origins
The library was founded in 1800, making it the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. on August 24, 1814, British troops burned the capitol building (where the library was located) and destroyed the main library collection of 3,000 volumes. On January 30, 1815, Congress approved the purchase of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library of 6,487 books for $23,950.
statistics
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library with more than 173 million items. see detailed statistics of the collection.
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the collections
every weekday the library receives about 15,000 items and adds more than 10,000 items to its collections. Materials are acquired as copyright repositories and through gifts, purchases, other government agencies (state, local, and federal), publication cataloging (a pre-publication agreement with publishers), and exchange with libraries in the United States and abroad. Items not selected for collections or other internal purposes are used in the library’s domestic and international exchange programs. Through these exchanges, the library acquires material that would not otherwise be available. Remaining items are made available to other federal agencies and then available for donation to educational institutions, public agencies, and tax-exempt nonprofit organizations in the United States.
international collections
Since 1962, the Library of Congress has maintained offices abroad to acquire, catalog, and preserve library and research materials from countries where such materials are essentially unavailable through conventional acquisition methods. Overseas offices in New Delhi (India), Cairo (Egypt), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Jakarta (Indonesia), Nairobi (Kenya), and Islamabad (Pakistan) collectively source materials from more than 60 countries and procure materials On behalf of United State Libraries participating in the Cooperative Acquisitions Program. the library is also collaborating with institutions around the world to provide content about the world digital library.
foreign languages
About half of the library’s collections of books and periodicals are in languages other than English. the collections contain materials in about 470 languages.
materials from Africa and the Middle East
The library’s Africa and Middle East division has 600,000 volumes in the non-Roman script languages of the region.
asian materials
the library’s asian division collection contains more than 3 million items, the largest collection of chinese, japanese and korean materials outside of asia, and one of the largest tibetan collections in the world.
European, Iberian, Latin American and Caribbean materials
The library has the largest collection of Russian-language materials in the United States and the largest outside of Russia (over 750,000 items). The Iberian, Latin American and Caribbean collections of the library, which comprise more than 10 million pieces (books, magazines, newspapers, maps, manuscripts, photographs, posters, recordings, sheet music and other materials) are the largest and most complete in the world.
law library
the law library of congress is the world’s largest law library, with more than 2.9 million volumes, including one of the world’s best collections of rare law books and the most comprehensive collection of legal bulletins foreigners in the United States. The Law Library contains United States Congressional publications dating back to the founding of the nation.
rare books and manuscripts
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The library has the largest rare book collection in North America (over 700,000 volumes), including the largest collection of 15th-century books in the Western Hemisphere. The collection also includes the first book printed in what is now the United States, “The Bay Psalm Book” (1640).
children’s books
The Library owns approximately 100 extremely rare children’s books, including “The New Toy for Children” (Philadelphia, 1763) and “The Children’s Bible” (Philadelphia, 1763).
smaller book
the smallest book in the library of congress is “old king cole”. is 1/25″ x 1/25″, or about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
biggest book
The largest book in the Library of Congress is a 5 foot by 7 foot color picture book of Bhutan. With support from Microsoft, a team of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recorded ancient life and culture in this South Asian country and made 40,000 digital images available to the National Archives of Bhutan. A copy of the picture book was donated to the Library of Congress.
older print example
One of the oldest examples of printing in the world: passages from a Buddhist sutra or discourse, printed in 770 AD. – is located in the Asian division of the library. the oldest written material in the library is a cuneiform tablet dating from 2040 BC
presidential documents
Foremost among the Manuscripts Division’s holdings are the documents of 23 presidents, from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge.
gutenberg bible
The Gutenberg Bible, one of the treasures of the Library of Congress, was purchased in 1930. The 15th-century work is one of only three perfect vellum copies in the world.
audiovisual and performing arts collections
engravings and photographs
The Library’s Prints and Photographs division contains more than 17.5 million visual images, including the world’s most comprehensive international collection of posters, the most comprehensive visual record of the Civil War, and pioneering documentation of historic architecture from united states More than 1.2 million images can be accessed in the online catalog of prints and photographs at www.loc.gov/pictures/.
cinema, broadcasting and recorded sound
opened in 2007, the library’s packard campus for audiovisual preservation in culpeper, virginia, was designed for the acquisition, cataloging, storage, and preservation of the national collection of recorded moving images and sounds. In association with the Packard Institute of Humanities, the U.S. congress and the architect of the capitol, the library’s state-of-the-art facility houses the largest and most comprehensive collection of american and foreign films, television broadcasts, and sound recordings. The facility houses more than 6 million items, including more than 4.1 million sound recordings and more than 1.8 million film, television, and video items, representing more than a century of audiovisual production.
music
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The library has the most comprehensive collection of American music in the world: more than 22 million items, including 8.2 million sheet music. The collection includes an extensive set of original manuscripts by American musical theater composers and the largest collection of any type of musical instrument (flute) in the world. the library sponsors a series of long-running chamber music concerts.
American Folk Life Center and Veterans History Project
With more than 6 million items, the American Folklife Center’s Archive of Folk Culture is the largest repository of traditional cultural documentation in the United States and one of the largest in the world. contains the largest collection of American Indian music and spoken word, including the oldest ethnographic field recordings made anywhere in the world.
The American Folklife Center administers the Veterans History Project, which was established by Congress in 2000 to preserve the memories of the nation’s war veterans. To date, more than 100,000 submissions have been collected, including many from members of Congress.
The American Folklife Center also manages and preserves the Storycorps Project, a nationwide grassroots initiative to record the oral histories of ordinary citizens.
other fascinating facts
digital talking books
since 1931, the library has provided books to the blind in braille and sound recordings. The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled has replaced its inventory of audiocassette recordings with newly developed digital talking books and digital playback equipment.
cartography
The library’s Maps and Geography division contains more than 5.6 million items, the largest collection of cartographic materials in the world. It has the largest collection of fire insurance maps of cities and towns in the United States, providing unparalleled coverage of the growth of America’s urban areas from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries. The collection also includes Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, known as “America’s Birth Certificate,” the first document on which the name “America” appears.
telephone directories
the library’s general collections contain the largest historical collection in the us. uu. telephone crosstalk (telephone number and address) and directories of cities in the world. the library acquires more than 8,000 volumes a year and owns more than 124,000 microfilmed phone books and city directories from 650 u.s. cities and towns. this vast collection includes historic foreign telephone directories and city directories (nearly 1,500 per year received from over 100 countries).
comic books and newspapers
The library’s government and serials division contains the world’s largest collection of comics (over 140,000 items representing over 12,000 titles). The oldest comic book in the collection is “Popular Comics”, February 1936. The division also owns the world’s largest collection of newspapers. the oldest original newspaper in the collection is “mercurius publicas comprising the sum of foreign intelligence”, December 29, 1659.
scientific and technical information
The Library of Congress has one of the largest and most diverse collections of scientific and technical information in the world. such material makes up about a quarter of his total collection of books and magazines. The Library’s Science, Technology, and Business Division maintains the largest collections of technical reports and standards in this country (about 5 million domestic and foreign items).