Knowledge at Your Fingertips

There is a big sign in an office on the sixth floor of the Madison Building that has been counting down the weeks until we open our new, interactive Library of Congress Experience. (We used to call it the New Visitors Experience, but it’s better to leverage the name people know, right?)

Until recently it was in the teens, and the digits were modestly sized and black. But recently the digits themselves have provided a visual cue for the crunch time in which we now find ourselves.

Today we are less than four weeks away (April 12) from opening the Experience to the public, and the number “4″ on that sign is in much larger, fire-engine-red font.

We put out a news release today with the most details we have provided yet about the Experience. (A broadcast journalism professor once upbraided me for using the term “press release,” asking me, “When was the last time you saw a printing press in a TV newsroom?”)

We also launched a microsite for the public, which includes a feature called “Inspiration Across America” that invites you to share your own works of inspiration, particularly in terms of how libraries have inspired or enriched your life. It’s your chance to have a piece of your own creativity live on at the Library of Congress!

If you’re in the DC area on April 12, we invite you to your national library for a fun public celebration, as we thrown open our bronze doors and several amazing, new exhibits. Don’t worry; we won’t gear up until the Cherry Blossom Parade winds down, and it’s also a full day after the Newseum opens to the public.

There will be plenty of culture and history to go around Washington this spring, but we hope you can take time to get a taste of the Library’s unparalleled collections; unique artifacts, art and architecture; and brand-new technology that will bring it all to vivid life.

(Michaela McNichol photo)