August 5

Today it was back to the grind. I still say it feels like continuing to go to class even though you've already taken the final. We do have an evaluation to fill out, too.

I spent the entire day processing CDs upstairs in SpecMat. I had only spent about one hour there this week so I thought I should make up some time to make it more equitable. Plus, I missed it a little - not the processing but the listening. I went through quite a bunch today!

Thom, my fellow intern in Recorded Sound, was offered a job at the Library, if you can believe it. It sounds like Gene, my boss, basically created a job for him so he could stay in DC until more permanent jobs open up in like April. This is only like an 8-month, temporary gig and it's a technician job (which therefore doesn't require a MLS) but I still can't believe that Gene was able (and wanted) to manufacture this job for Thom. Personally, I'm thrilled that I only have to work with Thom for three more days; the thought of working with him permanently frightens me. Thom has not completely decided whether he is going to take the job, though. There is a job he's been waiting for in Indiana. It also is a temporary job, though, and would be a 1-year placement. Must be so rough to have everything in life just handed to you...

Anyway, it was my last day with Gene since he's on vacation next week and although he didn't offer me a job, he hugged me and said if I ever needed anything from him like a reference and recommendation that he would definitely help out. He actually did say that if I found myself back in DC or Culpeper in need of a job, he would definitely love to help me out. Anyway, how nice of Gene! I really, really liked Gene. I even daresay I had a small crush on him. Small both because he's married and so it was therefore totally inappropriate and also because he's shorter than me. Heh.

So now there is only one more week at the Library. Next week among the activities planned are the tour of the Library dome, the going-away party and my other boss, Nancy, is going to take me to the National Museum of American History to talk to one of their librarians. I'm psyched about that!

August 4

Today was the big day with our big presentation/open house of all the "treasures" we interns have found this summer! It was a lot less stressful than I thought it would be since no one particularly important showed up. No Librarian, no Congresspeople, very little press. In fact, the only press people I'm aware of were this very cute young intern reporter from The Washington Post and one very old, not-taking-any-notes man from the Associated Press. Besides these two "outsiders," the rest of the people who came by were Library personnel. There was quite a turnout, though, with hundreds of people milling around and checking out the items over the course of two hours.

I've included some pictures to give everyone a feel of what it was like. Basically, it was like an open house with each division's interns revealing their finds. Thom, my fellow Recorded Sound intern, said he now knows what it feels like to work as a vendor at a conference. Luckily for me, Thom was more than willing to stay behind the table and answer questions and play DJ. He was very thrilled to play DJ, actually. We let people listen to our CDs if they want.

Overall, it was a fine time, although I was very annoyed to be grouped at the same table with the Motion Picture interns of MBRS. I realize we are all under the same division, but those two units represent 9 of the 21 total interns so why do we have to share a table? The two interns from the Copyright Office had a whole table to themselves, as did the three interns from Manuscripts and the three from Prints & Photographs. If any thought was put into the logistics of sticking 9 people behind one table... well, right, there was no thought put into it.

The cute Washington Post reporter wrote a story that made the front page of the Style section of the Post. It's here. (If you need an account to access the story, you can find one at BugMeNot.) He mentioned some of the more interesting finds - which includes one of our political, post-9/11 CDs, which I got him to listen to when he was at my table. Yes, I spent the whole time trying to get the cute reporter to talk to me. There were some really neat, apparently previously undiscovered manuscripts - one from Tom Wolfe when he was in college, one from Noel Coward... There were some photographs that were neat, including one of Henry Ford in an automobile race in Grosse Pointe, MI, in 1901, and some of the home video footage provided by the motion picture division was interesting, notably the footage of Michael Jordan playing basketball at age 13 and some clips of Marilyn Monroe. These last couple are mentioned in the article.

I'm glad it's all over because I was a little stressed about the whole event. The most popular questions were along the lines of "What's so special about this?" and the truth is, I don't know... we just needed to find stuff... But, I BS'd my way through it. Overall, it felt like a final project for a class... except now we still have to go back to class for a week.

This is a close-up of our Recorded Sound treasures. That's Thom in the back.


This is the whole MBRS table, with Recorded Sound on the right of the picture and Motion Picture on the left. That's Thom again behind the table and Nancy, one of my supervisors, on the far right.


This is an even better view of the space we were given... as you can see now that we were placed between the Motion Picture people (with an eye-catching TV) and the prints & photographs people (with an eye-catching TV). Here, we have an interested party listening to something with the headphones. Oh and that's the cute Washington Post reporter interviewing the Motion Picture people.


And, finally, here's the reporter (his name is Dan... he's from Buffalo) talking to Thom. Yes, I am a bit of a stalker. I did eventually butt my way into the conversation, too, and hey, he actually mentioned the item I showed him in the article so what do you know? Oh, by the way, all these pictures were taken at the very end of the day so that's why it doesn't look that crowded there. It wasn't anymore, but the event was officially over by this time.

August 3

Today was basically one of preparation for tomorrow's big presentation. Thom & I needed to get our items ready, meaning we needed to find good tracks for listening in case someone wanted to hear the CDs. We also needed to come up with good explanations for why we included something. We also needed to be able to describe the methodology we used in finding our "treasures." We also needed to somehow decide how to display everything, including having a boom box or stereo accessible for playing the CDs. So, it was just a matter of thoughtfully trying to describe things.

Also, we got emails telling us about a tour of the Library's dome planned for Monday morning. At first, I thought, hmm, okay, I thought we already saw the dome from the inside of the main reading room, but whatever. Well, a later email clarified that we would be going on the OUTSIDE of the dome. This is about the best picture I could find on Google to show how high the dome is. Here is another, from Yahoo, to give perspective - it's just as high as the Capitol dome, which is a much more well-known dome. In fact, I think they said on one of the tours that the Library's dome is actually just as high but the torch on the top was put on because the original statue that was designed for the top would have made it higher than the Capitol dome and of course, that's a no-no. So, anyway, apparently I'm going to be climbing up to the dome to see the sights. I am going to have some kickass pictures of the city after that! Let's just hope it doesn't rain.

August 2

Back to work. Today was kind of a busy day. I worked in cataloging for an hour in the morning. Then it was time for the Recorded Sound group party for us interns. Lots of breakfast foods (bagels, doughnuts, danishes, deviled eggs and yummy fruit) and, better yet, GIFTS! Yes, the department actually bought us gifts which was really unexpected and fantastic. We got a MBRS book, a Library of Congress pen and Library of Congress post-it notes. They are all pretty cool. You, too, can have a copy of the book as I found a PDF of the entire book.

After the party, our bosses Gene and Nancy met with us to talk about our big presentation of our "treasures" on Thursday. Gene gave us some tips about what to say and what to do. It's just me and Thom and Thom is a music know-it-all so I sort of feel superfluous. I know if I start talking, he'll just interrupt and cut me off anyway. I'm really not looking forward to this whole big event and it's being advertised like crazy. There are signs up everywhere; emails have been sent out to staff, announcements have been made and we were even on the front page of The Gazette (the Library's employee newsletter - and I'm guessing that link won't work but I figured I would try it anyway) last week, complete with picture. Besides the 4,000+ Library staff, press and Congresspeople are supposedly invited. I'm guessing not many Library employees are going to walk over to the Jefferson building to see our "treasures" but then again, it's kind of hard to read the people who work here - anything to get away from actually working seems to entice most so who knows. Don't forget, there are tunnels so it doesn't require much effort to walk over there. Also, there's a two-hour timeframe.

Besides that, we had a MBRS meeting, which happens monthly and primarily covers issues relating to the big move to the Culpeper facility next year. After the meeting, we walked over to the Adams building (which is actually even farther away and still probably only took 15 minutes so my theory that people won't walk to the Jefferson building is probably way wrong) to get some of the CD images scanned by some fancy-schmancy digital imaging machine for the Web site. I'll let you know when I find the site.

Anyway, when Thursday is over I'll be much relieved. And ready to go home as I'm not happy that the place I'm staying has roaches. This is not a new development; however, the one I saw tonight was about 4 times larger than any of the other ones I'd seen - and it was alive, while the others were already dead. Ick, ick.

July 29, 30, 31; August 1

I elongated my weekend by calling in sick Monday and not going to work. Yep, I’m a bad girl. Turns out I missed a tour of the Capitol in my sickness, which actually bums me out a little but oh well. I heard the tour was sort of abbreviated anyway.

My weekend, though, was great! My mom’s superior shopping/bargain hunting abilities brought me a new outfit for the wedding without me having to leave the comfort of their home. Also, I saw some friends, saw my nephew (see pictures below - Ben's first Web site), went to my college roommate’s wedding and reception, where I saw other friends, and finally just hung out with my parents. It was very nice! And the drives to Cleveland and back were not too difficult or traffic-filled at all.