NPR DC

I'm here in DC now. We took a group of Library school students from Rutgers on a field trip to Washington DC. On Thursday, we went to the Library of Congress and heard various librarians speak about their jobs. Afterwards, we went to dinner at 4:30 pm across the street from the LOC at a Chinese restaurant. The one thing we'll have to change about the next trip is to make sure that we get an actual tour of the Library of Congress, instead of just seeing speakers.

After dinner, Jim hijacked a tourbus to drive us back to the hotel. Seriously. There was a small shuttle bus outside the restaurant, and he walked up to Clyde, the driver, and $omehow convinced him to drive us all back home. Amazing how that happened. Brenna, Katie, Katie's friend Katy, and I went to a bookstore/bar/restaurant/cafe in the DuPont Circle area. Kramer Books and Afterwards Cafe even had a free Internet/E-mail computer for public use in the bar. (Hooray!)

Friday morning, I went on the tour of NPR. (Another group went to the Archive Center at the Smithsonian Museum of American History.) The people at NPR were really cool, and finding out about special libraries like the ones at NPR make me want to consider being a librarian. I got to see several radio celebrities, like Carl Kassell of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" fame. I left the group after that tour. They continued on to the National Library of Medicine.

I instead walked around a bit, and I stopped by the ALA Washington Office to talk to someone about libaries and public policy. It turns out that the people who work on Intellectual Property are based out of the main office, in Chicago. Maybe I'll end up there some day. I also took a shuttle to Georgetown to wander around. I went back to the DuPont Circle area to meet up with Michael Roston after he finished work. That evening, we went to dinner with a group of his roommates and friends at a Middle Eastern restaurant names Baccus, and we tried to hit the Fox and Hound bar, but it was too packed, so we ended up at a Irish pub called Biddy Mulligan's. It was a good time. Michael's roommates, friends, and girlfriend are cool.