DAPHNE, Ala. —The Library of Congress’ “Gateway to Knowledge” exhibition rolled into town March 11 and within four hours more than 300 people had walked through the exhibit, according to Josh Van Gelder, field manager for the exhibition.

The traveling exhibition, housed in an 18-wheeler, expanded to showcase high-quality facsimiles of drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the comic book in which Spiderman first appeared, as well as interactive displays where visitors could learn more about the Library of Congress and all it has to offer. Van Gelder said a copy of the first comic book appearance of Spider-Man recently sold for $1.1 million at auction, making it the most expensive comic book after the first appearance of Superman.

“It is a traveling exhibition that is about the Library of Congress, about some of the history of the library, how it got started and what its purpose is,” Van Gelder said. “It also has information about the resources that are available, so the bulk of the exhibit is kind of an introduction to some of the treasures that are part of the collection.”

The exhibition did not include any actual documents or pieces, but Van Gelder said the high-quality facsimiles are very close to the real pieces. Even in Washington, D.C., the documents under the glass are just high-quality facsimiles if the document is undergoing repair.

“We don’t have any of the actual items in the exhibit because the Library of Congress is a fully functioning library so we would hate to take things out and take them away from people to use for this exhibit,” Van Gelder said.

The exhibition is staffed by two tour guides who set up scavenger hunts for school field-trip groups and offered information regarding the Library of Congress and all it has to offer through the traveling exhibition as well as the three large buildings in Washington, D.C., which house pieces of historical significance.

Van Gelder, one of the two tour guides staffing the exhibition, said the exhibition was a small-scale showcase of what the Library of Congress has to offer in Washington, D.C. and online.

The Library of Congress has many exhibitions accessible online including collections of photographs, music, veterans’ history, maps, historic newspapers, the congressional record, and website archiving. All of the Library’s digital collections are available at www.loc.gov.

Marian McNair used to live in Washington, D.C., where all of the treasures held by the Library of Congress are always on display, but she came to check out the exhibit on Friday afternoon.

“The Library of Congress is a long trip from here. It is like being able to go to Washington for a few minutes to see stuff,” McNair said. “Anytime you get to see even a part of it you learn something you didn’t learn before. It is so big, you can’t see it all.”

Jim and Anne Hurst, snowbirds from Indiana, have also seen the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., but they came out to see the smaller traveling exhibition on Friday.

“We enjoy going to museums and we like to know what things are here. We have both been to Monticello, and of course a great deal of this was started by Thomas Jefferson,” Jim Hurst said. “It is always interesting. You never want to stop learning. That is the main idea in life.”

Anne Hurst said the exhibit was “like a little gem that was just brought here. This is the kind of thing we like to see.”

After pulling out of the Jubilee City, the exhibition still had a long way to go before finishing the tour. Daphne was the 40th of 60 scheduled stops for the exhibition.