Starting a collection...

Was this where I needed to go?
 
I had walked into the wrong building. Looking for the Library of Congress museum, I found myself in the Manuscripts Reading Room.
 
How do collections get started? I asked.
 
I showed the receptionist my files that I had in my backpack. She called in someone from Manuscripts. They had me come back with the rest of the files the next day and spent 2 hours with me. Operation Babylift will become a collection at the Library of Congress. It's a story that has never been told by data and details. Files that have never been seen. Lists that complete one another. Life stories that have never been connected. Histories that have never been known. The opportunity to make things happen is always there. You just have to ask. 
 
This was not the beginning but the culmination of lifelong curiosity, fanatical organization coupled with inquisitive analytical processing. I was an Operation Babylift adoptee from Vietnam. I survived the plane that crashed. I have access and connections to bring it all together. Is this how the story needs to be shared? Maybe I will be come an archivist. 
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-Devaki Murch, Collector