Transcripts For CSPAN3 Library Of Congress In The Digital Age 20240714

And the Edward Kennedy institute for the u. S. Senate, the Young Leaders network aims to promote in the next generation of leaders the spirit of Public Service as embodied for decades on capitol hill by ted kennedy. Our goal is to provide students with programs that enrich their experience while interning in washington, d. C. And to help them create a network of peers as they lay a groundwork for a career in Public Service. Tonights program, uncovering the treasures of the library of congress will focus on the importance of collecting physical information and materials in the modern digital age. Our distinguished speakers will discuss the work of the Nations Library by providing Public Access to some of the most valuable treasures and documents in the nation. Please give a warm welcome to the librarian of congress, dr. Carla hayden point by broadcast joined by broadcast journalist and nyu alum, ray suarez. Ray i figure the applause is my cue. [applause] carla hayden, welcome. Dr. Hayden i was just in new york. Ray i could not afford the tuition. You have an amazing job. I hope you feel that way too. Dr. Hayden every day. Ray kind of a curator, a guardian of national treasures. Kind of a keeper of the nations memory, a very important part of the job. A very distinct assignment that is different from the National Archives though there is some overlap. And we can talk further of where your turfs intersect. You have to keep pace of rapidly changing technology, what is in the collection and what the library keeps as a response to changes in technology. The library is a vault but at the same time a place to keep things safe but also a place that has to be porous and able to be interacted with by the public which i think is a pretty interesting balancing act. And i want to talk to you more about that. How long have you been on the job . Dr. Hayden it will be three years september 14. That is when i was sworn in officially. And at my swearingin, i made the point that to be a person of color and to be a woman, the first woman since 1802, there have been 14 librarians of congress, but being that person of color, to head up the Worlds Largest library, 171 million items and to know that the people who were my descendents were denied the right to read by law was very powerful. And so, in fact, i can share this. I have shared it before. I was doing my speech, getting ready for the swearing in, and i thought as a good library and that i would list all of the laws and there were a lot of them from every state. What the punishment was for reading. For teaching a slave to read. Amputation. All of that. And i was going over it and i was so proud and sharing it with my mom and she said, carla, that would be kind of a downer. [laughter] could you just condense it to your people were denied a right to read. Because of the significance of that and librarianship is one of the four feminine careers. I was a twofer. Ray 100 of the librarians here had been male. Dr. Hayden definitely. Ray a lot of people dont realize that the cornerstone, the Foundation Stone of the librarys collection, after a catastrophic fire of the original library of congress, was Thomas Jeffersons own book collection. He could not have imagined you as the librarian of congress either. Dr. Hayden definitely not. Thomas jefferson. That is interesting and we know things have been revealed about his relationship with people of color and that type of thing. He was a very learned man and almost eccentric. If you ever have a chance to go to monticello where he had a wonderful estate, he has Different Things from all over the country. If you imagine yourself in 1770 visiting this person and you would walk in and say this looks like a museum. This guy is really something. He collected in different languages, he had the koran and other things because he said there is no subject to which a congress should have to refer. Should not have to refer. When the fire came in 1812 or 1814, the library of congress had a small collection of law books. And they actually used some of those books to start the fire in the capital. Thomas jefferson, after the fire that destroyed the books, offered his collection to the nation. And that is the foundation of the library of congress. He also could have sold his wine collection, but he made that decision we later learned. Ray every now and then, you will pick up a paper or magazine and read yet another article about the death of the book and how the internet is killing reading and so on. And yet, there is a gush of pieces through your doors that have to be catalogued, kept, and trackable. Maybe the authors of america have not gotten the word that reading is dead. Dr. Hayden and it is interesting because sometimes the concern centers around the format we called it the container. For many years, of course it was in the book, the text form both hardback and paperback later. But people are now reading but in different ways. And graphic novels are doing quite well. Childrens picture books are doing quite well. It depends on what you are reading and how you are reading. And bookstores, small, independent bookstores are really starting to pick up. Ray how does the library of Congress Keep track of everything coming out and make sure that it has it, can hold on to it, and if need the, find it . Dr. Hayden the library of congress, and this is the most exciting part, we have staff we collect in over 470 languages. A worldwide collection. You have Staff Members who are looking at what is being produced, what might be relevant years from now. And it is not just in physical formats. For instance, when twitter is coming out, librarians at the time said, what is it about this format that people 50 years from now or 70 years from now would look at and say, wow, that was the arab spring and all of that. And so you have a cadre of people who are thinking about the future. And is not just scholars, what people would be interested in and want to know about, what is the history and who is making it now and who is in the past. We just had a very good discussion recently about what rap artists we should be looking at because we have an extensive music collection and we put things on the National Registry every year. What films should be put on the National Registry . Cinderella was not on there. The classic. Ray the disney animated movie . Dr. Hayden yes, the disney animated movie and we just put a jayz song on as a recording. It is kind of fun to think about what to preserve and collect for the future. Ray the assumption is that not everything needs to be collected . Dr. Hayden well, it depends on who is collecting it and what we do is work with other libraries, museums, other historical societies to really as long as someone is collecting too, because one institution cannot collect everything. For instance, the new smithsonian africanAmerican Museum, we went in together and purchased the first known photograph of harriet tubman. We preserved it at the library of congress and made sure that it will go into future decades and it is on display at the museum. For instance, harvard has a special library on womens studies and so they just received the archive of angela davis and then the library of congress has the archive and will be getting one of a very famous opera singer, jesse norman. But we are making sure that we are covering the waterfront. Ray i have been down in the vaults of the National Archive and i have put on the white, conservators gloves and looked at the great treasures they have there and one of them is Thomas Jeffersons own diaries from the time he was minister in france. Why do they have that but you have a letter that john adams wrote when he was minister to great britain, the first one, the first ambassador in the court of st. James . Dr. Hayden we have pieces of Thomas Jeffersons hair. We have a piece of box hair. We thought about an exhibit of body parts. Of congress for instance has the papers of 23 president s from George Washington to coolidge. Fdr started the president ial library system. The National Archives has some materials because, over time, it depends on family members giving things to an institution. And for instance, the library of congress has the contents of abraham lincolns pockets the night he was assassinated. And it has been on loan to for to the ford theater, but we have it because his greatgranddaughter gave it to the library of congress. Ray are these responsibilities described in law, who gets what . The smithsonian loves to call it self the nations attic. Some of these sound like real attic items. Dr. Hayden and we are the treasure chest. And i want everyone to know there is a friendly and collegial and wonderful historic competition. In fact, the head and the new secretary of the smithsonian, dr. Lonnie bunch and the head of the archives, and the library of congress, we call ourselves the game of three. And so we have almost historic showdowns when we meet at different places. So, for instance, the National Archives, we met there and the archivist of the United States was very pleased in his vault to show the smithsonian and the library of congress our founding documents that he had. So we said huh, ok, we are going to meet over at the library of congress. And we were able to show a few things that made him kind of pause. And at the smithsonian, it is the same thing. Ray but are there things that he might take a pass on in favor of you and vice versa because you are more set up to take something and not other things . Dr. Hayden or it fits into our collection better. The library of congress is interesting in that we have the Worlds Largest collection of baseball cards. We have the papers and have opened up an exhibit on womens suffrage and we have the papers of Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady stanton and the organization. The National Gallery has an exhibit on women suffragettes. And so it depends on what type of material it is but sometimes we actually compete for certain items as well. Ray lonnie bunch, the new head of the Smithsonian Institution was the director of the historical society. You came through chicago as well. A good incubator apparently for people of Major National intellectual institutions. You learned library science. Were you still with the Chicago Public libraries when they started the one city, one book program . Dr. Hayden i was not there then. That was also a program that quite a few cities picked up on and even in baltimore where i used to live. Chicago has had a Strong Library system. Boston has one. New york is really one of the premier Library Systems and then a separate one for brooklyn and queens. And then the new york public is manhattan, staten island, and the bronx. We compete with them too. Ray we were talking earlier about how you did not imagine yourself this was not your career goal. You did not, even in more recent years, when we met at the American Library association, the meeting, this was not in your future. How are we sitting here tonight . What happened . Dr. Hayden im working on that. What happened was i am a career librarian but an accidental librarian. You mentioned chicago. I was in chicago right after undergrad when i needed to have employment. That same mom has been very down to earth most of my life and all of my life still. And i got out of undergrad with history and Political Science thinking about law school or what was my next step. My mom said, while you are thinking, you might want to get a job. Just a thought. And so, between job interviews where i was looking at social services or whatever, i would hang out in the library. The Central Library, Chicago Public because i loved libraries, bookstores, books. Thats been all my life. I was sitting there between interviews where they would tell me that i was nice and a bright young lady but no experience. That is why internships are so good. Do that if you cam. Do that if you can. One of my colleagues that had just graduated with me, carla, are you here for the library job . They are hiring anybody. I said thats why im here. And so i went upstairs and applied. I said i like books and children and they put me on the south side in a Storefront Library with a young lady, and she was going to graduate library school. And she was in jeans, and she was jewish and she was hip and giving storytime to young people. And this was in the 1970s. She was giving storytime to people with autism. And i thought, wow, this library stuff is different. Power to the people. Information is power. And so that was the theme of my career and i have talked taught librarians at the university of pittsburgh and i went to chicago and opened up a public Science Library there. I just did a lot of things, went back to chicago and was the chief librarian, deputy commissioner, a very chicago title. And then they contacted me from the library that was legendary. I knew about it, in baltimore. It is also the state library for maryland. And we learned about it because it was the First Library system in the country, the first one that opened with a Central Library and branches. Mr. Pratt was the pioneer of Andrew Carnegie. And before Andrew Carnegie started his program of giving to communities throughout the country, he came down to baltimore because he had heard about andy pratt. And in his pamphlet, basically, the gospel of wealth, carnegie talks about him. They called and i thought it might be interesting. I spent time there serving in the state of maryland but also the city of baltimore. And that was boots on the ground where the library really meant something. And when my predecessor at the library of congress announced his retirement, there was an administration at the time that reached out to a number of people in the library community. And i was one of those people. They talk to me about how the library of congress could be open to more people, really reach out to be accessible. And then, in the course of that, i asked i was asked if i would consider being considered . And when you do these consulting things, you need to watch what you say. [laughter] ok, well because how can i go from information, opening up things, making sure everyone has opportunities at this wonderful institution with so many treasures, the Worlds Largest collection of comic books. The home movies with Liza Minnelli at two at her birthday party. The treasures, and i knew about that, but it was the challenge of how do you make it accessible . How do you open it up and let everyone know it is their library . Ray when i think back to the time when i got my First Library card in the brooklyn public , you had to reach up to the library. The library was not reaching down to you. The librarian was a sort of forbidding lady who made it very clear what the rules were and how they were to be followed. The doors were not thrown open with a lot of people at the front door waving you in. You are entering a sanctum and you had to follow certain rules. Not only of propriety but also respect for the book and so on. And as i watched my own childrens relationship with the library, so, that generational time, the whole thing of what a library was to a neighborhood seemed to have changed in those years. With one book, one city, with storytime, with collections and outreach meant to catch the eye of new americans. Literacy for adults, almost going back to an older time at the beginning of the 20th century when literacy classes were taught in local branches of the public library. Did the state of the art change during that time when i, trembling with my library card in my hand, walked up to the desk to borrow something . Dr. Hayden before Andrew Carnegie in the 1870s, after the civil war, there was a push for universal education. At the same time, that is when most museums, public museums opened and in pittsburgh, carnegie opened a museum, a library and a Natural History museum where he would bring things. And remember, this is the 1870s, 1880s, and the nation was getting ready for an Industrial Revolution and teaching everyone to be literate and the Public Libraries really started. And then when you had the mass immigration, the library was seen as a force to introduce people to the country and all of this. Over time, in the 1920s, that is when the librarians there is a book about it was a feminist book about librarianship. Spoiler alert, Melville Dewey is not who you thought he was. He was quite a fella. A lot has been written about him but he started all of this. He said when he was really thinking about Public Libraries he said that is when librarians should be female. You should let them in because they will guard, just like the home. And also that women could do repetitive, boring work. [laughter] there are some really great quotes. That is where you had the library card and they were the force that was going to help everyone find great literature. But over time, the Great Depression when people were going to the library and that is when they had newspaper rooms because they were so many people out of work and they would go to the library. And then in world war ii, all of these different stages and by the time you were going, it was starting to loosen up. And then by the 1960s and 1970s, it was the place to help people in their lives. Now, you have flu shots being given out at libraries. A library in ohio has a section called beyond books where you can check out a sewing machine or Musical Instrument or power tools or traffic cones. That one threw me. Are they under construction in the library . Think about it. If you were having construction at your house or teaching young people tove, drive, so libraries have become community centers, they have Internet Access and especially in rural areas where you do not have high speed internet, they are a lifeline. People, 90, almost 100 of job applications have to be submitted online. So people are going into Public Libraries to get applications. Ray and when i hear that, i think great, what institution is closer to people and where they live . And so it makes perfect sense. But then i also think, uh oh, Musical Instruments, power tools and traffic cones, are we asking an often underfunded, under resourced, short on Personnel Institution to do too many things into many places taking advantage that it is close to the people. Dr. Hayden i am so glad that you said that because i was president of the American Library association. Thats when we met, and then i was in more of an advocacy role. And in my role now, i am representing the library of congress and that fact though is outlined in a new book called palaces for the people. Erik klingenberg talks about the fact that librarians really believe in what they are doing as a social service almost. And so they are taking on a lot and people sometimes it has been there, it is always going to be there, and there is that tension. Ray Erik Klingenberg is also a chicago trained sociologist. You serve, you work for congress. The library is chartered by congress. Is there a political aspect to your job when it comes to things like advocacy and appropriation and making sure theres enough places to keep the stuff that you are required to collect . Making sure you are the resources you need to make sure it is temperature controlled and properly curated do you have to do more than just be a good librarian at this point . Dr. Hayden now, my advocacy role is for the library of congress and their resources and Staff Members to do what we need to do. The technology alone and how you plan for the future when you are going to be collecting in all types of formats. There are six storage modules at fort meade, maryland that look like an amazon warehouse. That is the remote storage. There is the culpepper campus, the david packer campus that has 14 million items there in terms of film, photographs, sound recordings. And then the three buildings on capitol hill as well as the library for the blind and physically handicapped where we are doing ebooks and all of that. So my role, yes, i have senate and house hearings where i have to present the budget. I have to be that person that says the library of congress is important to congress. We serve congress. We have the Congressional Research service. Those are swat Team Research analysts that serve directly to congress and then the people, the public. So that is a large part of my role. And i think people would be very heartened to know that members of congress are very interested in history. And that is something that they relate to their local libraries and what is going on there, up in Washington State for instance, they have three districts doing storytime with congressional members and our surplus book thing. So what we do for congress and our swat team is what libraries are doing in every community. And so that appreciation for what libraries do is there. Ray be thinking of your terrific, elegant, and to the point questions because we will be taking those in just a few minutes. So you have to have a Good Relationship with the leaders of congress. Dr. Hayden all of the members of congress. Ray what do they ask you for . Give people an example of the kinds of things it is their library, their resource, what do they need to know . Dr. Hayden the Congressional Research service and i love when they have policy teams. There is a phd in just about any subject, lawyers, and embedded librarians, there are teams of researchers and analysts. What they are asking for and what their Staff Members need is objective, nonpartisan research and information about something. And that is what that group does. So that is the daytoday, 24 7, whenever congress is in session, there are people there to provide that information. In terms of what they want in terms of their constituents and their citizens, it is the trips where we go out and i go out to different communities, we have a surplus books program, brandnew give to local communities. The history project, we do a lot of things to connect our resources to the general public, school libraries, and community libraries. Ray when you say they want objective, nonpartisan information, when i frankly hear the things they say to the public, it does not sound like they want objective, nonpartisan information at all. Is that just what they do with what you give them . Dr. Hayden we provide the information. [laughter] and that is the thing that all libraries and librarians do. We use to say, when it was just books, let the books battle it out on the shelves. We want to have many points of view and you decide. Our responsibility is to make sure that you have the full range. What they do with it or what anyone does with what you are providing, sometimes, i remember being in Public Libraries as a reference librarian and someone would come in and ask you for something and youre thinking why do they want arsenic . Hmm. But, you are only to ask questions to satisfy the information need. Say why dot want to you want to know what the effects of arsenic are and how long it takes before someone keels over. You dont ask that. You show them what the best resources and you do that. That is the part of it. i want to talk about technology, because i was at my altar alma mater recently, and the big library on , and what square park had been the room where the in normas card catalog was capped is now and art gallery because who needs a card catalog . That is one example of many of the Way Technology has changed what we think of as a library in how you store corrections, how people find things, but all of that stuff is expensive. One of the most frequent knocks on the federal government is it is still using windows 97. You will see Legacy Technology from the 1990s because nobody some Companies Continue to make things just to service the federal government because it still has machines that are in service from ancient days. Can a federal agency, an arm of the federal government like yours, keep up without spending a fortune, and you have to think about things like useful life and how many years we can expect this new iteration to stay relevant to cuttingedge . Carla that is common with all libraries wherever you go. I was at the nyu library because i had the great honor of being a part of the graduation this year in yankee stadium. Talk about the best on second base, you are looking at yankee stadium, everybody had a baseball hat. There was a feeling the library reflected that because in the exhibit space they had a special exhibit for a fireman. It was fabulous, it was from their collection and things on loan. The library was really powerful and they had a lot of plans for the future. That is a good example of a library making it pretty wise choice about having spaces. With the library of congress, the biggest challenge is having the resources to preserve a 16th century scroll and the Conservation Lab and all of the things and technicians that can do that as well as a Digital Strategy manager and how we preserve the old recordings, the 78s and home movies with Liza Minnelli. Then where you have to keep being concerned about security in the digital age especially, so that challenge is there. You should be pleased to know congress has been very supportive of our technology. So we are pretty advanced. We have been working on it quite a bit. Ray who gets to use the library and under what terms . A lot of our guests are students. How do you present yourself at the front door and make an inquiry that might get somewhere . Carla we have two front doors. We have the physical which gives you access to the reading room and request materials that are some of the more rare materials. You cant check them out of the building, but you can use them there. That includes manuscript collections and diaries. The second door is what we did with the Teddy Roosevelt. We digitize them. You can enter through our website. The thing we are putting their, anyone can use anytime and download quite a few things you would be surprised to see. You can come in physically to the sites but also digitally. We are building the digital presence. Ray do you have to give a reason for wanting to see this stuff, or can you just do it . Carla you can do it. The only thing that we request is that when you are in the reading rooms, that some of your materials that you would check in the back, so maybe that letter from Thomas Jefferson to benjamin franklin, it is an actual letter, you could tuck in Something Like that. We dont want to put little tags on it because it is a letter. We ask and say, that sharpie ray [laughter] carla that you use pencil. You will be actually touching rosa parks pancake recipe in her own hand. And also what her feelings were on note paper in her own hand about her arrest. Ray i think it is remarkable a citizen can present themselves and see those things. Carla yes. That is why the digital is so important because there are so many people that cant present themselves or come in person. So by digitizing, we are making it available. That is where our connections and where people are going to see that highresolution image might be in University College libraries and Public Libraries. Ray there are microphones in the aisles, if you want to get questioning going. Usually it is a timeconsuming process that there are already people at the mics. You go first. I work in my College Library in the digital archives so something my superiors deal with is what do we digitize first and so how do you make that decision and what are your priorities . Carla what we are looking at is what are the things that only we have, that Teddy Roosevelt diary on that page where he says light has gone out of my life, when his mother and wife died in the same house on the same day. We have that, so we prioritize the unique items, not books that other libraries have or things like that, the rosa parks collection. That is where we look at, what are the unique collections and also timing of events. So with the branch, we knew we were having a baseball exhibit and we had scouting reports. It is like triage. That is where you have to look very womens suffrage, we knew that was coming up so the Susan B Anthony papers got pushed up. There has got to be an anniversary. So there are anniversaries that you are looking at, but it is what you need, what do we digitize that nobody else has . Thanks for your talk. We have seen a number of instances in recent years of loss of important cultural information, everything from the more trivial examples like myspace announcing they lost all music before like 2012 or something to more severe instances like the National Museum of brazil where there were entire languages that got lost because they had not been digitized. I am wondering what pieces of information do you see that are most at risk of being lost from the historical record and what is the library trying to do to preserve those . Carla i mentioned the Preservation Lab and Conservation Lab but also the digitizing to make sure we have copies. We just repatriated materials to afghanistan in the library there. We are concerned about security in many ways. It is not just in the digital and making sure we have that it also the physical. That is fire suppression. There are a lot of things we do that we cant talk about in terms of security, but the Fire Prevention is one of the major things that you have to consider. It is in our rare books collection and also the law library, which is the largest library, sometimes we have the largest of this, and in some of , there are carts that have boxes, acidfree boxes that if anything happens, the Library Librarians and the staff know that these things are going out first of the building. You would not want to be in front of one of those carts. They have already told us, that is going. That copy, Thomas Jeffersons copy of the declaration of independence, is under the security for that but also if anything happened or there was constantr, that is a concern. And you make sure when you are prioritizing or digitizing things, you also are looking at, if this thing did not exist, would that make you that museum in brazil, so that is of timespend a lot thinking about and actively working on. Ray what things are scanned or things that only exist in digital form in the first place . Some hostile actors could erase it, steal it, rifle through it, make it incomplete. The possibilities are frightening. Is it like an arms race, you have to stay one step ahead . Carla not just people who have malicious intent, but there are accidents, power outages, all of these things that can happen that can also jeopardize. We spend a lot of time on that basic security especially in the digital realm as well. The firewall, all of the type of thing. Good evening. We may the related, but i dont know. I have been a part of many of the gershwin prize awards because i do a lot of volunteer work for pbs. How do you choose a recipient every year . Carla the gershwin award is a prize for popular song because the library has the archive of george and ira gershwin. His piano, George Gershwin it is wonderful. This award is really, there is a Selection Group. Then there is a consideration of what genres, so paul mccartney, billy joel, stevie wonder, smokey robinson, tony bennett was the first non the first performer. And gloria and emilio estefan. Now talk about the fun part of the job. But that is the Selection Group and you look at what would represent popular song. I think there will be a few surprising coming up this year. I would press you on that but i know i will not get anywhere. No breaking news. I am patricia from baltimore. I can tell you we are proud of you. You still live there, i know. I brought you a gift, and i dont know whether it is appropriate for you or someone from the center hair carla you are going to make us fight. [laughter] i was john brademess first intern you probably can tell. In june 1965, he sponsored House Resolution 416 which was for congresspeople to have the interns. It was the First Internship Program for congress. They could be paid up to 75 a week for 2. 5 months, not to exceed 750 in this resolution. And it passed but by 229 to 153. I have not only the copy but i have the press release from his Office Written in typewriter in blue ink. So i would like to present it to anybody who might want it because i am cleaning house. Ray for people who are not aware of the lovely intersection of a piece of history like that, he was not only a prominent veteran member of congress but also a former president of new york university. He helped put the university back on its feet financially ruining set of years when the university was closing departments, selling property, laying off faculty. He helped bring it back to the place of prominence it enjoys today. And he used the library of congress. We many times had to call and get information for him. He was a true intellect. Program, we will arm wrestle. Carla actually because he was seminal in nyu history, and when you were talking about what he did, i heard about it at the pregraduation dinner. He talked about him and the life of new york city and what and i heard a lot about him, so actually this needs to go in their archives. I will make sure they get it. [laughter] carla after i look at it. Ray yes, sir. Thank you. I was wondering how important it is to maintain the physical books, films, recordings, photographs as opposed to keeping digitized copies. Do you have a policy what you will keep in physical form and what you keep only digitized . Carla yes. A lot of things in physical form and because the library of congress collects things that are more nonfiction, history, things like that, they would not preserve for instance popular fiction as much. Maybe one copy of that, so there are policies about, for instance, textbooks. When would you collect or preserve a textbook . That is something that there are extensive policies about what types of materials, how many copies of one thing you would collect and there is an entire department, collection management, that is what they do. That is extensive. Ray have you had to constantly reevaluate that policy as the amount of stuff, the river changes . Carla especially periodicals. In every library, National Geographic, that is one of the most prolific collecting items. Ray so you made a decision to keep them in americas garages . Carla everybody keeps them because they are so beautiful and everything. It is one thing most libraries get the most donations of is National Geographic because you hate to put them in recycling or anything like that when anyone passes or something, but how many copies of it to you need and how many physical copies . It is wrenching because some of it relates to how much space you have. With physical copies, the library of congress has six modules. When you go to those, like i mentioned the amazon thing, they are stored you dont even know what is in a box. Is within an inch of their lives and there are barcodes and things because you run out of space. Think of your own house or apartment. I decorate with books. I wanted to mention today is National Interns day. You mentioned being aware of how you mentioned being aware of how monumental it was to be appointed as a woman of color. Do you think your unique perspective influences the way make decisions and how you see history . As opposed to the other librarians of congress . Lebron has been interesting since 1802. The library of congress has had a different background. There have been two other lebrons of congress that were public librarians, one director of the Boston Public Library and the other the cleveland public library. Poets,ave been lawyers, scholars. At this point, being a librarian the First Library and specially trained library than 70 years, levers are changing and digital it is really i think i bring that perspective. As a woman in that feminized profession, it has been something that younger librarians have come up to me and our conferences and things and say i can imagine myself as a elaborating congress or the head of anything, but as a woman of color, that is where i have or just people of color in the profession say it is so significant to see yourself. So the perspective i bring in as i was astory history major and i know that you can find things and find out about things that i have such a sense of that, that i think i bring that to it, and letting more people read about it. A lot of the things going on currently. There are times i wish wow if people could read some of the history or see some of the things, it really would give perspective. So i know i bring that deep interest in history because of also the person of color and women to. Theres a book called women who read are dangerous. [laughter] i cant endorse that just saying it is an interesting book. Because they did not want women to read for a lot of reason. Just like they did not want people of color to read because you might find some dangerous ideas in books. So that is a perspective. Hello. Comment, question and ahead scratcher. The comment is, i hear have unique collections like obama memorabilia from africa and other things. That people would not know about. Is, currently johnson publication archives are for sale. Is that something library would costle to buy, or is there because i know it is expensive. For those who do not follow it closely, then johnson collections the archives of ebony and jet collection. Important, important Historical Documents going back to a time when the lives of black americans in the culture of black america simply was not covered by National News outlets. The johnson archives are just a tremendously valuable repository of the cultural memory of black americans. The hud scratcher is have you ever considered you are the first africanamerican, first woman Librarian Congress and you are the 14th librarian of congress. Lonnie binds was the secretary of the smithsonian, the 14th secretary of the smithsonian. Have you ever thought about that . Yeah, it is interesting also because the new director of the air and space museum is a woman for the first time. The new director of the american History Museum is a woman. The new director of the American Museum of history is a woman, and it is interesting. I dont think it is so much of a head scratcher as a wow. And 14th. People that like numbers, i can see 217 years, 14 librarians, there are some long tenures in there. I hope your feeling spry and ready to do the job for a long time. [laughter] but the johnson papers, i had the honor of meeting with and knowing johnson in chicago. He gave me some of the best career advice i ever got. That is how i got to baltimore. I went to him because he was a mentor to a lot of people and very quietly. I respected him when the opportunity came to either stay in chicago or go to baltimore and do a good job. He said sometimes you have to move to do better. All right. That archive i understand the library, there is going to be a purchase soon. It is not library of congress. But it will from what i understand be in a form and a place that will make it accessible. Because there has been so much concern about that. There was a time, and you know this, with the Johnson Publishing ebony and jet for the African American community, jet was the only place to find certain news and everybody subscribed. Will saying wow, have to get jet to say that people saying have to get jet to see that. I think it will be lets get your two questions on after the other. The library will answer them both and i promised to get her out of her here more or less on time. I will try to be concise. You mentioned a process of prioritizing information in a triage like way of deciding what will be kept and what will not. When you have a high influx, thousands of things per day, how do you delegate that duty and schedule it and who gets to make those decisions . I mentioned the collection management unit. There are specialists. There are specialists in multimedia, people who are looking at film, people who are printing photographs, music, there are specialists in subject areas, science, different countries, the law librarians. There are people, that is all they do is scan the environment for what is coming up for sale that we do purchase materials when things are possibly being offered, people looking at the collections and where they are going to put them. That is the fulltime job of these Collection Development Staff Members. It is like a hunt. I had the opportunity to work at a Historical Archive in guatemala and a problem they have there is suppression of history and hiding documents from the public. I am wondering if there is anything you do or the library of congress does to advocate for other countries preserving their history . I mentioned repatriating. We have six overseas offices. We have people who are collecting materials right there on the ground from the areas. Sometimes those materials are only available through the library of congress. We see that it is the Nations Library with a worldwide focus. By doing that we are able to like haiti had the earthquakes, we were able to give materials back in digital format. That is a responsibility. We take it seriously. Please thank the librarian of congress, great to talk to you. [applause] [applause] you can follow me on twitter. [ every dad put something up from the collection. Announcer this weekend in history tv, today on six clock p. M. Eastern on the civil war, scott make us coauthor of targeted tracks talks about the importance of the Cumberland Valley railroad during the civil war. At 8 00 on lectures in history, discussion on playwright August Wilson. The things motivating August Wilson are his desire to move black people from the margins to the center. Us,say what is true about what matters to us, what is happening in our lives, announcer sunday at 4 00 p. M. On railamerica, the 1919 silent army some of, motor convoy, about a transcontinental truck from washington, d. C. To san francisco. At 8 00, on the presidency, Herbert Hoover and his world war i relief work. Hoover and his team of volunteers built crv into remarkable organization. It had its own flag. It has its own fleet. It negotiated what you might call treaties with some of the warring european powers. Enjoyeder, hoover, and former diplomatic immunity and traveled freely through enemy lines. Probably the only american citizen permitted to do so during the entire war. Announcer explore our nations passed on American History tv every weekend on cspan3. Our natinos past. The suit makes parents is really vital to make. For past winners of cspan studentcam video competition, the experience spark their interest in document reproduction. Drakeurrently attend university in iowa. I get to be right in the middle of caucus season and i got to meet so many candidates paired because of cspan, ive had the experience and the equipment and knowledge to be able to film some of them. Announcer this year we ask middle school and High School Students to create a short video documentary answering the question, what issued you most want president ial candidates to address during the campaign included cspan video and reflect different points of view. We are warning 100,000 in total cash prizes. Hundrede awarding thousand dollars in total grand prizes until prizes including a 5,000 grand prize. No matter how large or small you think the audience be. I know that in the greatest country in the history of the earth, your view does matter. Announcer from our information to help you get started, go to our website, studentcam. Org. Lansing became michigans capital city in 1847