United States Library of Congress (LOC)

History and Founding

The Library of Congress was established on April 24, 1800, when President John Adams signed legislation appropriating $5,000 for the purchase of books for the use of Congress, making it the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Originally housed within the U.S. Capitol building, the Library suffered devastating losses in 1814 when British forces burned Washington and destroyed its initial collection. In 1815, Congress purchased Thomas Jefferson's personal library of more than 6,000 volumes to replace the lost books, significantly broadening the institution's intellectual scope. A second fire in 1851 destroyed two-thirds of Jefferson's donation. The Library moved into its own dedicated building—now known as the Thomas Jefferson Building—in 1897. Two additional buildings followed: the John Adams Building (opened 1939) and the James Madison Memorial Building (completed 1981).

Collections and Holdings

Today the Library of Congress holds approximately 173 million items, making it one of the largest libraries in the world. Its collections span virtually every format and language: more than 38 million cataloged books and other print materials in 470 languages, 3.6 million recordings, 14 million photographs, 5.5 million maps, 72 million manuscripts, and over 7 million pieces of sheet music. The Library also maintains the world's largest collection of legal materials, films, comics, newspapers, and phonebooks. Physical holdings are distributed across the Capitol Hill campus and the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (opened 2007) in Culpeper, Virginia, which consolidates the institution's film, television, and sound collections.

Notable Materials Related to Journalism and Media

The Library holds one of the most significant journalism and media archives in the world. Its newspaper collections are among the largest anywhere, with historical American newspapers dating to the colonial era. The Chronicling America digital project, operated in partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities, provides free online access to millions of digitized newspaper pages from 1770 to 1963. The Bain Collection comprises over 40,000 glass negatives documenting news events from approximately 1900 to 1930, representing one of the earliest systematic news photograph archives. The Library's Associated Press News Dispatches (1915–1930) collection documents wire service journalism of the early twentieth century. The American Folklife Center, established in 1976, preserves oral histories, documentary recordings, and field recordings that capture community voices and media history.

Access and Usage

The Library is open to the public for research purposes, though only members of Congress, their staff, and Library employees may borrow materials for use outside the building. The general public may use reading rooms on site after obtaining a reader identification card. The Library's digital collections are freely accessible online through loc.gov, providing access to millions of digitized items. The Congressional Research Service (CRS), established in 1914, provides nonpartisan research and analysis to Congress, staffed by approximately 600 analysts. The Law Library of Congress, established in 1832, holds more than 2.9 million volumes of legal materials from around the world.

Digital Initiatives

The Library has invested substantially in digitization since the 1990s. The National Digital Library Program launched in that decade, followed by the crowdsourcing platform By the People, which enlists volunteers to transcribe handwritten historical documents. The Library's web archive program preserves born-digital content, including collections of political campaign websites, news sites, and social media. The Library also administers the National Film Preservation Board, which selects up to 25 films annually for inclusion in the National Film Registry.