Historian John Cole started working at the Library of Congress as a young man in 1966. Most of his books since have dealt with this venerable institution.

We talk here about it’s influence on American political and cultural life, about Thomas Jefferson as bibliophile, about books comprising a small part of the library’s total collection; capturing, cataloging and digitizing the world’s intellectual activity, serving the blind, teaching teachers how to use the collection on-line, subjective collecting, documenting thought and the Library’s fine folk life collection.