Tag Archives: Library of Congress

Rip Van Winkle at the Library of Congress

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There’s nothing like a trip to the Library of Congress to lift my spirits–and to induce me to ponder the upsides and downsides of modern technology.

For those who have never experienced its delights, let me explain that the Library of Congress–and in particular the august Main Reading Room–is a shrine to that now almost obsolete format (or should I say “platform”?), The Book. The high-domed reading room is adorned with such a profusion of ornate marble and imposing allegorical figures representing all things book-related that it can sometimes be hard to concentrate on the actual, usually rather modest-looking, book in front of you.

But the Library’s collection is far from modest. It’s basically everything that’s ever been published in this country, and a lot that’s been published outside it–plus unpublished letters, diaries, maps, drawings. You name it. All brought to you on a silver platter (metaphorically speaking) a mere 30 to 90 minutes after you fill out a call slip with one of those tiny eraserless pencils otherwise reserved for keeping score in miniature golf. And all this for free–or rather, paid for by tax dollars. For my money, it’s tax revenue well spent.

But as to technology: yesterday I had an experience in the Reading Room that illustrated the ways in which old-fashioned book-related research methods can lead to serendipitous discoveries. I had requested a scholarly article on the Baltimore Almshouse, which I thought might be relevant to the novel I’m now researching (one of my characters is based on an early 19th-century Baltimore doctor who tended to the poor). As it turned out, the article dealt with the wrong time period. But in the same bound volume of the scholarly magazine I found another article–on the Baltimore yellow fever epidemic of 1800–that I eagerly realized was right up my alley. I learned that the predicament of the poor during the epidemic led to the founding of the Baltimore Dispensary, where my doctor was a key player.

What does technology have to do with this? Well, if I’d looked at the Almshouse article online–in isolation rather than in a bound volume with other articles–I never would have come across the yellow fever article.

On the other hand … after reading the yellow fever article I made my way down the hall to the Microform Reading Room, which is something of a letdown after the Main Reading Room. The last time I was there, perhaps a year ago, it looked like a forgotten broom closet that for some reason had been stocked with recalcitrant, creaky microfilm readers. It still looks like a broom closet, but the old microfilm readers have now been banished to a back room (and the back room of a broom closet is a pretty ignominious place to be banished). In their place stood sleek little black models perched next to equally sleek computer screens.

A friendly librarian, noting my confusion, explained that the new microfilm readers were actually hooked up to the computers: you viewed the images on the monitors, where you could enlarge or darken them or rotate them with the click of a mouse. Not only that, she told me, you didn’t have to copy things the old way: by pressing a button that caused the image to be temporarily sucked into the bowels of the microfilm reader, only to emerge as an often illegible hard copy at twenty-five cents a pop. Now you could simply copy the images to a flash drive, take them back home, and insert them into your own computer.

Of course, being a female version of Rip Van Winkle, I hadn’t thought to bring a flash drive. But the gift shop stocks them, apparently for hapless souls like myself. I was happy to fork over the somewhat exorbitant price of fifteen bucks–not that bad, really, when you consider the flash drive is a lovely shade of blue and doubles as a souvenir, since it’s emblazoned with the words “Library of Congress.” After the librarian gave me a crash tutorial in using the newfangled equipment, I spent a few joyful hours stalking, and saving, my microfilmed quarry: The Observer, an obscure weekly magazine published in Baltimore during the year 1807 and edited by Eliza Anderson–the first woman to edit a magazine in the United States and one of the main characters in my novel.

How happy did this make me? I can’t even begin to tell you. When I started researching Eliza, I had to transport myself to the Maryland Historical Society library in Baltimore to read the magazine in bound volume form. Oh, they had it on microfilm, but the copier function had ceased working at some undetermined time in the past, and there was no money to fix it. I couldn’t even xerox the hard copy pages of the magazine because they were too fragile. Nor could I even use a pen to take notes, because only pencils were allowed in the library. So I spent many hours taking notes on the articles with an increasingly dull pencil (the library did provide an electronic sharpener, which would periodically pierce the silence), and sometimes copying them word for word. Let’s just say it was a bit tedious.

Imagine my joy when I discovered that the microfilm was also available just a Metro ride away from my house in Washington DC at the Library of Congress–where they had an actual working microfilm copier, albeit a cranky one. What I really dreamed of, though, was a way of having access to every page of every issue of the magazine at home, so that I could draw on them at leisure in writing the novel. It was hard to predict which pages I would need and therefore which I should copy, but it would have cost a fortune–and taken untold hours–to copy them all. And the idea of buying the reel of microfilm and a cranky microfilm reader of my own crossed my mind, but I quickly dismissed it as unrealistic. Clearly, there was no way my dream would ever come true.

Until now, that is–just a year later. It will take a while, but I can copy every single page of The Observer onto my flash drive and install them on my computer. I’m amazed. But my amazement is nothing compared to what Eliza Anderson would experience if she were to be revived and told that all 52 issues of her magazine–the publication she sweated and slaved over for many hours each week, the source of so much joy and angst, the means by which she made her minor mark on history–could be easily contained within a bright blue object that’s only two inches long.

The Author

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Watching the movie The Soloist this weekend put me in mind of an encounter I had recently, one that continues to haunt me.

The Soloist — which I highly recommend, by the way — is a true story about the relationship between a journalist, Steve Lopez, and a homeless man, Nathaniel Ayers. When Ayers, who is playing a two-stringed violin on the street and is pretty obviously schizophrenic, mentions something about having gone to Juilliard, Lopez does some research and finds out it’s true: the guy was once a promising cellist. Lopez writes about Ayers and helps him get a cello, reunite with his family, and move off the street.

Here’s my own experience: a couple of weeks ago I was leaving the Library of Congress after an intense day researching the woman I’m currently writing about, Eliza Anderson Godefroy. Outside on the deserted pedestrian walk, I saw something that turned out to be a couple of crumpled dollar bills. I picked them up but I felt funny about taking them: I didn’t need this money. I resolved that I would give them to the first homeless person I saw on my way to the Union Station Metro stop.

There’s generally no shortage of homeless people hanging out in front of Union Station. When I got to the first of the pedestrian islands you cross in order to get to the station itself, I found no fewer than four homeless people clustered there, begging cups at the ready. What to do? How could I choose between them? If there had been only two, I could have given them each a dollar bill. But there were four.

I hurried on, intent on making my train. But at the next pedestrian island — at the side of the ornate fountain depicting Columbus staring forth boldly from the prow of his ship — there was a lone scruffy-looking middle-aged African-American man seated on the ground, a knit cap pulled low over his brow. Quickly, I stuffed my dollar bills into his cup and began to move on.

But he thanked me and called me back — and, surprised by his clearly articulated, unaccented English, I turned around.

“I want to tell you something,” he said crisply as I drew closer. “I want you to go to the Library of Congress.”

“That’s where I just came from!” I said.

“Well, I want you to go there and look me up in the card catalogue,” he continued. “Rod Amis. A-M-I-S. There are three of us: Kingsley, Martin, and me. They’re British — and I’m half-British myself. Anyway, go to the Library of Congress. You’ll see I’ve written 11 books. You’ll find them there.”

I was amazed. The specificity of his description (not 10 books, but 11) and his obvious acquaintance with literature (he was familiar with Kingsley and Martin Amis, neither of them shlock writers) were convincing. Eleven books?? I wanted to ask what had happened to him, how he had ended up propped up against a marble fountain, begging for spare change.

But I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. Instead I told him that I too was an author — that I had a book (only one) in the Library of Congress myself. I told him that I would be sure to look him up and that I had enjoyed meeting him. He gave me a warm, slightly surprised smile and nodded graciously.

I couldn’t get Mr. Amis out of my mind during my ride on the Metro. And as soon as I got home I looked him up in the online catalog for the Library of Congress. To my dismay, I was told that my search had found no results. I tried again, then again. I tried a Google search and found a Rod Amis who had self-published a couple of books, but who was clearly not the same Rod Amis I’d met.

Finally I had to face the fact that I’d been duped. And yet, I couldn’t feel annoyed at Mr. Amis for taking me in. Maybe he hasn’t written 11 books — maybe he hasn’t written any books — but he’s clearly got a story of some sort to tell. I’ll probably never know what it is. And I’m certainly not going to get a book out of the encounter, the way Steve Lopez did.

But what I did get out of it was a moment of connection with someone I had dismissed as just another homeless person. Whether or not Mr. Amis is a fellow author, we at least have — or perhaps in his case, had — similar aspirations. And my gut feeling is that Mr. Amis actually believed what he was telling me — it was not so much a matter of lying as of confused realities. What’s more, the look on his face when I told him I was glad to have met him — words he probably doesn’t hear too much — is something I hope I’ll never forget.

And those words were true.

ADDENDUM: After I published the foregoing blog post, I heard from an old friend of Rod Amis’s. It turns out that the “Rod Amis” I found through Google IS the same Rod Amis I met. I had dismissed the possibility because the Rod Amis I found had written a book about New Orleans, and I just assumed he’d still be in N.O. But apparently Mr. Amis has now migrated to D.C. Lest there be any doubt, there are pictures of him in front of Union Station — displaying a sign that says “Rod Amis … Author, Raconteur, Bon Vivant” — accompanying a posting about him at npr.org by Debbie Elliott.

So I stand corrected: Mr. Amis has in fact written at least two books (I could only find mention of two) and was a pioneer in (ironically, since I’m writing a blog post) the blogging world. The comments I came across online about his writing were almost uniformly enthusiastic — and from what little I read, the enthusiasm is justified.

According to the NPR post, Mr. Amis has “slowly lost the use of his brain because of a vitamin deficiency often brought on by alcoholism” — possibly an occupational hazard of his former profession as a bartender. I would amend that: he clearly hasn’t entirely lost the use of his brain, although it’s likely his writing days are over.

I was also wrong about another thing: as Mr. Amis’s friend observed in his e-mail, a book could certainly be written about this man. Alas, I don’t think I’m the person to write it.

What I’d really like to be able to do is figure out some way to get Mr. Amis off the street and into some kind of safe shelter — especially on a day like today, so cold and wet that I myself am reluctant to venture outside even for a moment. It pains me to think that Mr. Amis — or anyone else for that matter — is spending an entire day unprotected from weather like this, weather that’s only going to get worse in the coming weeks and months.