On this date in 1800, US Congress approved a bill establishing the Library of Congress in Washington DC. 10 facts about the Library of Congress.
It’s America’s oldest federal cultural institution, dating back to President John Adams, who, on this date, approved the act of Congress which moved the US Government to Washington DC from Philadelphia. The act included $5,000 to provide books for members of Congress to use. The library was originally housed in a spacious central room in the Capitol.
It has been hit by serious fires twice. On August 24, 1814, British troops burned the Capitol building and 3,000 books were lost. The following year, Congress approved the purchase of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library of 6,487 books for $23,950 to replenish the library.
Two thirds of Jefferson’s books were lost in the next serious Fire on Christmas Eve, 1851. It wasn’t the pesky Brits this time, but a faulty Chimney flue. Congress appropriated $168,700 to replace the lost books, a project which could still be ongoing: in 2008, the librarians of Congress had found replacements for all but 300 of the works documented as being in Jefferson's original collection.
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. It has over 164 million items in its inventory and adds 10,000 items to its collection each working day. It’s not just books, either. The collection also includes Newspapers, comic books, Maps, microfilm, sheet Music, sound recordings, photographs, works of art and even musical instruments: a couple of Stradivarius Violins and George Gershwin’s Piano.
It also maintains the National Film Registry. Up to 25 entries are chosen each year by a board of industry professionals to be added to the archives, a climate-controlled storage space where they can theoretically last for centuries. The only rule is that the films chosen must be over 10 years old. It’s quite an eclectic mix which includes The Big Lebowski, Jurassic Park and Ghostbusters to The Story of Menstruation and The Sex Life of the Polyp.
In terms of books and documents, some are obvious inclusions like a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, and a vellum copy of the Gutenberg Bible. Other things are less expected, such as Bob Hope’s joke collection, Rosa Parks’s Peanut butter pancakes recipe and the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets the night he was shot.
The smallest book is Old King Cole, measuring 1/25” x 1/25”, about the size of a full stop. At the other end of the scale, the largest measure 5 feet by 7 feet, which was made from a digital collection of images of Bhutan.
At one time there was a tunnel connecting the library to the Capitol with an electric conveyor for moving books between the two, so if a Congressperson wanted a book they could have it on their desk in five minutes without anyone having to cross the street. The tunnel was about 6 feet high and 4 feet wide, big enough for a human being to get down there to fix it if it broke down. Pneumatic tubes were used to deliver the orders, and later, books, even faster, at 28 seconds. The tunnel is no longer there as the space was needed in the 2000s for the underground Capitol Visitor Center.
If you’ve been on Twitter, some of your words are in there. In 2010, Twitter agreed to donate every public tweet in its archive to the Library of Congress – several hundred million tweets a day. The idea is that it would be a data source for tracking language and societal trends, although for now, the Library has yet to come up with a way to organise it all, so most of the tweets are languishing on a hidden server.
A library needs a librarian, of course and this one is no different. The Librarian of Congress is appointed by the president and need not be qualified librarians. They are often scholars, historians or academics. At time of writing there have been 14 and the current holder of the position is Carla Hayden, one of just three to have experience as a librarian. She is also the first woman and the first African American to hold the position.
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