Not many kids who are doing school projects are digging into the actual letters, primary documents and photos of the subjects they are studying, but the Library of Congress has opened a new facility for younger students to get a more hands-on approach and learn how to research the millions of records that they hold.
It’s called 鈥淭he Source鈥� and it opened in early May. It allows school groups and individual students five days a week.
鈥淲e worked with librarians and educators to identify collections that would be most appealing and relevant to their lives,鈥� said Shari Werb, the director of the Center for Learning Literacy and Engagement and lead curator at “The Source.”
When students first walk into “The Source,” they first see what looks like traditional card catalogs but when they pull certain drawers that correspond with different fields of study, they are greeted with artifacts, a projected light show and sounds.
Nearby are videos of career librarians explaining their job and how to research at the library.
Then students can immerse themselves in kid-friendly research. The items chosen for the space had input from a kid and teenage advisory group, according to Werb.
鈥淭hey wanted a variety of different kinds of media to deal with, not just the books,鈥� Werb said.
鈥淲e really want to not just have them understand the collections, but build up research skills for their lives, not just for school.鈥�
You can of course check out a book section of “The Source” where they also have a mock microfilm viewer that exposes children to how research was done in the past. But beyond the documents, students can check out a film section complete with projector and faux reels that play footage from World War II and even 鈥淭he Sound of Music.鈥� A sound and map section round out the offerings.
鈥淭he Source鈥� is an especially great opportunity for younger researchers because reader cards are only allowed for people 16 and up.
鈥淭hen they can go on to the website and start looking through those kinds of collections as well,” Werb said. “We’re leading them into our deeper collections at the library through this space.”
She added that being able to view firsthand documents and artifacts brings a 鈥渉uman dimension鈥� to research.
鈥淲e use computers for everything, so you lose that sort of handwriting piece, but a lot of the collections that we have here at the library, you can look at them and start to understand the history of that person,” she said.
“The Source” is open Tuesday through Saturday. Weekday mornings are reserved for school groups, but individual students can attend after 1 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.
鈥淚f people leave here asking more questions than they started with, we feel like we’ve invited somebody into the lifelong journey of research,鈥� Werb said.
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