>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington DC.
[Silence]
>> NARRATOR: The Library of
Congress was established by an act
of Congress in 1800, when our
nation's capital was moved
from Philadelphia to Washington,
D.C. In August of 1814,
the Capitol Building,
which housed the Library,
was burned by British troops
during the War of 1812,
and the Library's core collection
of 3,000 volumes was lost.
Within a month, Thomas Jefferson
offered his personal library
as a replacement.
Congress accepted and paid
nearly $24,000 for 6,487 books,
which more than doubled the
size of the original collection.
The Library's collections
have continued to grow.
Librarian of Congress, Ainsworth
Rand Spofford, promoted the passage
of the copyright law of 1870, which
required all copyright applicants
to send the Library two
copies of their work.
The Library is still the home
of the U.S. Copyright Office,
and the majority of
items in the Library
of Congress' collections
are received
through the copyright
registration process.
In 1873, plans began
for a new building.
In 1886, the plans were approved,
and what is now called the
Thomas Jefferson Building opened
in November 1897.
The Library now occupies three
buildings on Capitol Hill:
The original building, now
called the Jefferson Building,
the John Adams Building,
built in 1938,
and the James Madison
Memorial Building,
which was completed in 1981.
The Library of Congress
is the largest federal
cultural institution.
It houses more than
150 million items.
More than 36 million of
these are cataloged books
and other printed materials,
representing more than
470 languages.
Many people think that the
Library contains mostly books
and it does have many books.
However, the Library also houses
vast collections of other items,
such as maps, sheet music,
photographs and prints,
sound recordings, motion
pictures, and manuscripts.
The manuscripts total nearly 70
million and include original copies
of some of the greatest
handwritten treasures
of American history and culture.
Among these are Thomas
Jefferson's original rough draft
of the Declaration of Independence,
George Washington's
first inaugural address,
and Abraham Lincoln's
Gettysburg Address.
The Library has more than 20 reading
rooms, 850 miles of bookshelves,
3 million recordings, and 6
million pieces of sheet music.
The collections are
constantly growing.
The Library receives
about 15,000 items a day
and about 12,000 items are added
to the collections each day.
That's more than 2
million items a year.
Items not selected
for the collections
or other internal purposes are
used in the Library's national
and international exchange programs.
When its doors opened
to the public in 1897,
the Library of Congress
represented an unparalleled national
achievement: the "largest,
costliest,
and safest" library in the world.
Its elaborately decorated interior,
embellished by works of art
from nearly fifty American
painters and sculptors,
linked the United States to
classical traditions of learning
and simultaneously flexed American
cultural and technological muscle.
This view of the Great Hall is from
the second floor south corridor
and shows the elaborate
ceiling and floor designs.
This is a view of the
Main Reading Room
in the Thomas Jefferson Building.
Anyone 16 or older, and with a
photo ID, can register as a reader
and access materials from the
Library of Congress on site.
The Library of Congress is grand
and inspiring, but you don't have
to go there to search the
treasures of the institution.
The Library's Web site offers
millions of digitized items,
all for free and without
registration.
[Music]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc dot gov.