Library of Congress

Nerd Alert:

Yesterday I went to the Library of Congress for a tour organized by work. We also got the special tour, the tour of the law library of congress. It was so cool! We saw a whole bunch of rare books from the law library including one of Ben Franklin's printings of the Constitution. A copy of the Constitution in Dutch. A copy of the Constitution in Cherokee. The language of Cherokee Indians was actually made up and written specifically for being able to write the Constitution. The sounds have no relation to the written words. The words stand for syllables. And, the words are a mix of Cyrillic and Germanic written forms. The rare collections part of the law library also has a whole section of international texts on rule of law. How cool! I am going to make an appointment to go back and see it. I touched books from the 1400s, 1500s, 1600s. Oooo. Aaaah.

From there, we went to the regular Library of Congress tour. Pretty cool, too (almost as cool as the law library). The building itself is beautiful with stained glass, sculpture and meaningful art. The statue figurines are all studying various things. One of the ceilings had the three most prized professions written in various stones -- Medicine, Theology, and - you guessed it -- law. I thought that was pretty cool. Body, Mind, and how those two (body + mind = person) relate to others. We also saw the first map that ever had the label 'America' on our big ol' mass of land. Apparently, the 'brary bought it for $10 million. That's right. 12 pieces of paper for $10 million. They also have Thomas Jefferson's personal library collection. Actually, it's most of the collection but not all because some of it got burned back during the civil revolution. He had a huge philosophy and law section. Hurrah!

The guide said there were over a hundred names of famous academics, intellectuals, important people, etc. written in the walls/ceilings, but that only 1 of them was a woman. What made me ever angrier was that the tour guide (an old man) didn't even bother to tell us the woman's name or what she did! The irony! Telling us how in the olden days people didn't respect women as intellectuals or leaders, but then not telling us about the rare one that they did revere! I was going to ask, but another girl on our tour interrupted him and asked first.

I wish I could spend many, many days in there.

I like books. Books are my friends. :)

Speaking of, right now I'm reading Armageddon by Leon Uris. He's one of my favorite authors. I just love his stories, I love learning (his books are mainly creative non-fiction/historical fiction). I love that he writes about Jews. I love that his books are epic. What are you reading, besides my bloggie ;) ?