The Library of Congress, the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States, celebrates its 223rd birthday on April 24, 2023. It was approved by President John Adams in 1800 with an initial appropriation of $5,000 for the purchase of books for Congress. President Thomas Jefferson further defined the role and functions of the institution in 1802, emphasizing the importance of information and ideas for a democratic legislature. By 1815, Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library of over 6,000 volumes to Congress, doubling the size of the collection and broadening its scope.
In 1864, Ainsworth Rand Spofford transformed the Library of Congress into an institution of national significance by expanding the collections, centralizing U.S. copyright activities, and constructing a separate building completed in 1897. Herbert Putnam, head of the Library from 1889 to 1939, made the catalog available to thousands of subscribing American libraries and institutions, emphasizing service to scholarship on a national scale. Subsequent leaders like Archibald MacLeish, Luther H. Evans, and L. Quincy Mumford expanded the library’s roles and activities. The library grew significantly under Daniel J. Boorstin and James H. Billington, who increased visibility and modernized operations.
Carla Hayden became the 14th Librarian of Congress in 2016, overseeing a collection of over 173 million items. The library receives 15,000 items daily and adds over 10,000 items to its collections. Offices abroad since 1962 help acquire and preserve research materials, with about half the library’s collections in languages other than English. The Law Library of Congress is the world’s largest law library, holding over 2.9 million volumes. The library’s rare-book collection includes over 700,000 volumes, with a significant collection of 15th-century books in the Western Hemisphere.
The Library of Congress has the most comprehensive collection of American music in the world, with over 22 million items. It also boasts an extensive collection of rare children’s books, presidential papers, including those of George Washington and Calvin Coolidge, and the coveted Gutenberg Bible, one of three perfect copies on vellum worldwide. The American Folklife Center administers projects like the Veterans History Project and StoryCorps to preserve oral histories. Services like books for the blind in Braille and sound recordings have been available since 1931, with a transition to digital formats and playback equipment.
In addition to its vast collections and services, the Library of Congress remains a symbol of democracy and cultural institution. It continues to play a vital role in American scholarship and culture by balancing its legislative, national, and international functions. The X (Twitter) account of the Library of Congress has 1.2 million followers, demonstrating its reach and influence in the digital age. With a rich history dating back to 1800, the Library of Congress has maintained its mission of providing information, ideas, and resources to support the work of Congress and benefit the nation as a whole.
