The Library of Congress Is Your Library

The Library of Congress was established by an Act of Congress in 1800, when our nation's capital was moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. In August of 1814, the Capitol building, which housed the library, was burned by British troops during the War of 1812, and the library's core collection of 3,000 volumes was lost. Within a month, Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library as a replacement. Congress accepted and paid nearly $24,000 for 6,487 books, which more than doubled the size of the original collection. The library's collections have continued to grow. Librarian of Congress Ainsworth Rand Spofford promoted the passage of the Copyright Law of 1870, which required all copyright applicants to send the library two copies of their work. The library is still the home of the U.S. Copyright Office, and the majority of items in the Library of Congress's collections are received through the copyright registration process. In 1873, plans began for a new building. In 1886, the plans were approved, and what is now called the Thomas Jefferson Building opened in November 1897. The library now occupies three buildings on Capitol Hill, the original building, now called the Jefferson Building, the John Adams Building, built in 1938, and the James Madison Memorial Building, which was completed in 1981. The Library of Congress is the largest federal cultural institution. It houses more than 150 million items. More than 36 million of these are cataloged books and other printed materials, representing more than 470 languages. Many people think that the library contains mostly books, and it does have many books. However, the library also houses vast collections of other items, such as maps, sheet music, photographs and prints, sound recordings, motion pictures, and manuscripts. The manuscripts total nearly 70 million and include original copies of some of the greatest handwritten treasures of American history and culture. Among these are Thomas Jefferson's original rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, George Washington's first inaugural address, and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The library has more than 20 reading rooms, 850 miles of bookshelves, 3 million recordings, and 6 million pieces of sheet music. The collections are constantly growing. The library receives about 15,000 items a day, and about 12,000 items are added to the collections each day. That's more than 2 million items a year. Items not selected for the collections or other internal purposes are used in the library's national and international exchange programs. When its doors opened to the public in 1897, the Library of Congress represented an unparalleled national achievement, the largest, costliest, and safest library in the world. Its elaborately decorated interior, embellished by works of art from nearly 50 American painters and sculptors, linked the United States to classical traditions of learning and simultaneously flexed American cultural and technological muscle. This view of the Great Hall is from the second-floor South Corridor and shows the elaborate ceiling and floor designs. This is a view of the main reading room in the Thomas Jefferson Building. Anyone 16 or older and with a photo ID can register as a reader and access materials from the Library of Congress on-site. The Library of Congress is grand and inspiring, but you don't have to go there to search the treasures of the institution. The Library's website offers millions of digitized items, all for free and without registration.