Remarkable Treasures in the World’s Largest Library

The U.S. Library of Congress opens an incredible door to the past

Main reading room of the Library of Congress. Photograph by Carol M. Highsmith. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

One of oldest federal institutions in the United States is the Library of Congress, founded in 1800 as part of an act of Congress that relocated the national government from Philadelphia to Washington, DC. The sum of $5,000 was allocated for books for the use of Congress. In 1802, the job of Librarian of Congress became a presidential appointment.

The core collection of 3,000 volumes was destroyed in 1814, when British troops burned the Capitol building, which housed the Library. Former President Thomas Jefferson (R-Virginia) came to the country’s rescue by offering to sell his personal collection of 6,487 books to re-establish the Library.

Since then, the Library of Congress has grown to become the largest library in the world, holding millions of items. The Library receives some 15,000 items each working day and adds more than 10,000 items to its collections.

In Fiscal Year 2022 (October 2021 to September 2022), the Library of Congress recorded almost 176 million items in its collections, including more than 25 million cataloged books, more than 134 million items in the special collections, such as audio materials, manuscripts and photographs, and almost 16 million items…