Library of Congress

Library of Congress. Established in 1800, the Library of Congress is the world's largest and most comprehensive research institution. Although never the official national library of the United States, it has been run continuously by the federal government's legislative branch and serves all the functions of a national library, including copyright repository (since 1870) and reference service to Congress and other branches of government. A fire destroyed the library's core collections in 1814, but it recovered by acquiring the great library of Thomas Jefferson the following year. The institution grew slowly through the nineteenth century, obtaining collections of books, pamphlets, maps, manuscripts, newspapers, pictorial materials, and broadsides through purchase, exchange, and donation. In addition, the nation's earliest documents and the papers of the founders ( George Washington, Jefferson, James Madison, and others) were transferred to the library from the State Department.

With the appointment of the library's first professional administrator, Herbert Putnam, in 1899, the collections grew dramatically, numbering over 100 million items in three buildings a century later. The library became a leader in cataloging, description, and technology, first by distributing its catalog cards to libraries worldwide, and then with the development of the machine‐readable cataloging (MARC) format that became the international standard. Its American Memory page on the Worldwide Web contains images of thousands of items from the collections, giving researchers instant off‐site access to them. The library's paper preservation accomplishments, cultural programs, and services to the blind and persons with disabilities are notable as well.
See also Internet and Worldwide Web; Libraries.

Bibliography

Jane Aikin Rosenberg , The Nation's Great Library: Herbert Putnam and the Library of Congress, 1899–1939, 1993.
John Y. Cole , Jefferson's Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress, 1997.

Ronald Becker