Entries by Frank Simon-Ritz

The Library of Congress (LoC), the world’s largest library, can be described from various perspectives. One such perspective is the touristic.

In preparation for my trip to Washington, DC, I bought The Unofficial Guide to Washington, D.C. (Frommers, 2009, 10th ed.) The Library of Congress is awarded four stars (out of a possible five) here, with the note: “Impressive and informative.”

After a two-hour meeting on Monday morning with John Van Oudenaren and David Morris on the World Digital Library project and the European Division, David took me to the entrance hall of the Jefferson Building, where there’s a lot going on! Tourists of all ages are streaming into the hall and to the remarkable exhibits the Library organizes here.

Truly splendid are the two current exhibitions, “Creating the United States“ and “Exploring the Early Americas“. The latter includes the famous Waldseemüller Map from 1507, the first map of the world on which the word “America” appears. (The LoC acquired the map in 2001, reportedly for $10,000,000.)

It is clear in this case that the Library was taking part in “nation building” in the cultural sense, and with this it confirms its status as a national institution. That, too, is lobby work.

My predecessor Jan-Pieter Barbian also provided a good deal of information on the American Library Association and its Washington office.

The focus of my conversation there with Kristin Murphy and Jeff Kratz was how the ALA goes about motivating its members to engage in political lobby work for libraries. This is carried out in various ways. One significant channel of communication recently developed is that of the social media, that is, the new, collaborative use of the Web (read: Web 2.0).

The ALA has long had a presence on Facebook, of course. And Facebook, naturally, is a platform for publishing information. But perhaps more important is that the ALA’s 1,986 fans (as of November 24, 2009) are only a mouse click away.

It’s a similar situation with Twitter, where the ALA also has a presence. Kristin has a nice story to tell about this: Right after a talk with a member of Congress, a tweet was sent advising librarians in the Congressman’s district to call his office directly in support of important issues raised during the talk. The results of this action, according to the Congressman’s staff, were impressive…

And then there’s the fascinating system called Capwiz, which was set up especially for Congressional lobbyists and which the ALA is also part of. This, too, is essentially a system for mobilizing an organization’s own membership or, respectively, “sympathizers”. Lobbying 2.0, as it were.

Six weeks ago, my predecessor, Jan-Pieter Barbian, reported on the fantastic holdings and impressive financial situation of the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

For my part, I had two opportunities while in New York to meet with Ken Soehner, the Watson’s chief librarian. During my first week as librarian in residence, I took part in a special tour of one of the museum’s exhibits, organized for the Friends of the Watson Library. Such events are an integral part of fundraising efforts by libraries in the United States, and two aspects of this seem important to me. One: the library sponsors receive something in return, benefitting in this way from their engagement, so to speak. And two: it’s important that during the small wine reception that follows, money is NOT a topic. This was an occasion to get together casually and talk with one another.

Ken and I had time for an in-depth talk during our second meeting, at the end of which we once again arrived at the topic of fundraising. For Ken, there are two simple “golden rules” that lie close to his heart. The first is: “You have to ask.” And the second: “It’s personal.” This provides food for thought (which I will chew over during my train ride to Washington).