By STEPHEN WESSON
Virtual pages turned, kaleidoscopes whirled and creativity bloomed as more than 10,000 children and adults explored the world-spanning collections of the Library of Congress in the Library's pavilion at the fifth annual National Book Festival.
The pavilion, which was designed and developed by the Library's Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI), used interactive games, media-intensive electronic exhibits and person-to-person outreach to showcase the cultural treasures of the Library's collections and to celebrate the rich legacy of American creativity.
Visitors crowded around touch-screen kiosks to explore dozens of historic films, recordings, photographs, music sheets and works of art that traced the history of show business in America, while still more highlights from the Library's collections played on screens overhead. Nearby, volunteers from OSI, the Copyright Office and many other divisions of the Library provided expert answers to visitors' questions and guided users through "The Library of Congress: Inspiring the World with Knowledge," a new CD-ROM introduction to the Library's holdings and public outreach activities.
The noise and the intensity of activity both rose dramatically in the colorful Kids' Zone, where children clustered three and four deep around giant plasma screens to play educational games and engage in exploratory activities based on items from the Library's collections. Kids took a virtual balloon tour of Washington, designed their own imaginary cars and created new works of art from classic children's-book illustrations, all using activities that will be available on the Library's award-winning Web site (www.loc.gov).
One of the most popular features of the pavilion used no technology more advanced than the humble felt-tipped pen. A Wall of Creativity stretched across the back of the pavilion, and Library volunteers encouraged visitors of all ages to fill it in with their own thoughts about inspiration and the nature of creativity. The wall quickly filled with thoughtful, vivid, personal and witty insights, including spontaneous contributions from Book Festival authors David Baldacci, Jack Gantos and Patricia Reilly Giff, as well as Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and Deputy Librarian Donald L. Scott.
By the end of the day, the Wall of Creativity had been filled and replaced twice over, thousands of Library-related questions had been asked and answered and nearly 10,000 copies of the Library's free CD-ROM had been handed out to visitors. One OSI volunteer reported that the most common question he was asked, as the last children were led away from the Kids' Zone, was whether the Library of Congress pavilion would be returning to the Book Festival next year.
Stephen Wesson is an educational resource specialist in the Library's Office of Strategic Initiatives.