Library of Congress Paper
I began my experience at the Library of Congress with the researcher orientation. I attended the orientation with about fifteen other individuals. Our instructor started our orientation explaining to us many people are not aware of how to properly research. They would spend much time and effort researching but would not get the most pertinent information. She explained to us that by the end of the orientation we would be able to avoid these mistakes and would be able to make the most out of our researching experience. She began by explaining to us how to begin a search. I learned that the best way to research is to limit the amount of things I want to research on a single outing. The Library of Congress holds a plethora of information and even the most daring researcher could be easily overwhelmed by it. She would then go on to explain that the Library of Congress had 21 reading rooms that covered general collections, area studies and special materials. Each of these reading rooms held thousands of sources of information. For example, the Main Reading Room contained over 75,000 references. With so much information, our instructor informed us that one of the important pieces of advice to do when researching is to cast your proverbial net as narrow as possible. By specifying what type of research we were looking for, we could maximize our research effectiveness. She would also explain to us that different reading rooms could provide us with more significant information. For example if one were looking for more recent information, it would behoove them to do research in the Newspaper & Current Periodical Room because it contained serials, periodicals, magazines and journals that were only 18-24 months old. If one were looking were for older information, they should look in the card catalog which is the lead authority on history published before 1968. Another suggestion given by our instructor was on the topic of subject headings. Due...