DC reporting in, #8: 3 Reading Room Tours & 1 Lecture
There’s not that much to report from DC at the moment – H&R were in town again before their flight back to Germany, and we went out to a basketball game (this time the Wizards even won!), took a trip to Alexandria, played some shuffleboard, visited the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum that’s here in DC on the mall and did some other fun stuff – which was all good fun, but (see [by now] numerous other postings), as I don’t talk about non-public events involving other people if they don’t want me to/without asking, there aren’t any photos etc. to share, only the barest bones of an itinerary :-).
I’ve also been fighting a cold, which means that I’ve spent the last days mostly to-ing and fro-ing between the Library of Congress and my room, without any big diversions in between. That said, spring seems to actually have arrived in D.C. at long last, and so I am writing this post from my back porch, where it is a balmy 20°C at 9pm at night (so it’s actually a warm summer nights, if one is thinking in Flensburgian weather terms). So far and in my subjective experience, DC seems to be in a climate zone that skips the 12-17°C bracket – it was freeeeezing cooooold on the weekend, and then, bam, 25°C two days later.
Today, fellow Kluge fellow Joseph Genetin-Pilawa gave a great talk on “The Indians’ Capital City: Native Histories of Washington D.C.”, which was my knowledge-highlight of the week. Joe’s working on a larger project on the Indigenous histories of Washington, D.C., and hearing him talk about it is always fascinating. Here’s an interview on Time.com with him that gives you some insights and further info.
There are, in fact, so many interesting projects being done by fellow Klugians right now that the lunchtime and hallway and photocopier etc. conversations often make you feel inspired about your own research and are definitely another benefit (besides all the resources available) of being in the Kluge Center.
I’ve also been learning more about the Library of Congress in general this week, as I’ve been taking three of its reading room tours – they’re offered at the beginning of every month (I was too overwhelmed and underorganized to take advantage of them in March), so I went on three for reading rooms that I thought might become relevant to my work as my time here progresses, namely of the Newspaper Reading Room, the Science & Business Reading Room, and the Rare Prints & Photographs Reading Room (the Newspaper RR tour was the best and most helpful one, for me, albeit talking to the S&B librarian after the tour was also very helpful [though I won’t need much of their material] – I think I won’t need the Rare Prints & Photos RR as much as I thought – which is no fault of theirs, of course!).
So, quite a lot to report, after all!
The photographs in this entry show the subterranean corridors that connect the three LoC buildings (Jefferson, Madison, Adams) to each other (after hours – they’re really busy during the day).
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