Library of Congress Opening Anew Saturday
To return The Library of Congress to its 19th century glory, Congress appropriated funds to restore and renovate the Thomas Jefferson Building starting in 1985.
The LoC has remained open in varying levels of capacity since then and has been closed completely since April 3 of this year to install new exhibitions. Tomorrow these new exhibitions, as well as the "New Library of Congress Experience", will launch.
After seeing the new exhibits and visitor “Experience,” we are happy to say that the Library of Congress has made it fully into the 21st century.
When the Library opens the bronze front doors of the Thomas Jefferson Building for the first time since 1990 on Saturday, visitors will no longer have to enter the building in the cramped lower level. Now you can enter where you were always meant to—right into the beautiful Great Hall.
Just off of the Great Hall, you can use one of the interactive kiosks to page through the LoC’s collection of rare bibles, which includes far more than their most hyped 14th century bibles, the Gutenberg Bible and the Giant Bible of Mainz.
From there, head up to the Mezzanine Level, where kiosks provide high-quality zoomable images of the Great Hall itself, showing angles on the sculptures, floors, and décor of the building that we've never been able to see before.
Photo by LaTur.
There are still some technical issues yet to be worked out. While we were looking at one kiosk, the screen froze (“Not Responding”). And another kiosk in one of the Exhibitions likewise bonked out. The information on these kiosks is supposed to be accessible on the new (not yet functioning) my.loc.gov, also launching on Saturday.
Besides the new Experience, though, the LoC is also opening two new exhibitions on Saturday, thereby continuing the new wave of exhibitions that began with Exploring the Early Americas, their new permanent exhibition.
One exhibit is the revamped Thomas Jefferson Library, which displays the massive collection of books Jefferson sold to Congress for a measly $23,950 in 1815, after the British burned the Congressional Library the year before.
The other exhibition, Creating the United States, features drafts of the Declaration of Independence, George Washington's copy of the Constitution, and John Beckley's Bill of Rights. In the exhibit, kiosks and other documents trace the political and ideological foundations of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, as well as how these documents fared throughout time. They succeeded, for example, by providing support to Civil Rights and Women's Liberation movements. But the Constitution squarely failed to support one Japanese-American man, who describes how he was interned in a camp during WWII.
Another, publicity-related aspect of the new Experience is the LoC's Inspiration Across the Nation campaign. The LoC is looking for creative works by Americans today, and the chosen works are to be added to the Library's collection.
Librarian of Congress Dr. James H. Billington said he expects the new Experience to “connect to a broader public the Library of Congress has ever reached before.” Part of the increased flow of visitors, he said, will no doubt come from the new passageway from the Capitol Visitor Center.
But Gerry Lenfest, Chairman of the James Madison Council, was so excited about the new Experience he said he thought the flow would be the other way around: the Capitol would get more visitors because of the masses that will now visit the LoC.
Either way, the new LoC is vastly improved and its changes should bring it on par with the Smithsonians and other D.C. must-see museums.
The Thomas Jefferson Building is located at 101 Independence Ave SE, and is open from 10-5 Monday-Saturday.