writermag.com • The Writer | 21Congress business reference and
research specialist. “Tell us what you’re
working on.”
There’s an “Ask a Librarian” button
on the Researchers page. Gibbs also
notes many people miss an important
item on the subject pages – a telephone
number for the reference desk. “You
can pick up the phone and call,” she
says. “Ask to speak to the person who is
most knowledgeable about the subject
you’re researching, and we will talk to
you. We’re trained in subject analysis.”
Gibbs encourages writers to think
across curriculum areas when
researching because the subject might
have relevance elsewhere. She empha-
sizes that Google doesn’t offer results
based on subject analysis the way a
trained librarian can. Susan Wroble, a
nonfiction writer for adults and chil-
dren who lives in Denver, Colorado,
agrees. She stumbled upon some
Library of Congress resources online
after spending night after night con-
ducting Google searches for a writing
assignment on Margaret Campbell, an
advocate for women’s suffrage in the
1800s. “Moving forward, I will make
the Library of Congress an earlier,
deliberate search,” Wroble says. “It was
really my best source.”
Through the Library, Wroble found
handwritten reports by Lucy Stone and
Henry Blackwell about Campbell.
“Here were copies of actual documents
written by some of the most influential
people in the suffrage movement,” says
Wroble. “It was exciting to see the
handwritten pages. It makes it more
real and takes you back further than
had it been transcribed and typed out.”
The Library had information on
Campbell that Wroble couldn’t find
anywhere else. “The fact that the
Library of Congress made so much of
this available online is such a benefit to
any writer who can’t afford to travel
across the country,” she says.
Gibbs does caution that the Library
doesn’t have every book ever pub-
lished. “Some people are really upset“We should have everything
ever copyrighted. If there’s
something we don’t have
here that we should, it means
something – like history or
war – got in the way.”
that we don’t,” she says. “But we should
have everything ever copyrighted. If
there’s something we don’t have here
that we should, it means something –
like history or war – got in the way.”
One exception relates to medicine – a
subject the Library no longer collects
in large quantities because there’s a
U.S. National Library of Medicine.
The Library of Congress has some
unexpected items, like the smallest
book ever printed (Old King Cole), and
presidential papers from the time
before there were presidentiallibraries. “We also have some odd
things, like the contents of [President]
Lincoln’s pockets the night he was
shot,” says Gibbs.National Archives
Another place to start your research is
the National Archives, a U.S. govern-
ment agency with around 3,000 staff
that calls itself “the nation’s record
keeper.” Many people associate the
National Archives with its museum,
an institution that displays the
nation’s three founding documents –The Library of CongressEd Metz/Shutterstock