>> From the library of congress in Washington, D. C. ^M00:00:05 [ Silence ] ^M00:00:10 [ Music ] ^M00:00:21 >> Welcome to the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress. You know the fancy looking room down there with the marble columns and the bronze statues? That's us. For most visitors to the Library, they see us from above, but the only thing keeping you up here instead of down here is this. While, the Library's founding purpose is to serve Congress. Its amazing resources are here for all of us regardless of what your interests are. Say you want to research Byzantine Art or read that Goose Bumps novel that gave you nightmares when you were seven. All you need is to be 16 or older and a little bit curious. While we have 19 other specialized Reading Rooms in the Library. For most researchers, everyone from published authors to first time visitors, this is where they start. This room is a gateway to what is basically the world's largest collection of interesting information. Reference collections in the Main Reading Room alone consist of over 66, 000 volumes, and our Computer Catalogue Center provides access to our collections and over 800 databases, around 600 [background music] of which can only be used here at the library. But some may still wonder why bother? Why come to D.C. figure out the Metro, get a reader ID and find your way to the Main Reading Room, when you could stay at home with your computer or go to the local library? The fact is that [background noise] even in the age of search engine, databases and digitization, there are plenty of reasons to experience being here. Here's your first reason. If you want it, chances are we have it. While it's not true that we have a copy of every book ever published. The odds are if it's culturally significant and useful for research we have it. As I said the Main Reading Room is essentially the gateway to discovering the 150 million items within the entire Library's collection. We might not have everything right here, but this is the best place to find out what we do have. Every year over one million items are circulated within the Library at large and each day 10,000 new items are added to the collections. Here's your second reason; librarians. Our Main Reading Room is staffed by librarians who probably know how to find things better than you do. It's their job and trust me they're good at it. >> Sometimes people are doing long-term research on something really in depth and sometimes they just want to know the answer to something that's been bugging them. >> Someone was looking for monasteries that brew beer, someone else was doing research on religious tracks during the Civil War Period. >> I've had a patron who was looking for the first North American host of the Santa Clause parade. >> But I've also had a chance to identify some really wonderful objects for people, such as a fire screen that turned out to be painted by the French painter, Fragonard which was really exciting, an Art Nouveau necklace made in Scotland. So I get to see pictures of really beautiful objects and help people with identifying, trying to identify maybe a maker or some information about it. >> I love especially working with historical novelists. There are quite a few who do research here for their books and questions like, was a whale ever stranded in the Thames River in the 17th Century? You know, can you find any proof of that? >> A lot of the questions that I receive tend to be more about women's history which, you know, dovetails nicely with Women's Studies, but they do tend to be questions like, "Where can I find out what life was like for a woman in this particular era?" There's also questions like, "Who was the first woman to do some particular feat or about American women politicians." >> If we're at the Reference Desk and of course we're answering questions of all types. If there is a British question that my colleagues don't feel comfortable with then they will call me and I'll come down there and deal with the question. Most of the time, that's with British government publications that they're uncomfortable with, so I usually deal with those. >> Our librarians represent some of the premier experts in their fields. And many have specialized degrees in their areas of interest. That being said, our librarians in the Main Reading Room are also generalists, which means that they're primary focus is just figuring staff out. They're pros at sifting through the information overload and helping you find a starting point. >> If you want to use -- make the best use of your time, I'd say always talk to a reference librarian because the place is confusing and they can direct you to the best resources. >> We do a lot of referrals here, so often times when people contact me they're really asking, "What are the next steps I should take in my research?" So I will refer people to the National Archive, other libraries that I'm familiar with. But also the collections here are so rich and the materials come together in such a wonderful way to expand on your research. To draw people into those collections is really exciting for me, too. >> There's no predicting what's going to come in but with all fine, but usually we have stuff on it. That's the fun part of working at the Library of Congress. No matter what they ask I figure it's here somewhere. >> [Background music] Last year alone the Library of Congress took on over 500,000 reference requests, some in person and some through the 'Ask a librarian' feature on our website. So if you have any questions they would be more than happy to help you find an answer, really just ask. Here's your third reason; it's not all on the internet. There's a common misconception these days that everything can be accessed online easily and free of charge. However this isn't quite true. >> The fact that it's electronic does not mean that it's free on the internet. Most of the best electronic stuff is in the subscription databases which you cannot tap into remotely. You've got to be here. >> So for users that are on site we provide access to lots of different databases. I think currently there over 600 that we subscribe to. Some of these are things like encyclopedias or directories. We also have a lot of databases that are more scholarly in nature. Sometimes there are citation indexes which can be really useful for scholars to sort of trace like, who cited this particular paper and we also have lots of newspaper databases, and some of those are historical going back, you know, to the Colonial Era in American history and also, some databases allow you to access current news. >> It is also true that despite efforts to digitize library collections, there's so many books that are not available in their entirety online. And even more haven't been digitized at all. Oh we have a ton of stuff here that they cannot get on the internet. Most of the books published in the 20th Century after 1923 are not digitized by Google or anybody else. If you want to actually read the full text of the books after 1923 and get more of them in one place, that's here. Most of the journals that we have, I suspect are not digitized. We're the only library that has a full set of American Doctoral Dissertations. They're not digitized for free distribution on the internet because of copyright restrictions. If you want to actually read the full text of the books after 1923 and get more of them in one place, that's here. But they're not online; they're not digitized by anybody. >> [Background music] So there you have it. Three great reasons to visit the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress. I promise you there are many, many more. If you would like to plan your visit, check out our online collections or take a look at our page for researchers just visit our website. There you will also find information about free research orientations and other workshops. We're always open during regular business hours as well as three evenings a week and Saturdays. So stop by, get registered as a reader and come spend some time at the Library of Congress. Be curious, be inspired. ^M00:07:53 [ Music ] ^M00:07:59 >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.