Friday, July 27, 2018
By:
Over the past week I have spent more time out of the office than in. I love my job, and it’s a little disappointing to miss out on major events going on with the committee like the full-committee hearings on Urban Air Mobility (Flying Cars!) and the James Webb Space Telescope, but this week was packed with exciting events outside of the office, and it made for a great change of pace. We toured NIST with Jesus Perez and saw his lab, the NIST Museum, and even a descendant of Newton’s Apple Tree. Next we toured NASA with Colin Flynn and Daniel Morales, and got to attend the Science Jamboree, check out some really awesome labs, and see the NASA Goddard Visitor’s Center. But the highlight of my week was spending the evening at the Library of Congress with Mikayla, Amanda, and Nathan for the Congressional Night Scavenger Hunt.
On Thursday night, Congressional Members, staff, interns, and their guests were invited to a private event at the Library of Congress. When I got the email from our staff, I was so excited. Even though I’ve lived near DC for four years now, I’ve never visited the Library of Congress before. After work on Thursday, we headed for the metro to make our way over. The grandeur of the building really didn’t hit me at first. We went inside and checked in for the scavenger hunt (we were assigned to the blue team – The Locators), and received our first clue.
“3 balls, 2 strikes, 2 outs, bases are loaded! This is where the game of research takes place at the Library”
All of the clues were baseball themed to commemorate the Baseball Americana Exhibition on display at the Library.They were printed onto the backs of “baseball cards” featuring Library of Congress staff members, like Mary Mazanec, Director of the Congressional Research Service. We followed the first clue to the main reading room. It is here where it hit me that this is the most beautiful building I have ever step foot in. Looking around at the Reading Room was like entering another world. Photos just can't do it justice, and I recommend to anyone in the DC area to make some time for a visit.
At each clue location, there was a small activity for us to complete in order to get our next clue. Here we had to seek out a baseball card that wasn’t sponsored by Old Judge Cigarettes. Baseball cards were placed onto all the desks around the room, giving us the chance to walk the aisles. Once we found ours, we were given our next clue, and the hunt continued. The clues led us all over the Library. We followed the clue: “the office of the Library’s ‘manager’…” to the office of the Librarian of Congress, 
where we had to complete a word search that listed all the previous Librarians of Congress. Next we found the “clubhouse” at the Library for Members of Congress, where we played a Kahoot quiz about the Library. Our team Physics Pham took first place! 
We learned some really cool facts about the Library too. Did you know there are 6,487 books in the Jefferson Collection? This was the collection that started the Library of Congress, after the Capitol building was burned down in 1814, destroying the original Library.
We continued on to follow more clues. We visited the Great Hall, where we had to assemble a puzzle cut out of the Sports Page of The Bridgeport Evening Farmer from October 10th, 1916. It is part of the “Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers” collection kept by the Library of Congress. We next visited the North Corridor, on the ceiling of which is depicted five women representing the five senses. Here we had to decode the lyrics to a classic ball game song that was printed in braille. The song was “Take your girl to the ball game,” written in 1908 by George Cohan. The Library of Congress in their Music Division holds the sheet music for this song.
Next we headed to the South Corridor to find “a pitcher, batter, and catcher, and the rest of the team taking the field.” On the ceiling were three paintings depicting the Three Graces: Aglaia (Husbandry), Thalia (Music), and Euphrosyne (Beauty). At each end of the ceiling there are panels depicting ancient games to represent the modern games of the era. On the west end of the ceiling we found the “rest of the team” on the panel illustrating baseball. After completing our activity here, we all got our own baseball card photos at the photo booth.
Our next clue finally led us to the Baseball Americana Exhibition. 
There were some really amazing artifacts here including the diary of John Smith that holds the first ever mention of Baseball from 1786, a radio recording of the classic Abbott and Costello routine “Who’s on First, and even Babe Ruth’s baseball cleats. We looked through all the displays to find the information to complete our quiz for this activity (which we got an A+ on from Norm who led the Blue Team activity). Our next clue read,
“The Washington Senators babeball team was one of the American League’s eight charter franchises. This man was president of a different type of Washington Senators, from 1797-1801, and your next clue can be found among his books.”
We headed straight for the Thomas Jefferson Collection, where we had to match some classic baseball slang terms to their definitions and we learned about dingers and gleeking. After finishing the puzzle, we went to find our next clue, only to receive the surprise that we had completed the scavenger hunt!
“Congratulations – you’ve won the game! Line up your team and head back to the Field of Research. Looking for your prize? Check out one of the dugouts!”
At the end of the scavenger hunt, we got to enter a drawing for a basket full of cool Library of Congress memorabilia, and we left the library with fingers crossed that we would win. Before we left the Reading Room, we got the chance to do some "research" of our own. Signe, one of the Library of Congress volunteers let us take a look at some of the books there, resulting in some great photos to commemorate the evening together. She joked with us at one point that we had picked easily the most boring books in the entire Library, but we had a blast anyway.
We ended our night taking photos outside the library, and enjoying the beautiful evening at the Capitol as the sun started to set. I had so much fun, and I’m so glad that amidst my internship I’ve been able to take advantage of such amazing experiences like this, and make such wonderful friends to share them with.
Sarah Monk