Today was another crazy day. We started out at the Library of Congress, which is beautiful! It was amazing the amount of knowledge there and the respect all of that knowledge received. This first picture is of o
ur faculty mentor, Dan Deckler, who hoped behind the reference desk and checked us in for our meeting. We were ushered into the Science, Business, and Technology wing and shown around. Then we met the head librarian of this wing, who was the cutest little old lady I have ever met and served us homemade cookies and lemonade. Then we went into a conference room and two of the reference librarians had gathered special materials for us in a folder full of resources, made a special shelf of materials reserved for us about science policy, and we had a 3 hour-long overview of all the resources available to us at the Library of Congress. It was thoroughly overwhelming. It felt like even if I spent my whole summer researching, I would never finish, m
uch less writing. But they did offer for us to come back individually to talk to the main reference librarian, John, who gave us the presentation. He said if we emailed him our topics in advance, he would hunt up useful resources for us and we could come in and talk to him and he would always be available to help us find anything we need. He was so excited to help us, I have never met anyone so excited about looking things up and researching. He was literally giddy. Then we got our library reader cards, so we can come back. So now I am a card carrying member of the Library of Congress, and they are good for life.
ur faculty mentor, Dan Deckler, who hoped behind the reference desk and checked us in for our meeting. We were ushered into the Science, Business, and Technology wing and shown around. Then we met the head librarian of this wing, who was the cutest little old lady I have ever met and served us homemade cookies and lemonade. Then we went into a conference room and two of the reference librarians had gathered special materials for us in a folder full of resources, made a special shelf of materials reserved for us about science policy, and we had a 3 hour-long overview of all the resources available to us at the Library of Congress. It was thoroughly overwhelming. It felt like even if I spent my whole summer researching, I would never finish, m
uch less writing. But they did offer for us to come back individually to talk to the main reference librarian, John, who gave us the presentation. He said if we emailed him our topics in advance, he would hunt up useful resources for us and we could come in and talk to him and he would always be available to help us find anything we need. He was so excited to help us, I have never met anyone so excited about looking things up and researching. He was literally giddy. Then we got our library reader cards, so we can come back. So now I am a card carrying member of the Library of Congress, and they are good for life. 
Then a few of us went to a briefing by the Brookings Institute about Carbon Cap and Trade and the Need for Technological Innovation. It basically talked about the need for a whole new scale of investment in R&D for energy innovation to really happen on a useful time-scale. Congressmen Inslee and Wu from WA and OR, respectively, were also there and some professors and congressional fellows. It was a very interesting presentation about steps in the right direction that are happening right now (in the Fiscal Bill, the Stimulus Bill, the Energy Bill, the Climate Change Bill), but alot about how this is not nearly enough.
After that we went to the House and Senate galleries and watched them both, which was not as interesting. There were just a few people debating in the house, although they did call a House Full Committee while we were there. There was only one guy talking in the Senate, but he was talking about universal healthcare, which was interesting to hear about. Then I finally went to the grocery store, so I can stop eating out, and Steven, a guy from Cornell, and I went to get memberships at the gym and workout. Now I am getting ready to go to MN mornings tomorrow and maybe finally get some work done! Raining again tonight and very humid. Night.
1 comment:
Not everyone gets lemonade at the Library of Congress. I remember when I went there the first time. I was also amazed at how much they have and what a great space it was inside.
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