Re: An interesting quotation story (quotation-ring)

["Robert Lopresti" <lopresti@memes.com>]

My fellow librarian's story reminds me of
an excellent book of quotations, RESPECTFULLY
QUOTED.  It is put out by the Library of Congress
and it is a collection of quotations they looked
up at the request of congresspersons.
What makes it different than most q-books is
that it tends to give some context for the quote.
You can probably figure out why this matters
to a congressman:  He wouldn't want to use the
perfect line to make his point in a speech
and discover the next day in the press that
it had originally been used as a defense
of Adolf Hitler, for example.
Cheers,
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: Eyler Coates, Sr. <eyler.coates@worldnet.att.net>
To: quotation-ring-l@gunnar.cc <quotation-ring-l@gunnar.cc>
Date: Tuesday, November 02, 1999 6:02 PM
Subject: An interesting quotation story (quotation-ring)
>
>When I was attending Library School at LSU back in 1968, I had a professor
>-- a rather elderly gentleman -- who had worked at the Library of Congress
>for some thirty years or so and had been head of the Public Reference
>Section.  He told the class the following story:
>
>Back when Franklin Roosevelt was president, Mr. Roosevelt was going to give
>a speech, and there was a quotation from Abraham Lincoln he wanted to use,
>but he wanted to verify the source and make sure he had the wording exactly
>correct.  So he requested the staff at the Library of Congress to research
>it, and provide the exact source and wording.  Needless to say, whenever
the
>president makes a request of a governmental agency, they drop everything
and
>go all out trying to fulfill it.  Well, a number of the reference staff
>looked and looked through everything they could put their hands on, but
>couldn't locate the quotation.  Late into the evening, they were working in
>a part of the library that had rare books, and was separated from the rest
>of the stacks in a  caged area with a metal door.  They were in this caged
>area, looking and looking, without success.  Finally, they decided to quit
>for the time being, and come back to it later.  As they were leaving the
>caged area, they slammed the metal door.  And when they did that, a book
>fell off the shelf inside the cage.  They went back in, and when they
picked
>up the book, they discovered it had fallen open to the very quotation they
>had been looking for!  The professor who told us this story was a very
>distinguished former member of the Library of Congress staff, and he
assured
>us that it was a true story.  Knowing him, and who he was, I feel compelled
>to believe him.
>
>Eyler Coates
>===========================================================
>                            Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government
>                           http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/
>                                    Thomas Jefferson and His Writings
>                          http://homepages.infoseek.com/~eylercoates/
>===========================================================
>
>
>