Library of Congress

The Library of Congress isn’t your everyday library. It’s America’s library – housing millions and millions of books, publications, photographs, recordings, maps, manuscripts and sheet music.

None of it can be checked out, but it can be used on the premises. If it’s published, it’s likely to have a place in the Library of Congress, though not every book is at the Library. Almost half of the Library’s materials are in 470 other languages besides English, illustrating the richness of its collection and its reflection of what America is all about.

Built in 1800, the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world and the oldest institution in the country. It was established as a place for lawmakers to conduct research. The original collection of 3,000 volumes was burned by the British in 1814, when the Library was housed inside the Capitol building. Several months later, Congress approved the purchase of Thomas Jefferson’s library of 6,400 books, which jump-started the library we know today.

Today’s library carries 145 million items on its 745 miles of shelves, including the world’s largest law library still used by today’s lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The law library also contains materials from other countries and a staff of interpreters to assist people with law books written in other languages. To request any materials, individuals must get a library card first.

Nearly 10,000 pieces of material are added to the Library every day.  Some of the Library’s volumes include books on tape and in Braille, telephone books from 650 U.S. cities and towns and 100 countries, a newspaper dating back to 1659, and even comic books.

The more famous documents at the Library include drafts of the Declaration of Independence, the Gutenberg Bible and the Giant Bible of Maintz, George Washington’s copy of the Constitution, and a map that first used the name “America” for the New World. Thomas Jefferson’s original library is also still there. It also has a large rare-book collection and examples of original printing. Passages from a Buddhist sutra printed in 770 AD is in the Library’s Asian Division. The oldest written material in the Library is a tablet from 2040 B.C.

Three buildings comprise the Library of Congress: The Thomas Jefferson Building was opened in 1897, followed by the John Adams Building in 1939 and the James Madison Memorial Building in 1980. Visitors can see the famed Thomas Jefferson Building by joining a tour group to visit the reading rooms and other exhibits. Library stacks are closed, however. Its impressive height, architecture and design include marble floors and a stained-glass ceiling, staircases, mosaics, paintings and columns.

HelloMetro Tip: Public tours of the library are available Monday through Saturday at 10:30am, 11:30am, 1:30pm, 2:30pm and 3:30pm, although there is no 3:30pm tour on Saturdays and first tour is at 9:30am on U.S. federal holidays.

- by Rin-rin Yu, Washington Reporter for HelloMetro  (Click to leave a message)

Rin-rin Yu

Rin-rin is an award-winning writer and journalist based in the Baltimore-Washington area. Her work has appeared in China Daily, DAYSPA magazine, Luxury Home Design, Aquatics International, Not For Tourists and other publications. Rin-rin has also worked for ABC News, WHDH-TV (NBC) in Boston and Hanley Wood Business Media. She has a master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She is an avid world traveler and maintains a travel blog, www.mytravelhats.com.