The unit I work in is the reference point for our vast archives, and I see that joy all the time in the reading room. Sometimes it's little old ladies finding a small piece of a genealogical puzzle, sometimes historians doing laborious research finding some new insight... or just something "cool."

What's the point of that joy? Maybe just the fact that we're all a bunch of history dorks sharing what we've found with other dorks who love this stuff and find it interesting. It's less about the past than it is about us.