Did you ever hear the Library of Congress mentioned in an article or on the news? Did you ever say to yourself, is this a real library, a place where people can go and maybe look at books or other material? The answer to both questions is a resounding yes. The Library of Congress is an actual library. It is where research for the United States Congress is conducted. When it is compared to other libraries in this country and other libraries in the world, it has the most shelf space. There are more books in the Library of Congress than anywhere else. The library has been around for awhile. It was established on January 24, 1800 by President John Adams. The library was in the US Capitol until late in the 19^th century.

Thomas Jefferson lost most of his library during the War of 1812, but what he had left he donated to the Library of Congress in 1815. The library was not very important and declined until the end of the U.S. Civil War, when it had rapid growth. With this growth came prestige and importance. A building was built just for the library and everything was transferred there. The main role of the library is to research inquiries by members of congress. The library is open to the public, but don't think that you will be able to check out any books or materials. If you want to do that, you will have to get yourself elected to Congress or get appointed to the Supreme Court. The Library of Congress is a wondrous place. It receives copies of every book printed in the U.S., along with every pamphlet, piece of music registered here, every print and every map. I guess it is no wonder that the library is in such demand.

Just because you can not take anything out from the library doesn't mean you can't get materials from there. Yeah I know this sounds like a contradiction, but it really isn't, because you can request copies of materials online and can even print out photos. One must be careful because most of the material in the library is copyrighted, but having said this, some old manuscripts and photos have had their copyrights expire and it is quite legal to use something like a photo from the Civil War if the copyright has expired. It is up to the user to check this out. I myself have used some materials from the Library of Congress on this website (About Facts Net). When the library first started out, $5,000 was authorized for the purchase of books and maps and these were ordered from London. The money purchased 740 books and 30 maps. Most of these books were legal texts. The library became non existent in 1814 when invading British troops set fire to the Capitol building in August. This was where the collection was housed and the library was destroyed.

Even though Jefferson had lost much of his library in the War of 1812, he was able to donate his remaining 6,487 book personal collection to restart the library. Jefferson said, "I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from their collection; there is, in fact, no subject to which a Member of Congress may not have occasion to refer”. Perhaps the word donate is in error even though it is referred to in history, since Jefferson received $23,950 for his library, a princely sum in 1815. As the library weakened, the Smithsonian tried to become the nation's library, but eventually was defeated in this enterprise. Tragedy struck the library again in 1851 when a fire destroyed 35,000 books. The library had only 55,000 books at the time. Money was appropriated for replacement of the lost books only and there were no funds available to acquire new material.

A very dedicated librarian came along in 1865. His name was Ainsworth Rand Spofford. Under his reign he was able to get bipartisan support for the library and when he took office in 1865, under the nation's reconstruction, he began to expand the library and also began to collect American literature and Americana. He was able to continue this until he left in 1897. During that time he was able to get funds for the Thomas Jefferson Building, get all copyright registrations under the control of the library and restored the International Book Exchange. As years went by, he was able to build a library of 840,000 books. He had a strong scientific library and a very strong Americana section, among other things. A year before the library moved to its new building, Congress held hearings on whether the library should become a national library. The American Library Association sent several famous librarians to the hearings, including Spofford, Herbert Putnam the next director of the library and Melvil Dewey from the New York State Library. You might think his name sounds familiar? If you do you are right, he invented the Dewey Decimal System used in all American libraries. After the hearings congress was so impressed that it almost tripled the library's staff. The library was not only to become the National Library, but the powers of the head librarian were increased, allowing him to make appointments to the staff. The Senate also required that it approve the appointment by the president to the position of head of the Congressional Library.

In 1901 the Library of Congress became the first US Library to contain over 1,000,000 books. When Herbert Putman became the head librarian in 1899, he instituted the interlibrary loan service to make the Library of Congress more accessible to other libraries. He began to purchase foreign collections and bought the Russian Imperial Collection. He also bought Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew works. The library even purchased one of the four remaining perfect copies of the Gutenberg Bible. Over the years the library has gotten bigger and more diversified

Everyone should take a look at the library. It is a very interesting place and has many major collections that you can view online. If you like to look at images, the library is the place to be. The link to the photographs is http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html. There are all sorts of collections available for viewing. To see American Memory you can go to http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/browse/.

Have some fun, go to the main link for the Library of Congress and look around. If you are a student, it is a great place to get material for papers. It is also a great place to do research for companies and such. The main library link is http://www.loc.gov/index.html