The last time we went (15 years ago), we stayed at the Lowes L'Enfant Plaza hotel. Very nice hotel, a little pricey, but super convenient! Same street as the aerospace museum.
We could walk to many sights. L'Enfant Plaza has a small indoor shopping center near the hotel with an undeground metro station.
The only problem... it is the hotel and plaza are under renovation and won't reopen till 2015.
IMO, it is worth a little more money to stay right in the city at a major hotel near the sights, rather than deal with a daily commute!
If we were going, I would get some hotel quotes from Kayak.com and read some reviews on tripadvisor to help narrow down my choices.
For travel guides.... I found "The Unofficial Guide to Washington, D.C." to be a great book with a lot of information about how to make effective use of time, what needs to be pre-arranged (tickets), what sights might appeal to what age group, etc. I looked at the other major travel books at the time too. But IMO, it was the best... hands down! But, that was 15 years ago... so YMMV. The new 12th Edition edition will be available on May 6, 2014 according to Amazon. It is not very expensive.
You can probably find the 2011 version of the book at your library.
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