Leslie and David's Wanderings: 12 October 2022 Library of Congress

One of David’s must see’s is the Library of Congress. After seeing the library in National Tressure, he wanted to see it in person. We arranged for an entry time a couple of days in advance. We took the Metro in to town and got out at the Capitol South station. We were a little early but they let us in anyway. The Library of Congress was authorized in 1800. It was housed in one of the wings of the Capitol Building. In 1814, the library was burned by the British when the Capitol was burned. Thomas Jefferson offered to sell his extensive (over 6487 books) library collection to congress to replace the library that had been burned. Congress bought Jeffersons library in 1818 for a bit over $23,950. The library suffered another fire in 1859 and portions of the original Jefferson collection was lost. The library has been attempting to replace the missing volumes ever since. They had the original Jefferson collection in a special exhibit. The library moved to its current location in the Jefferson Building in 1897. The library has over 174 million items in it collection today. We walked into the Great Hall of the library after going through security. The architecture is gorgeous! We explored the exhibits (including the Gutenberg Bible) in the public area, including Jeffersons collection. We worked our way up to the third floor where we could look down on the main reading room. Having seen it in the movies, it was disappointing to learn the general public was not allowed in to the actual library. But we found out that we could get library cards and then we could go into the reading room and the library collections. So some helpful folks showed us where to apply on line and we were approved in minutes. When we went to get our pictures taken, we were asked for ID. Unfortunately, Leslie had not brought her driver’s license so they would not let her get her library card. So David got his library card and went into the reading room, while Leslie headed for the Library of Congress Store. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed in the reading room or in the collections. So he wandered around the room, walked back into some of the collections, and climbed to the second floor. The higher floors are off limits to the public. Even though he was tempted to sneak up to look for the Presidents Book! After joining up with Leslie, we took the Metro down to Crystal City and had dinner before heading back to the Wanderer.