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Category: Library Work and Employees

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

My Job: Rachel Wetzel

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

Rachel Wetzel works in the Library's conservation lab, where she treats, assesses and preserves photos from across the Library, many of which are more than a century old. Many of these are torn, degraded, broken or otherwise damaged. They're printed on a varity of surfaces with different chemical compositions. It's a delicate job, as she often works on prints from the earliest days of photography.

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Building the Library’s Collections: From (and for) The People

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

Lincoln’s original drafts of the Gettysburg Address, the diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, Walt Whitman’s notes for “Leaves of Grass,” the journals of Alexander Graham Bell documenting his invention of the telephone, Irving Berlin’s handwritten score for “God Bless America,” the papers of Rosa Parks, the diaries of Orville Wright chronicling the first powered flight — all were obtained by the Library via donation, gifts from citizens to the American public, making it truly an institution by and for the people.