DC -- Library of Congress -- Room: Main Reading Room (room itself):
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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
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Description of Subject Matter: THE MAIN READING ROOM
Visitors should take the elevators to the third floor to view the Main Reading Room from the Visitors' Gallery, or walk up the two flights of marble stairs.
The Eight Symbolic Statues and Their Inscriptions:
From the Visitors' Gallery, eight large statues can be seen above the giant marble columns that surround the reading room. They represent eight categories of knowledge, each considered symbolic of civilized life and thought. Their titles are inscribed in gilt letters on a tablet in the frieze below them. Beginning with the figures on the east side of the room--from the perspective of the Visitor's Gallery--the symbolic statues are: Philosophy, by Bela Lyon Pratt; Art, by Francois M.L. Tonetti-Dozzi (after sketches by Augustus St. Gaudens); History, by Daniel Chester French; Commerce, by John Flanagan; Religion, by Theodore Baur; Science, by John Donoghue; Law, by Paul Wayland Bartlett; and Poetry, by John Quincy Adams Ward.
Above each statue is a large tablet bearing an inscription in gilt letters. Each of the eight inscriptions, appropriate to the subject of the statue below it, was chosen by Harvard University President Charles W. Eliot.
Above the figure of Philosophy:
THE INQUIRY, KNOWLEDGE, AND BELIEF OF TRUTH
IS THE SOVEREIGN GOOD OF HUMAN NATURE.
Bacon, Essays, "Of Truth"
Above the figure of Art:
AS ONE LAMP LIGHTS ANOTHER, NOR GROWS LESS,
SO NOBLENESS ENKINDLETH NOBLENESS.
Lowell, Yussouf
Above the figure of History:
ONE GOD, ONE LAW, ONE ELEMENT, AND ONE FAR-OFF DIVINE EVENT,
TO WHICH THE WHOLE CREATION MOVES
Tennyson, In Memoriam
Above the figure of Commerce:
WE TASTE THE SPICES OF ARABIA YET NEVER FEEL
THE SCORCHING SUN WHICH BRINGS THEM FORTH.
Anon. [Dudley North, East India Trade]
Above the figure of Religion:
WHAT DOTH THE LORD REQUIRE OF THEE, BUT TO DO JUSTLY,
AND TO LOVE MERCY, AND TO WALK HUMBLY WITH THY GOD?
Holy Bible, Micah 6:8
Above the figure of Science:
THE HEAVENS DECLARE ...More...
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2023_DC_LOC_MRR: DC -- Library of Congress -- Room: Main Reading Room (room itself) (73 photos from 2023)
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1999_DC_LOC_MRR: DC -- Library of Congress -- Room: Main Reading Room (room itself) (7 photos from 1999)
1997_DC_LOC_MRR: DC -- Library of Congress -- Room: Main Reading Room (room itself) (5 photos from 1997)
2007 photos: Trips this year: Two weeks down south (including Graceland, Shiloh, VIcksburg, and New Orleans), a week at a time share in Costa Rica over my 50th birthday, a week off for a family reunion in the Wisconsin Dells (with sidetrips to Dayton, Springfield, and Madison), a week in San Diego for the Comic-Con with a side trip to Michigan for two family reunions, a drive up to Niagara Falls, a couple of weekend jaunts including the Civil War Preservation Trust Grand Review in Vicksburg, and a December journey to three state capitols (Richmond, Raleigh, and Columbia). I saw sites in 18 states and 3 other countries this year -- the first year I'd been to more than two other countries since we lived in Venezuela when I was a little toddler.
Ego strokes: A photo that I took at the National Archives was used as the author photo on the book jacket for David A. Nichols' "A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution." I became a volunteer photographer at both Sixth and I Historic Synagogue and the Civil War Preservation Trust (later renamed "Civil War Trust")..
Equipment this year: I used the Fuji S9000 almost exclusively except for the period when it broke and I had to send it back for repairs. In August, I bought a Canon Rebel Xti, my first digital SLR (vs regular digital) which I tried as well but I wasn't that excited by it.
Number of photos taken this year: 225,000.
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