June 7
Today was just more orientation activities and it was just so-so. We had meetings in the Jefferson building, which is basically the main building of the LOC - the building most people think of when they think of the LOC, the one with the fancy architecture and the nice exhibits and the grand reading room. Even the meeting room we were in was very decorative and ornate - but we were behind the scenes of where the public would go. We interns will all be working in the Madison building, which is basically to the south of the Jefferson building and luckily, there are tunnels between all the buildings (there is a third building as well, the Adams building) to prevent us from getting cold, wet or, as is the case now, melting from the 95-degree heat. Tunnels even lead to the House (and I think Senate) buildings.
Our subject matter today was preservation and we got PowerPoint lectures on different areas of preservation and proper handling of materials. I don't think any of this information was really new to me - how to handle books, how to retrieve books from shelves, how to correctly store books, all that jazz... it's all stuff I've heard before. Preservation just isn't my thing, though, and particularly when a couple of the preservation women just read their presentations to us, I was thisclose to falling asleep. After the lectures, we did head down to the preservation lab, where they showed us how they have protected and saved certain items. With the visual aid, the material was a little more interesting, although the lab certainly isn't designed to hold about 30 people and that's at least how many people were there as the lectures were made to not just my group of interns, but another group of longer-term interns who are there through Sept. 30, not to mention all of our division supervisors.
After lunch, we (we meaning the three Recorded Sound interns) met again with the supervisors from the Recorded Sound division. There was even time for a tour of the archives. We saw thousands and thousands and thousands of LPs in storage. I want to stress - thousands. Actually, it's probably millions. Not to mention that they basically have two copies of every item. Pretty cool. There are also listening rooms and stuff like that for all types of formats. Most of the stuff seemed to be the vinyl LP format, but there are also different kinds of tapes and even recordings created on glass. A little brittle, as you can imagine.
The last thing we did today was hear from the Librarian of Congress, Mr. James H. Billington. He was nice enough, but kind of long-winded and took about 20 minutes each to answer questions from the audience. Yawn! Is that rude to be bored by the Librarian of Congress? Yeah probably, it is… Anyway, Mr. Billington is certain we will all find great treasures among the Copyright deposits we are searching. He was a big advocate of using the money to bring in interns like us to clean up the Copyright deposits and he hopes to make this an annual thing.
I met a couple more co-workers today and also found out all the different divisions we are working in. Three are in Manuscripts and will be dealing with plays; six are in Motion Pictures; three are in prints & photographs; two are right in the copyright office and three are in Music - not to be confused by us three in Recorded Sound. It's interesting because that doesn't even begin to touch all the different areas in which we could have expressed interest when we applied. I don't know what happened to those other areas (History, Literature, Popular Culture, Folklore... those are some that come to mind) but I guess it might have something to do with the fact that those units couldn't find room for the interns or couldn't pull everything together in the about 8 weeks that they were given. In all, there are like 20 interns out of some 200 applicants, apparently. So yes, I feel rather privileged to be among the 10% chosen. Interestingly, the group has few library science students. Thom & I from Recorded Sound are like half of the library science students, although some of the undergraduates seem to have some interest in perhaps pursuing an MLS. Maybe I should talk them into going to Syracuse... (or not...). There is a gal who attended the University of Texas, another attending the University of South Florida (I think) and another who will be starting the program at Catholic University soon. There are two other graduate students that I know of and the rest are all undergrads.
Our subject matter today was preservation and we got PowerPoint lectures on different areas of preservation and proper handling of materials. I don't think any of this information was really new to me - how to handle books, how to retrieve books from shelves, how to correctly store books, all that jazz... it's all stuff I've heard before. Preservation just isn't my thing, though, and particularly when a couple of the preservation women just read their presentations to us, I was thisclose to falling asleep. After the lectures, we did head down to the preservation lab, where they showed us how they have protected and saved certain items. With the visual aid, the material was a little more interesting, although the lab certainly isn't designed to hold about 30 people and that's at least how many people were there as the lectures were made to not just my group of interns, but another group of longer-term interns who are there through Sept. 30, not to mention all of our division supervisors.
After lunch, we (we meaning the three Recorded Sound interns) met again with the supervisors from the Recorded Sound division. There was even time for a tour of the archives. We saw thousands and thousands and thousands of LPs in storage. I want to stress - thousands. Actually, it's probably millions. Not to mention that they basically have two copies of every item. Pretty cool. There are also listening rooms and stuff like that for all types of formats. Most of the stuff seemed to be the vinyl LP format, but there are also different kinds of tapes and even recordings created on glass. A little brittle, as you can imagine.
The last thing we did today was hear from the Librarian of Congress, Mr. James H. Billington. He was nice enough, but kind of long-winded and took about 20 minutes each to answer questions from the audience. Yawn! Is that rude to be bored by the Librarian of Congress? Yeah probably, it is… Anyway, Mr. Billington is certain we will all find great treasures among the Copyright deposits we are searching. He was a big advocate of using the money to bring in interns like us to clean up the Copyright deposits and he hopes to make this an annual thing.
I met a couple more co-workers today and also found out all the different divisions we are working in. Three are in Manuscripts and will be dealing with plays; six are in Motion Pictures; three are in prints & photographs; two are right in the copyright office and three are in Music - not to be confused by us three in Recorded Sound. It's interesting because that doesn't even begin to touch all the different areas in which we could have expressed interest when we applied. I don't know what happened to those other areas (History, Literature, Popular Culture, Folklore... those are some that come to mind) but I guess it might have something to do with the fact that those units couldn't find room for the interns or couldn't pull everything together in the about 8 weeks that they were given. In all, there are like 20 interns out of some 200 applicants, apparently. So yes, I feel rather privileged to be among the 10% chosen. Interestingly, the group has few library science students. Thom & I from Recorded Sound are like half of the library science students, although some of the undergraduates seem to have some interest in perhaps pursuing an MLS. Maybe I should talk them into going to Syracuse... (or not...). There is a gal who attended the University of Texas, another attending the University of South Florida (I think) and another who will be starting the program at Catholic University soon. There are two other graduate students that I know of and the rest are all undergrads.
posted by Cheri W. | 9:07 PM
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