Students and staff from the LCI in Northern Virginia recently visited the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution, and it serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with more than 162 million items. The collections include books, sound recordings, motion pictures, photographs, maps, and manuscripts.
Read students' accounts of their field trip below.
Khalid Almahmoud:
The library of congress was very beautiful. I was surprised about how many items they have (about 120 million), although it was only a library it didn’t only have books but maps and musical instruments. The scalping on the stairway and the sides of the sailing was also very beautiful. The instructor explains how the sailings and the stairs had both and Italian bird and an American eagle which represented the USA and Italy as the famous artist who carved them was Italian. Afterwards she showed us how the staircase had many sculptures of babies who were working as it represents how Americans always work together to make a living for the states. After looking at all the beautiful carvings we went to a room full of painted sailings. They showed us how the sailings showed us separate parts of family members but at the end had the whole group in one sailing.
Ashwaq Alhajri:
Have you visited Library of Congress? If not, you should visit one day. Yesterday it was my first time to visit library of congress and it was with my school.
We meet at 9 Am and we was a group then we went to metro station (orange line), we start our tour at 11 AM with women she was kind and she tell us about everything in library.
Library of congress is the biggest library in the world was established on 1800, In DC. They have 20,000 books from every major and have almost 5,000 language also there is 6000 visitor every day, the design of the library was amazing and the color was beautiful, the library for everyone.
In conclusion, there is a lot of library in the world but the library of congress is different because certainly you will find the book that you are looking for it and when you entire the library you will feel comfortable.
Gaida Alammash:
My colleagues and I had a great opportunity to visit the library of congress, which is located in Washington DC, on November 14, 2018. I was impressive of how the library is huge and full of wonderful sculptures and painting. Also, I was amazed by how the building is covered with marble and gold color. As international student, having this great opportunity helped me to understand the American culture and how books are so important to them. Also, having a chance to visit one of the biggest libraries in the world is completely a new and an exciting experience for me. The first things that caught my attention are the design of the building and the large collection of the books. The entrance was full of different interesting sculptures which make the building different than the building that I have ever visited before. In the beginning, I thought that they do not have meaning. However, I was surprise when the docent told us that each of those sculptures has deep meaning. The most interesting one was a set of kids’ sculptures that each one of them is representing different jobs such as engineer and doctor. That helped me to understand the importance of working hard in the US society. Also, there were two statues of an old and young men reading books which represent that learning is not limited to a certain age in the US culture. Overall, it was a wonderful experience to visit one of the most important libraries in the world and got a great chance to immerse myself in the American culture.
Natalia Rodriguez:
It was impressive to see how much security was protecting this place. When I was registered, I felt like an airport and suddenly I realized that this building had an amazing architecture, design, and value known as the world's largest library. Afterwards, a tourist guide was assignment to us, who started the tour explaining about how this place was founded and constructed.
The history says that Thomas Jefferson began writing the first 740 books which later became around 7000 books. The library of Congress was established in 1800 with 740 books which ones were transferring from the U.S. Government to Washington in the new Capitol Building. Unfortunately in 1812 this library was burned by British troops generating a War, but in 1815 the library was reconstructed and the president Thomas Jefferson who was retired and living at Monticello offered his personal library as a replacement. After that, Congress bought the Jefferson's collection about 7,000 books and thus was born a great national library. After this time in order to protect the books collection because of two past enormous fires, Congress decided the construction of a new library building. This library building was opened in 1897 called “Congressional Library” which was acclaimed as a glorious national monument. Starting with the tour we visited the first floor the Great Hall that is designed with Italian Renaissance style and decorated with marble floor, glass skylights and the twelve zodiac signs in its walls. The second floor was Minerva Mosaic who represented to defend a civilized society. And also it was there the Thomas Jefferson's Library where we could know his first books collections, then we knew the “Waldseemuller Map” that was created at the time people used to believe that the earth was flat. Finally we knew the Christopher Columbus Journal where was in manuscript about all his expeditions at the American Continent.
Ultimately is interesting to mention that in the Library of Congress any person can become a member, just is required to show the ID and is free. Any person can get there to read, make researches and use their 236 antique desks placed in circle. Nobody in the world can take books out except the President of The United States of America.
