Library of Congress Created
The Library of Congress, established on April 24, 1800, serves as the national library of the United States and is one of the largest libraries in the world. Initially created to support the legislative activities of Congress, it has grown significantly to serve the public, scholars, and international libraries as well. Today, the Library houses over 158 million items, including millions of printed materials, films, music scores, maps, and legal documents. Its extensive collections have been built through federal appropriations, donations, and acquisitions, including significant purchases like Thomas Jefferson's private library.
Throughout its history, the Library has faced challenges, including two significant fires that destroyed portions of its collection. Despite these setbacks, it has expanded its holdings and services, including the establishment of a copyright department and the creation of the World Digital Library, which provides access to digitized materials from various cultures. Notably, the Library has embraced modern technology, with millions of online visits and partnerships to archive digital content, such as Twitter's archives. The Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation further enhances its capabilities, preserving audiovisual materials in a state-of-the-art facility. The Library of Congress remains a vital institution for preserving American heritage and facilitating access to knowledge globally.
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Library of Congress Created
Library of Congress Created
On April 24, 1800, the Congress of the United States created the Library of Congress by approving an act providing “for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress at the said city of Washington, and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them.” Although originally intended specifically as a parliamentary collection to aid the legislative branch of the government, the Library of Congress in its approximately two centuries of existence has expanded its services until, despite its name, it has become the national library of the United States. Besides serving members of Congress and other government officials, the reference library meets the needs of the general public, scholars, and libraries both in this country and abroad.
Ranking as one of the largest libraries in the world, the Library of Congress possesses outstanding collections of manuscripts, prints, maps, motion pictures, records, and books, as well as tapes, microfiche, and microfilm. It also offers such added benefits as an extensive computer system and a detailed website on the Internet. The library is maintained chiefly by congressional appropriations, but also derives funds from private donations. The hundreds of millions of dollars in the library's annual budget today are a far cry from the $5,000 Congress set aside for book purchases at the institution's founding in 1800.
The original nucleus of 3,000 volumes, amassed from 1800 to 1814 and housed in the Capitol, was burned on August 24, 1814, in the British attack on Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812. The loss was mitigated by the purchase in January 1815 of former President Thomas Jefferson's private library, comprising more than 6,000 volumes. This splendid collection, considered remarkable in its day, formed the basis around which the library built up its holdings in diverse fields. However, it too suffered a Capitol blaze, namely an unexpected fire on December 24, 1851, and was reduced by half.
Despite setbacks, the Library of Congress continued to augment its collection substantially during the course of the 19th century through annual congressional appropriations; special purchases, such as the Peter Force collection of primary materials relating to American history (1867) and the Rochambeau collection pertaining to the American Revolution (1883); bequests; foreign exchanges; and items transferred from other government agencies, including the Smithsonian collection of almost 40,000 volumes (1866). Moreover, in 1870 a congressional act made the Library of Congress the official depository of copyrighted and official publications. In 1897 a copyright department was set up on the library premises. The library also approved the purchase of the presidential papers of George Washington, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, a project that has since grown to encompass millions of items in several dozen presidential collections. The personal papers of other famous men and women have been gradually acquired as well.
By the end of the 19th century, the Library of Congress housed an extensive national reference collection comprising some 740,000 volumes, 250,000 prints, 40,000 maps, 200,000 pieces of music, and 18,000 bound newspaper volumes. The cramped Capitol “apartment” stipulated by the congressional act of 1800 had long been inadequate, and in 1897 the library transferred its holdings to a new $7 million Italian Renaissance style Main Building on Capitol Hill near the Congress. As the institution added personnel, services, and more material during the 20th century, the library began to add annex buildings in the Capitol Hill area, including the massive Madison building annex across from the main building which contains the extensive law library holdings.
In 2014, the Library of Congress was the largest library in the world, with the British library coming in at a close second. It housed more than 158 million items, including thirty-six million printed items in 460 languages, the largest collection of rare books in North America, and the world's largest collection of films, sheet music, sound recordings, maps, and legal materials. More than 1.6 million people visited the Library of Congress in 2013, and the library had a budget of almost $600 million. Online use of the library's catalog skyrocketed after 2000, with more than eighty-four million Web page visits in 2013. The Library of Congress adds twelve thousand items to its collection every day. It actively collects foreign material from other countries and is collaborating with other institutions around the world to maintain a World Digital Library (WDL). US Librarian of Congress James Billington proposed the development of the WDL to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2005, which agreed to help with the project. After years of development, the Web site went online in 2009, providing digitized content in original languages from sources around the world.
In 2010, Twitter donated all of its archives to the Library of Congress, beginning in 2006, and the Library of Congress announced that it would archive all tweets going forward. This was done in an effort to record firsthand historical accounts, and the organization and use of the eighty-five terabytes of data would prove challenging, but the research potential was great. The Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation opened in 2007, in Culpeper, Virginia, housing the Library of Congress's audiovisual collections. It is a state-of-the-art building set on forty-five acres of land that has the capability of capturing audiovisual content from hundreds of broadcast channels at a time. A renovation of the old Federal Reserve bunker from the Cold War, its climate-controlled vaults are able to safely preserve delicate film recordings, and its digital storage capabilities are unprecedented.