ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 5, 1997 TAG: 9704070022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: DEB RIECHMANN ASSOCIATED PRESS
With more than 6 million items received each year, the Library of Congress can't accept everything.
Wielding a stubby red pencil, Lolita Silva daily dispels the biggest myth about the Library of Congress.
The red ``X'' that she scrawls across the title page of some books is proof positive that not everything published in the United States becomes part of the library's collection.
As one of three full-time selection librarians, Silva decides whether books and other materials will be placed on the 532 miles of shelving at the world's largest library, or sent on a journey that could end at the pulp mill.
Other specialists help select some materials, especially those written in languages like Chinese and Arabic.
But every day, Silva cracks open more than 500 titles, marks them with a red ``X'' to reject them, or pencils in a blue or red check to indicate that at least one copy will stay. Yellow slips mean the library wants two copies.
With more than 6 million books, maps, periodicals, prints, photographs, recordings, videos and other materials pouring into the library each year, the 57-year-old librarian sometimes decides in seconds whether an item will make the cut.
Forgetting the tool of her trade, Silva runs back to her office to grab her pencil - blue on one end, red on the other. She wraps herself in a red apron decorated with black-and-white cows and heads to the grimy copyright office, one of several library sites where incoming materials are processed.
``A lot of this job is sorting, keeping the work flowing and getting the dead wood out,'' Silva says, eyeing 600 to 700 books awaiting her scrutiny.
The library gets two copies of all items receiving a copyright: books, catalogs, employee training manuals - even corn tortilla wrappers with flashy graphic designs.
``This goes in the tub,'' Silva says, dumping marketing and advertising materials into a deep yellow trash cart.
She moves toward hard-bound books stacked on adjustable tables raised high so she doesn't have to stoop. Most are covered in glossy, new dust jackets that later will be discarded.
She opens ``Cowboy Justice - Tale of a Texas Lawman'' and quickly stuffs a yellow slip inside. A yellow slip also goes inside ``Reinterpreting the Banana Republic.'' ``Bobby and the Great Green Booger'' also gets the nod.
``It's a book to instruct children in reading,'' Silva says confidently after scanning its contents for just a second.
The library, founded in 1800 as the research arm of Congress, amasses materials in all subjects except technical agriculture and clinical medicine. But it doesn't collect all material with the same zeal.
And while it appears that Silva makes selections with little thought, she's actually guided by policy statements that fill a 3-inch-thick looseleaf notebook.
She rejects most school textbooks, except American history and government. Self-published books are rarely accepted unless they're about genealogy. Science fiction books are now being acquired at a faster pace.
If the library wants virtually everything of research value on a certain subject, it's collected at Level 5, explains Donald Panzera, chief of the exchange and gift division. Items of little value are Level 1.
Materials the library does not want are made available to federal agencies, nonprofit groups and book dealers. Leftovers are destined for the pulp mill.
Back upstairs in her office, Silva uses her knowledge of Russian, German, French, Italian and her native Latvian to help her sort carts of books and other materials arriving from more than 10,000 libraries, institutes, academies and book vendors around the globe.
``We try to collect the literary output of a country, not the popular literature like mysteries,'' Silva says.
Silva's 37-year-old colleague, Patrick Walsh, who knows Russian and German, bends a paperback about local storm and flooding procedures in Hamburg, Germany. He lets the pages flutter and quickly surmises that it would be of little use to Congress or the 1 million readers and visitors who use the library each year. It gets a red ``X.''
``Sometimes we judge a book by its cover,'' he admits.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 linesby CNB