#nextLOC

September 10, 2015 5:05 PM

Metafilter's own Jessamyn West has an extended discussion the future of the Library of Congress and why it's relevant outside of the library community on the Circulating Ideas podcast.

Previously: Librarian of Progress

posted by adamsc (6 comments total)

Woo! Circulating ideas on the blue!
posted by EinAtlanta at 6:20 PM on September 10, 2015

God, how I hope someone sensible takes over the LoC, and starts pushing for good uses of information in this stupid, sclerotic government.

(Which is to say that I will listen to the actual podcast tomorrow while I drive to work.)
posted by wenestvedt at 8:39 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Slight derail but if you're in DC get a Library card, most fun wandering through the underground warrens on a hot day I've ever had. And on a really hot day there's a tunnel over to the capitol. Two actually but tourists are only allowed to transit one.
posted by sammyo at 4:34 AM on September 11, 2015

wenestvedt: I realized that was a hazard of a single-link podcast post – sparse comments until enough people have had a spare hour to listen to it – but there was so much nodding around the office yesterday that I figured it warranted a post.

sammyo: I also suggest visitors check out the events calendar. One of the less publicized activities are the regular free concerts thanks to major donations by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge and Gertrude Clarke Whittall in the 1920-30s. The current director, Nicholas Brown, has put a lot of energy into the program.
posted by adamsc at 5:16 AM on September 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Listened to this the other day - really interesting! A minor point that stood out to me was the discussion of Congressional Research Service reports not being easily available - when I was a young idealistic congressional aide, I brought the suggestion of a bill to make CRS reports public to a legislative team meeting (thinking it would be a nice fit with our theme of government reform and transparency) and was roundly laughed at and told that literally zero constituents were interested in reading CRS reports. Thank you for the validation all these years later, Jessamyn!
posted by naoko at 8:12 AM on September 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

The CRS thing even came up when I got a special tour of LoC a couple weeks ago.
posted by wotsac at 3:39 PM on September 11, 2015