 This is a cultural event from the British Library. Welcome to the Norwich Centre Theatre at the British Library and a very, very warm welcome to our very special guest, Dr. Carla Hayden. I'm Roli Keating, Chief Exec of the British Library. Carla, as I'm sure you know, is the 14th Librarian of Congress. I think you know, but the first woman, the first African-American, to hold the office in 217 years. So, you are a librarian by profession, by training, from early days at Chicago Public Library. And you returned there, I think, in the early 90s, is that right? Yes. It's around the Chicago system, but you've done stints at the Museum of Science and Industry there, University of Pittsburgh. Then probably best known in the States as a hugely successful Chief Exec at the Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, which underwent an astonishing transformation under Carla's leadership. Then, last year, came the moment when the then President of the United States made the nomination and noted at the time her enduring commitment to innovation and participation in libraries. And that's a theme, I think, we would love to explore. But let's begin first with, and I do want to then track back a little bit, through previous experience, but let's talk about the job you've taken on. So, the Library of Congress, it's known, I'm sure, by reputation to many people here, but it's a somewhat different kind of beast from the British Library. It's also, and I'm going to say this now, and then I'm going to say it on the record, it is the biggest library in the world. But I think between us, can we confidently say we run the two biggest libraries in the world? I think so. But for a British audience, maybe you haven't made it to Washington, maybe can you just paint a little picture of the scale of the Library of Congress? Well, the Library of Congress holds 162 million items, and I just converted from miles to kilometers because I knew my audience, because it's 832 miles, but that's 1,400 kilometers from here to Vienna. It is the first federal cultural institution in Washington, D.C. It started in 1800, and there was something that happened in 1814. Oh yeah, there was some invading power, is that right? Some group that didn't, there was some unpleasantness. Those who are laughing know what we're talking about here. Those who are looking quizzical, this was in 1814, and it was the British Expeditionary Force into Washington who appear to have set a few things on fire, including the White House and Congress containing all pretty much the whole collection of the first generation of the Library of Congress, because the Library of Congress was established in 1800, and it was established to serve that legislative body. So here, for instance, you have parliamentary libraries. Here it's separate. It's separate from the National Library, but that's how the Library of Congress started. So the Library was established 1800 in the Capitol Building, and there were several thousand volumes that were there for Congress people to refer to. And as I was told, when I was visiting a legislator during my nomination process, I went into this wonderful office and the gentleman showed me the fireplace. I said, oh, that's wonderful. He said, well, that's where the British put the books from the library to start the fire. That didn't end well. And so Thomas Jefferson at the time had the most extensive library in the country. And you may know a little bit, he's a president that was part of forming the nation. And he's offered to sell his collection to Congress. I guess I can say that this is public knowledge. He had an opportunity to sell his wine collection as well. He said that he had an extensive collection that included religion and books and other languages. And he said there is no subject that a member of Congress should not have to refer. And over time, the Library grew and then in 1870, the Library of Congress was charged with administering the copyright process for the United States. And part of that process included adding copies of books to be registered for copyright. And then the collection grew and grew. And it grew astonishingly. And it's really been the foundation. And now, about 162 million, the archives of 23 presidents from George Washington all the way up to Coolidge. So it's quite an extensive. And as ever, because people always say that to us, it is not just book collections, but just reminders of the... Manuscript collections, prints, photographs, even items that you wouldn't expect that are almost museum quality, the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets. The night he was assassinated, these types of items. Charles Dickens' cane. We're not giving it back. But several, several items. So there's a full range in going back to at least 1200 AD and all of that. And diversity of language? It's not just... 470 languages. And half of the collection is actually not in English. And so people don't know like that. America's a very multilingual country, anyway. And so the collection is not only about the United States, but all nations. And in fact, we just repatriated materials from Afghanistan back to the country because some of the things have been destroyed. So it's really a worldwide collection, just like here. Just like here? And I mean, through a different historical process here in Britain, yes, we've ended up, we think with all the great language groups of the world, all the different content types. And we can talk maybe about the role of great libraries in the current age, in actually finding ways through digitization, for instance, to share content. So for me, it raises the question about the role and identity of Library of Congress. We call ourselves the National Library of the UK. You have the Congressional role, but to what extent will you also the National Library of America? We say that we are the Library of Congress America's library because it is a public library. People can get a reader's card just at the age of 16 and to do research, anyone can walk in. And that's something that we're working on to let more people know that this is their library. This is their national library. We also are, and that's why we're here, to learn from the British Library that, and you didn't pay me to say this, but in terms of large national libraries that have extended themselves to communities that have made the people of the country and everywhere else feel welcome and to use their resources, the British Library is the model for all of us. And so we're here learning and that. So the Library of Congress, in its name, it sounds like it's not for anyone else. And that's something that we're working on. So Library of Congress America's Library. How do we reach out to other types of libraries? How do we make sure that people see the Library of Congress as a resource for them, whether they're doing serious research or just wanting to find out about things? And so that's our challenge now. And that's the challenge you've, so that's a challenge that will, I guess, connect you with the public library sector. And that was where you began your career in Chicago, or maybe not the very beginning, but early on in Chicago. But maybe even before, thinking back before that, at what point in your life did it begin to feel natural to you that that was a career aspiration or a sector that you could work in? Well, I had an interesting experience as a child. I spent summers in the state capital of Illinois, that sort of looks. And I didn't realize at the time that my grandparents were taking me to the state library. It was grand, it was wonderful. And the person that they went to church with, Miss Pindigrasse. You could, I do this when I say Miss Pindigrasse because she was Miss Pindigrasse. But she attended the church and she worked at the state library. And so I had full reign of the state library and the governor's office, the company with grandfather, and all that, I had that experience. And then I had experience in New York when we moved there when it was about five or six of going to a storefront branch. And so I've been involved with libraries for quite a while. So your very earliest library is a pretty grand library experience. Was a pretty grand, but when you're a child, you don't... You don't know, you think all libraries look like that, that's pretty. And they're pretty neat. Yeah. But a storefront library. Tell us about that storefront library. That storefront library was right across the street from Public School 96 in Queens, New York. And after school, you would go into the... This was where you were... Right, right, that we were in New York. And I would go there and spend the magic hours from three to six that a lot of children still do in libraries. And one day, someone gave me a book called Bright April. And I'll never know who actually did it because I love that book. It was a little brown girl with pigtails and she was a brownie. And it was the first time I'd seen myself reflected in a book. And that connection, I love that book. I learned about library finds with that book. Yeah, because I just took it out and everything. But that was the power. And then later in life... And just again, for a pretty short, I don't think we know the book. Is it a story? Oh, it's called Bright April. It's about a little brown girl. That was by an author, Marguerite D'Angeli. And she was writing books for kind of what were then considered outsider children. Children of color or a Quaker girl, a Jewish child. So all of these groups. And she had a series of books. So that was that. But I always love books. My parents were musicians. I am a librarian. That tells you something. Just like they could read notes. And hear music. And I realized I could look at text and hear words. So it was a different connection. But later in life, when I was looking for a job after graduating from college, and I wasn't finding one, I had no experience in anything. Except going to school. I would go between job interviews, trying to figure out what I was doing. And in the library. In Chicago, the public library. And one of my colleagues who had just graduated with me said, hey, Carla, you're here for the library job. They're hiring anybody. At any degree. It's the library associate program. Which we still have in library programs. So I went up. That person didn't get the job. I did. That's a life lesson somewhere. There is something. And then they put me in another storefront branch. On the south side of Chicago. With this lady who was going to graduate library school. And she was on the floor, giving story time to children with autism. She had on jeans. And she had frizzy hair. And she wasn't black. And so I mean, she was really there in that community and connecting with those children. And I said, wow, this is something that might be interesting. And then I found out about graduate life and that it's a profession. And it just married the things that I love the most with trying to help people too. Interesting, the storefront library. I bet even tracking back to New York actually, you talk about the magic hour. Yes. Three to five in the evening or whatever it may be. Were you one of the lone kids making that trip across the road? A lot of kids doing that, yeah. Everybody pretty much was. Quite a few were going. And I would stop after that and go to the candy store. And then it was like, wow, I had your books. And that, so that's played out. As tracking back, thinking to that childhood self, what was the meaning of that library? Was it about a place you could think or feel safe or what? It's funny, we talk about the library as a safe place so much now. At that time, and I'm a little older now, but at that time it was like going into a treasure chest. Nobody was telling you what you had to read. You could go and pick out anything. You could look at it. It just was like, wow. And then I could take them out for free. It's a freedom, it was fun. Well, it was freedom. And that was the first card you ever had with your name on it, right? And you had a transaction with adults. You'd go to the checkout desk. And you were responsible. Those fines though I didn't, I won't tell you about. Well, you take responsibility, you clearly feel responsible. Yeah, so you're a little bit. But that's that sense of here's something that you're doing and that they're not trying to tell you what to read. That you have the freedom to pick what you want. You made that professional decision. You discovered there was a profession. Right, I didn't even know. It's like magic, this stuff appears. And then, back now from what you're doing now, what were then the things you began to learn as you became a manager and the leader and began to actually take charge? Because at that point it became serious and real responsibility. And it didn't start out like that. I was perfectly happy doing story time and working with children. Because you were involved in the community side. And then I started working with the young adults, the teenagers. And most people, everybody loves the three and five year olds. They're cute, they do what you want, they mind. But when they get about 12, they're a little more difficult. And they were looking for people who wanted to work with young adults. And I got into that. Did the 12 year olds even want to come into the library? Well, they would come in, but they were noisy and they were teenagers. And that is fun. And so they were starting serving young adults. And then they asked me, would I coordinate some of those librarians? And so that was my first foray into managing and working with adults. And then that started to evolve into more responsibility like that. And I had to really think, do I want to work directly with the client or the person? Or help others do it? So that was a mentor. And that was a judgment point. That was a key element. And then it just kept going in terms of management and that. And so you really, that's not unusual for people in different professions. And that's right. Yeah, do you step away from the front line? Do you start thinking more? Can you still help people by not helping them directly? And that was a turning point. And Baltimore, a great city library, a huge, big system. But a lot, I think, changed in the time there. So what did you inherit? And what drew you there? And what was the challenge you confronted? What was interesting about the Enoch Pratt Free Library, we studied it in library school. It was the first library system in the United States, the first library to have branches in different communities. It was the first library. Endowed by an original day. You're not proud of it? Mr. Enoch Pratt, who was a Yankee from Massachusetts who made his fortune selling nails and then went into banking and didn't have any children. And there are legends about him picking up nails down the street because he remembered his father, you know, how hard it was. So he was very thrifty, very thrifty, and became quite prominent. And he was part of a group of gentlemen in that time in the 1870s in that city. That was the third largest city in the United States at the time, Baltimore, that set up, one set up a university, one set up the art museum. So he was, and he did the public library. So we knew about it was the first library to have public relations. A lot of things came out of the library, but it had fallen on hard times. The city had changed. And the fate of the city reflected, the library reflected that. And so I was getting ready to head the Chicago Public Library, where I had been the chief librarian and commissioner. So it sounds very high, but it was the chief librarian. And I don't know if many know that Chicago, Illinois, has a pretty political heritage. Baltimore, that system, Mr. Pratt, set it up as he said to be free of politics and religion. And they had a separate board and a separate endowment. And so they contacted me and said, would you help make this library come back and be that? Could you do it? And it came at a good time. I think Chicago, I was leaving home and all of that. But the idea of that. And then I thought, OK, it's 35 miles from Washington DC. I love Washington DC, right? So I thought, I'll learn about the city. And that's when I realized that when I got there, that city was 35 miles, but 30 million miles away in terms of the communities, what they faced. And I was hooked. Yeah, I was hooked by the challenge. And because in that city, the library was more than a place to get bestsellers. It was more than anything. It was a lifeline to those communities, literal lifeline. In what way? Tell me. People were, the school system had been challenged. So it was that those magic hours, three to six, what I had when I was growing up, it was really homework help. Children that hadn't had anything to wouldn't face any food when they got home, that didn't have people who could help them with just trying to figure out the world, much less school, extreme poverty. So the library, for instance, developed a virtual supermarket program with the grocery store. I mean, it was really basic life safety, plus things like when you think of an area that doesn't have opportunities, how could people apply for a job if 95% of all jobs now require you to file online? So people were coming in to actually apply for a job, use the library computers, but they needed help with the applications, so the library staff. So you really knew that you were helping people. Wow. And that was the situation you inherited. And is that right? Yes. And the fortunes of the city went up and down over the years until the most recent unrest and actual, that was really. And the library retained that, which of course we heard about here and followed. And through that time, the library's aura or significance right at the heart of the community grew, is that right? Yes. We stayed open. So this was during the unrest. Yeah, the one library was right there in the corner that was shown worldwide with the burning cars and everything. It was right there. And we decided to open the next day. Tell me about the decision-making. The decision-making was something like that. The telephone goes. The telephone goes. We knew it was brewing. And so there were two or three days where there were minor incidents. Remind us what the flashpoint was. The flashpoint was the death of a young man in police custody. And the city had had racial tensions for a number of years, starting from 1968. There were race riots that they still talked about. And houses were still boarded up from 1968 from that riot. So that community had, I'd have to say, festered and was boiling with all types of issues. And the police relationship, the relationship with the police had grown even more contentious over time. So when this young man was in a coma first, he weren't sure how he received his injuries after he was arrested and put into a paddy wagon, as they called it, that. And he was paralyzed, and then he died. And so there was just this. And the police officers weren't charged with any crime. So it just was just a lot. And this library had been that lifeline right in that community on the corner. And so when I got the call from the librarian who had sheltered the staff and the public in the library, she said, I closed the doors. And then she let them in. She said, but they need us so much, I want to open tomorrow. And I said, well, OK. And I said, but I'll be there, too. Because you can't ask staff members to do something you wouldn't do. So as I mentioned, my mom is here. So she worked in social work and had a good role model. But I knew that I couldn't tell her I was going until like 15 minutes before. So she wouldn't tell me no, or I wouldn't. No matter how old you are, you still delay those things because you don't want to be told don't go or something. So I waited. And all she said was take some water and some napkins. And then by that, two days later, she was at the front desk giving out fruit and greeting people in the community. And it became the lighter. Oh, they were there. They were lined up that morning. They had protected the library and stood in front of it and to keep people from vandalizing it. But they said, people didn't even try. And then it became the Food Distribution Center. It was the only facility open to the public. There were no grocery stores, drug stores. Nothing was open in that area but the library. And so we became that place. It's fascinating how under acute pressure the values of what libraries are for really reveal themselves. They do. And even back to Pratt talking about the independence from politics or religion or whatever it may be, that was kind of understood. People knew that in that role you were not a political role. You were a civic. It's a civic duty. And I noticed that right here in the lobby of the British Library where you have that sofa and that community engagement and what you're doing really speaks to that public commitment of a library. That I'd love to see the values and the essence of a public library combined with the rich research library. And that's what we're here to see how you've done that. You're listening to the British Library. For more, follow us on YouTube and SoundCloud. So let's bring back to the present then. You're there in Washington, DC in the magnificent office overlooking the capital. And yet your thoughts, I think, about how you connect widely across a huge, much larger, even more diversification than we are. And how do you begin to think with how do you simultaneously stay in the mighty citadel of Washington and connect with public libraries or take on that national role that you're talking about? And I think when you say stay in Washington, that's what I'm not going to do. Very good. And that's what the library is not going to do. And I had to think about this when I was really honored to be asked to serve as the 14th librarian. And that was the word to serve because I thought, how could I go from really knowing, standing on a street corner in Baltimore and opening the door for people and having them come in and knowing to my just bottom of my soul, that this was something that was important to do, that you really were helping people to the world's largest library that's known for its scholarship. What could I bring to that? And how can I help people and serve people, all types of people? And the turning point was when the then president told me about his experience seeing the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets and all of the treasures that he was able to see. And he said, but I think some of that was because I'm the president of who I am. What can you do and what would you do to make sure that everyone had that opportunity in some form? And I was hooked again. And that's the challenge. How do we make everyone the serious researcher and the scholar that's here looking at your Ethiopian manuscripts from 1600, feel just as welcome as the young people that were in the workshop that I attended this afternoon learning about dialect. That's why I know about the word like because he explained it. But they were so engaged. And you had one of your senior curators, I mean top-notch researcher, engaging these kids from Corden, think it was, Corden. And he presented his research to them in such an interesting way that they were making that connection. So that's what we are looking at. How can we take that expertise and present it in various ways, traveling exhibits, trucks that are going to go into all areas of the country, and we're going to have the Library of Congress come to you and your area. And I think, to my knowledge, that's the first time Library of Congress will have been. Well, they did it several years ago. Tell us a little bit about it, yeah. They did it several years ago. It was very successful. However, it was privately funded and the funds ran out. And so I have the mock-up of the truck in my office now to give me inspiration because that idea of taking the Library of Congress on the road is very welcome to a lot of communities. And I've talked to public libraries. So making that reach to public libraries and saying, we are a resource for you. We had a booth at the American Library Association conference last week. And we rolled out all of the things that we could do, but also asked, what do you think we could do for you, too? And so just reaching out. And they gave feedback. You have messages back, yeah? They signed up. They wanted to. But they also are saying you can. And we've experimented with it. Say we have a wonderful author in Washington to live stream the author out to communities to be able to have that. So all types of ways to reach out, not just to the public libraries, school libraries, as well. The interesting part about the survival of public libraries in the United States is that when economic times happen, the use of the libraries increases because people are using public libraries even more, even when they're financially strapped or their communities are. The federal funding for public libraries has decreased over time. And most of them have had to do public private partnerships and private fundraisers now. Quite a few, even the college and university libraries are doing more fundraising as part of that. And with national libraries, we are in an interesting situation because of the perception that the government should entirely fund the institution. And so that's where the public private. Yeah, yeah. And again, we probably have a similar perception there. And obviously in comparison with some of the local public libraries, these are richly funded organizations, but there's always more that can be done and should be done. But eight months in, I'm sensing, even if we haven't met for six months, but even in that time, the magic of social media, I'm seeing things happening at Library of Congress that I don't think I'd have necessarily expected before whole festivals have voted to disco music, Gloria Bibliodisco Tech. There was a research component. It really was. There's always a research component, yeah. And we make sure that we do that. But there is a series because that comes from the collections. Collections and things that the library already does. Every year, the Library of Congress selects 25 films and 25 recordings to be put into a national registry for all time. It's like a stamp of approval. And several years ago, the library selected a song by a very popular lady, Ms. Gloria Gaynor. And the song was, I Will Survive. And it's become an anthem for anything, products. Well, when she was put on the registry, her sales revived. She just became quite the thing. And she wanted to help the Library of Congress because she was so grateful. And so she said she would do a free concert. And then we said, well, we have to tie this into what we do. So we exhibit. We had a workshop, Tim Gunn, who's a fashion expert on a show, came and talked about fashion of the disco era. And we brought out all of it. So we really made it. And then we had 1,200 people who would have had more. But that's the capacity. All shapes, sizes, colors, backgrounds, everything. Dancing to I Will Survive in the Central Hall. And it was quite something. Very good. I've heard rumors that the Librarian of Congress participated in it. Well, I did. I had a little moment. And what it showed, though, and we had all of the information about our services. And almost to a person, people were saying, I didn't know we could even come in here. I didn't know we could get a reader's card. I'll be back. And so we got all of their information, of course. And we started sending them information about our programming. So we followed it up with, there was Pride Week in DC. And we brought up our items from our collection. And you'll have seen our display here. Very similar that people hadn't seen it. And then there was a comic conference, comic books. And you have quite a few. We had the world's largest. We do have the world's largest collection of comic books. And we had displayed those wonderful items and had Ms. Linda Carter, who was the original Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman, who lives in a Washington area, a wonderful advocate for libraries and literacy. And she came and did a workshop. And it was really something. So there's a little buzz now about the Library Congress. And we're tweeting. We found actually those media feel very natural for organizations like that. And I think it is truthful to the collections because unlike some of the Grand Art museums, our collections touch on every conceivable aspect of human life, every bit of society, every voice. And it's about bringing that creativity and curatorial magic to make things happen. And we're seeing that happening now in your institution more and more. And one of my most rewarding moments in this kind of quick overview of the library and eight months and things came when a young staff member came up to me and said, you know, I use social media a lot. And I felt so proud when some of my friends and colleagues said, hey, the Library Congress is getting pretty cool. We're following you on Twitter. And I started that, though, because even though I'm a career librarian, I've known the Library Congress for years, I don't know everything in the Library Congress. And so after I walked off the stage from being sworn in in September, that's when the Twitter started. Because I said, I'm going on an adventure. I don't know all the 162 million items, but I'm going to try to find out. And that's when it started. So every day or so when I get to go and visit this department or that department or something happens, that's what we put up and then elated. And that's been a wonderful thing. And we believe, I don't want to make a detail here, but there's much debate about these new media formats as things you can collect themselves. And so I think Twitter itself is something that's now finding its way into the servers of the Library Congress. Several years ago, the Library of Congress, when it was apparent that this new form of communication was being used, I think it was the Arab Spring, that Twitter was used for communication and that the Library identified that as a potential area of research for scholars later, that how did this new medium inform and contribute to this social movement and what happened? And so there's now an archive of about 10 years in those early years that the Library is working with Twitter on to see how can you make it accessible to researchers and do that. So that's an ongoing project. And on the list of 300 things we should have been talking about, this is of great interest to us here as we begin to think about the challenge of preserving and collecting at least a fraction of this digital ocean that we live in. And one of the concerns that I know I'm hearing from historians and scholars and researchers is their concern that a lot of the things that researchers use to show progression, drafts of things, are not going to be available in this digital world. People are not preserving like we have the draft of the Declaration of Independence. Annotated by John Adams, the president that you have a building he was a ambassador here and Benjamin Franklin. But that draft is important because you can see where they took out the paragraph about slavery. And when you see the actual declaration, they took it out because they knew that the declaration would not have been passed if the slavery was too good. Then they said, we'll deal with that later, literally, and took it out. That's the concern of historians now. What is going to be the historical record now in the digital age as things are erased and refreshed and everything? How are we going to know how things develop? And it is a profound question. And that question around the digital age comes up sometimes from a different dimension. I was very surprised taking on this role. How many pretty educated people would say to me, oh, that's interesting you're doing that, really. But it's not really needed anymore, is it? Because we all have what was a library on our mobile phone now. So why on earth do you need these institutions and collections? Anyone you ever get that? Oh, all the time. And especially during budget hearings. Why are we investing, especially in libraries as physical places? Why are you putting on $100 million extension or renovating a library? Aren't libraries going out of business? I had one gentleman I was on a panel with. I was the only librarian. And so you know how they give the nice introduction. And this person in that. And they said, and she has this PhD in library science. And the guy leaned over to me and said, oh, here's my card. Libraries are going out of business. You might need this. Well, that's a good way to start a panel. But there is that public perception that library as place isn't going to be needed. We try and refute that on a daily basis. And just by the evidence, as we've invested more in digital, the more people seem to queue up to come through the door here. And I'll be interested to get your sense of that. We're certainly in times of need. And actually this very screen-based age is a collective time of need. There's something that libraries seem to answer to more strongly rather than less. But you need to, there's an art to making that work, I think. And seeing that play out right here. People are sitting next to each other. They aren't interacting. They each have their device. But there's something about being in a place with others, doing work, and what you have that we've had, we call it envy moments so many since we've been here. So we just, the one that really got us was how you have King George's library and this wonderful historic, these bindings and everything. And surrounding that are all of these people on devices and doing work and doing research. That's the epitome of it. Bus, coffee and doing, and just... No, we, I mean, this is... We feel that's something happening in real time that we're trying to enable and understand at the same time. And it is... And I think that this is where actually the seriousness and meaning encoded into institutions and buildings like yours as well actually comes back to life in a different way because when people feel very unrooted, they're drawn, I think, to communal public spaces that feel where you're designed for concentration. Communal, you can be sit side by side. They may not be interacting with each other, but I think they're quite powerfully recognizing each other's presence and the seriousness of their individual endeavor, if that makes sense. And that's where the safety and the comfort and being... And also the sense of continuity that when you say people, things are uncertain, but here you're surround, you're part of a longer human journey. You are surround, you might be on your device, but you're looking up every now and then at this, you know you're a part of something. And people seem to find that comfort in that, they want that. And that's what we're all looking at and saying, as we develop spaces, different spaces in libraries that we accommodate that. Yes. And they're responding. And what about other people say that digital is weakening or loosening people's ability to concentrate or have extended study and attention span and so on? What's your observation as a librarian around that? A lot of it depends on the content of what they're looking at on the screen. Some of the researchers, for instance, a lady with the Ethiopian manuscripts, she had these 16th century manuscripts, beautiful illuminated manuscripts, and her laptop right there looking at the catalog of the materials and being able to bring up through the digital image close-ups of things. So that's where for researchers having the digitized aspect, they can examine it in a way that they couldn't and do that and manipulate. So sometimes it depends on that. Now, when you're reading novels, e-books on a plane, one, it's more convenient. You can go back, you can make the type bigger, which I like. You can do that. So different types of materials, you are having choices of which, so print materials, paperback books, are doing quite well. Yeah, I was with a publishing friend today and the whole book publishing industry 10 years ago thought they were looking into this, and it's not quite like that. History, we're all learning never to make too many predictions about any of this stuff, but at the moment, e-books we think are pretty much plateaued, very popular, but at a certain level. And I think others publishing experts here may know, but I think the last statistics I've seen is if you combine a somewhat declined print sales with digital sales on top, there are more books in fact being sold than ever before. And you have a choice now. You can take a paperback book on a beach or somewhere like that. You can give it to others. Book baskets, this is speaking from experience. You have a guest room or something. You have a lot of paperbacks that people can take. They have all kinds of exchanges or you could put something that you need for work on your iPad and you have a lot of modes of reading now. Underlying everything we've talked about is a principle about free access to information from a trustworthy source. And whether a library is a tiny street front or Library of Congress, there's a golden thread there. And I guess it's such a natural thought. We maybe take it for granted, but maybe in the age of free swirling digital media, I think it's dawned on us recently that it needs protecting and arguing for. Does that feel true to you? Yes, and it's one of the bedrock values in libraries that you are not making judgments about a person's information needs or what they're asking for. Though there are times we would love to know what you want the information for, especially some of the more interesting questions. But in library school... That is the cardinal rule that you only ask a person about why they want the information enough to help them get what they need. Just enough to satisfy their need. And the other part is that access and protecting a person's right to know is the phrase. You have a right to know. You have a right to also ask for information and not be judged by your interest because someone thinks you intend to do something just because you've asked for that information. And in these times, that's become a balance that we've had to work on. So, final question. On that point of principle, free information, are you feeling for this next generation of Library of Congress in America, people understand it, Congress understand the purpose? Because we sometimes feel we have to even explain the purpose of a national library here. Same sometimes in the States. Oh, yes. And especially when you think of the fact that some legislators, their only contact with a national library or parliamentary library is to serve in Library of Congress. That's one of our core missions. So, we're right there. So, we've been really working on making the connections to their communities and inviting them to be there when we livestream in that. So, they can see the impact in their local communities. And that has really been very helpful. And hence back to Full Circle, it's an American Library for them. We serve your legislators and they serve you. And it comes Full Circle. I think we're going to say you've been very generous with your time and thought, knowledge and experience. So, finally, could everyone please put together, hands together. Thanks. You've been listening to the British Library.