While browsing through my mother’s papers I came across a reminiscence about her first visit to the Library of Congress:

…Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941 when I was 14, and I thereupon became a champion recycle-paper collector, using a little red wagon acquired from somewhere. The war ended while I was at UC, and I don’t remember much except that Jonathan (brother) was drafted and sent to the Pacific, and Judy (sister) joined the Navy’s WAVES after she graduated in architecture from MIT, and was stationed in Washington, DC. – I visited her there during two summers, for a week or so each time. I was overjoyed at the opportunity presented by my first visit. Someone had told me that the Library of Congress got a copy of every book published, and that meant to me that they would have copies of all the OZ books, of which I could never get (or afford to buy) enough. I proceeded into the reading room, with its marvelous circular catalog, and wrote a mess of slips for OZ titles. The slips were given to pages who then fetched your books and delivered them to you at your assigned reading desk. Joy! – Well, not really. I discovered to my dismay, albeit with some pride, that I was now too old for the OZ books. That sure spoiled that visit. – By the next year, I was ready to go to LC again. I had read Mark Twain’s enchanting Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, but simply could not believe that she actually said all those beautiful, wonderful things at her heresy trial that Clemens attributed to her. It was imperative to check up on him, and LC was the place to do it. I was sent to a Reference cubicle, and learned that, yes, there was a transcript of her trial, and yes, they would bring it to me. – Well – she did actually say all those things quoted in the book! A more satisfying library visit was never had. – And of course this is why I’d like to be rich enuf to fund re-opening LC to children over 12.