About Us

The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution, and the largest library in the world. There are more than 126 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include nearly 19 million books... 2.6 million recordings... 12 million photographs...4.8 million maps... 56 million manuscripts... and counting...

The Library of Congress demonstrates in impressive fashion how a library can evolve to fulfill a variety of purposes. Originally established as a legislative library to function as the primary research arm of the U.S. Congress, and then as the copyright agency of the U.S., the Library of Congress's role has expanded dramatically through the years to encompass the following:

A center for scholarship that collects research materials in many media and in most subjects from throughout the world in more that 450 languages
A government library that is used by the executive branch and the judiciary
A national library for the blind and physically handicapped
A public institution that is open to everyone over high school age and serves readers in twenty-two reading rooms
A center for the commissioning and performance of chamber music
The sponsor of exhibitions and of musical, literary, and cultural programs that reach across the nation and the world
A research center for the preservation and conservation of library materials
The world's largest repository of maps, atlases, printed and recorded music, motion pictures and television programs
One of the world's largest providers of bibliographic data and products

The Library of Congress has fully embraced the digital age with the creation of programs and resources designed to preserve cultural and intellectual output that could otherwise be forever lost. In addition to collecting digitized documents, the Library of Congress also offers multimedia collections of photographs, recorded sound, motion pictures and text from American historical collections and other institutions.

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