, including weather conditions, travel arrangements and beautiful descriptions of scenery. Luke and I are hoping to find another item in the collection to supplement the journal for display, but it on its own is a wonderful piece of history. I'm hoping to read the whole thing before the end of the summer, although with all the researchers and questions, reading time is not a luxury I often have.

So week 2 ended and left me in a quiet but content exhaustion - this weekend is dedicated to rest and relaxation before the Monday morning frenzy starts again.

The entrance to the Manuscript Reading Room

The table length mini show and tell display that my boss allowed me to help "curate"

On the left, the letters exchanged between Jacob Trieber and Teddy Roosevelt and on the right, letters between Trieber and Taft

In the middle (on top of the green folder) you can see the petition against Arkansas entering the Union

My most interesting pull this week: A giant, very heavy, leather bound book from 1912, it's 1902 counterpart is on the cart on the next shelf down - I thought they were really cool (except for the fact that one was on the top shelf...)

Hitting the ground running

So one week under my belt at the Library and I'm feeling pretty confident. The week began on Tuesday with paperwork processing and getting our official ID badges that allow us to enter the library before the general public and use staff entrances around other sides of the building. We met our supervisors as well as other Junior Fellows who will be working within our departments before multiple informational sessions dealing with security, collections management, and our research presentation day at the end of the summer.

The next morning (Wednesday), we had our keynote address delivered by the head of the D.C. Public Library, which was fantastic. However, the real highlight of the morning was our guided tour of the Jefferson Building with a library rector. She pointed out the symbolism and meanings of architectural elements and artwork throughout the main hall and reading room. I've been in the Jefferson Building before, but had never fully appreciated all the nuanced work that went into the decor and the ingenuity of the architects who were building it in the 1890's.

Beginning work that afternoon, I was led around the Manuscript stacks by my supervisor and given a (VERY) brief overview of the general flow of the reference desk and duties I'll be expected to preform. The other Junior Fellow and I began to orientate ourselves to the layout of the building by retrieving materials for patrons as new call slips came in - asking for help along the way for materials that were difficult to locate or off-site. I felt fairly comfortable forging my way through the maze of manuscripts due to my supervisor's note that the only awful mistake I could make would be to allow a patron access to a restricted collection - and as long as I didn't do that, I was doing fine.

By far, the best part of working in the stacks is walking by some of (in my humble opinion) the most amazing collections within the Manuscript Division. Notable names that I saw listed on document boxes include: Clara Barton, Thurgood Marshall, George McClellan, the Wright Brothers, and of course, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Another responsibility I enjoy is answering reference questions posed via the LOC website. In  responding to a patron's research question about Peter Force (He's a very cool guy, you should look him up), I found on one of the microfilm reels a letter written by John Hancock, which was clearly recognizable from his famous signature. Working on these questions is the main method by which I get to investigate the collections, so needless to say, I'm looking forward to more of them!

By Friday afternoon, both the other Junior Fellow and I were both pretty exhausted, but I feel like we both are integrating ourselves well into the staff and slowly but surely are learning the way things work.

The cover of the orientation booklet. Also known as the guide to everything that's going on this summer in the Library

One of the hallways on the upper floor of the great hall in the Jefferson Building. Neoclassicism was a huge influence on the design of the library before it opened in 1897.

This is the original office door of the Librarian of Congress from when the building opened.

Wow! How is it already the end of May???

After two days of intermittent driving and enjoying the scenery of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, I finally arrived in Arlington, VA (a suburb of Washington D.C.) yesterday afternoon. In addition to using the weekend to get comfortable with my commute and the area, I'll using the holiday weekend to get some tourist action in before I begin working.

Today started early with a test run of the commute I'll have from my house to the Library. I wanted to see how long I will need to allow to arrive at the Library on time (it's about 50 minutes, if anyone is interested). My Dad and I, the two museum enthusiasts in our family, used the rest of the day to explore the visiting exhibits in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, the National Museum of American History, and the International Spy Museum. In addition to exceeding my 10,000 daily step target, I learned a lot- for example, did you know that Abraham Lincoln was the only president who held a US Patent?- and soaked up some rays walking in the sunshine.

I've already started a mental list of the amazing museums and exhibits I want to explore in my free time and on the weekends, however I also am starting to get REALLY excited to work in the Library starting Tuesday. Being present in the city and experiencing all the sights and sounds of Washington continues to remind me what a joy and privilege it is to call this part of the nation my home for the next ten weeks. I have a few pictures of the adventures from today and will be posting again soon!

Emily

The James Madison Building, where I will have Orientation and also the building that houses the Manuscripts Reading Room where I will be interning.

A side view of the Jefferson Building, housing the main reading room and the exhibit halls.

National Museum of American History, right across the National Mall from the Smithsonian Castle

My collection of maps, programs and self guided tour pamphlets from the day.