The Nation's Library: The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

by Alan Bisbort, Linda Barrett Osborne, Sharon M. Hannon

"A newly up-dated and re-designed celebration and guide to the Library of Congress"--

Genres: History

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 16, 2012

Reviews

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being such a book nerd, I really liked this book because of it's (detailed) overview of the Library of Congress - how the library started, the physical structures were built and how a researcher can use the library (the collections are incredible). After visiting the Jefferson and Madison buildings this past weekend, I just couldn't get over the craftsmanship and architecture and was truly amazed to find they store documents from a copy of the Gutenberg Bible to current tweets!

Truly America's library (and the exhibits are great too)... this book is great reference before you visit.

[Dee Renee Chesnut · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this as a souvenir during a visit to the Library of Congress.
This book serves its purpose for it has many pictures, its text tells the history, and its text describes the many services the Library of Congress provides to our representatives and to the public.
I recommend it as a souvenir.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got this book at the gift shop of the Library of Congress after taking the tour. A nice little summary of both the history and the current set up of the Library of Congress, but otherwise a fairly straight-forward book without any good stories or anecdotes. The real tour of the LOC was much, much better than the book; but then again, should I have really been surprised by that?

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short volume is an overview of the Library of Congress. It includes visitor details as well a description of all three buildings. It is rather interesting because it offers details about the various collections.

[Molly · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's alot of good, sound information- and really great images (although selecting which to include must have been hard- so many good things there!) No citations, though- just a "further reading" list, and sources for images. That's a bummer. Also, while much of it hasn't changed, it was published in 2000 and not only is there a new Librarian of Congress, but sentences like "formats as old as papyrus and as new as CD-ROMs" do give the reader pause.